8 April 2016: The Zhuhai Declaration, adopted at the First Asia-Pacific Urban Forestry Meeting, highlights the benefits of urban forests and trees to cities and residents. The Declaration also relays challenges and priorities for urban forestry development in the Asia-Pacific region and makes a series of recommendations, including on awareness-raising, enhancing policy support, and increasing public participation and community involvement in forestry.

Participants at the meeting, which was held from 6-8 April 2016, in Zhuhai, China, explored the role of urban forestry in helping to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities). They further discussed case studies from various countries, including Australia, India, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and New Zealand; and explored the role of urban forestry in health and well-being, cultural heritage, green economy, urban planning and the provision of ecosystem services.

The resulting Zhuhai Declaration recommends: improving the legal environment by enhancing policy support at the international, regional, national and local levels, in particular reducing land-use conflicts by integrating urban forestry planning into urban planning; strengthening urban forestry education and research in the region; improving environmental quality in the region by creating new urban green spaces and optimizing the functions and benefits of existing urban green spaces; protecting and restoring forests between cities and enhancing rural-urban linkages through landscape planning and design; strengthening urban forestry regional networking on information sharing, knowledge exchange and resource mobilization, and further developing regional cooperation; and developing common tools to address research questions.

The First Asia-Pacific Urban Forestry Meeting was co-organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the Urban Forestry Research Center of the State Forestry Administration of China and the city of Zhuhai. [Zhuhai Declaration] [FAO inFO News 38 – March-April 2016] [FAO Press Release] [FAO Webpage on Urban Forestry]