The key facts
- Milan's Forestami project received UN World Restoration Flagship status on 29 October at COP17 in Yerevan — one of five worldwide and the only one in Europe
- Nearly 640,000 trees and shrubs have been planted since 2019, with another three million planned over the next four years
- In October, Milan ranked seventh in IQAir's list of the world's ten most polluted cities — the only European city in the ranking
Recognition at COP17 in Yerevan
Milan's urban reforestation project Forestami has been granted the status of a UN World Restoration Flagship. The announcement was made on 29 October at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) in Yerevan. Forestami became one of only five projects to receive this distinction and the only one in Europe. The other recipients are the Colombian Urban Nature Reborn initiative for wetland restoration, the Green Seattle partnership in the United States, the Ethiopian Great Rift Valley Renaissance project, and China's Blue Bay Restoration programme for rehabilitating coastal ecosystems.
Why Milan needs three million trees
The reason for the project is pressing: in October's air quality ranking, the Italian metropolis took seventh place among the world's ten most polluted cities and was the only European city in the IQAir list. The publication attributes this partly to the city's location in the low-lying Po river valley, where air circulation is limited, as well as to intensive agriculture and emissions from the industrialised region. Fondazione Forestami calls greening streets, rooftops and facades the most accessible and effective way to filter fine dust, cool the city and improve residents' wellbeing.
What has been done and what is planned
Since its launch in 2019, the project has planted nearly 640,000 trees and shrubs. Over the next four years, another three million new trees and shrubs are planned for Milan. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the flagship status recognises efforts to bring nature back to 'one of Europe's most densely populated and polluted metropolitan areas': roughly one tree is being planted for every resident, about 350 football pitches' worth of degraded urban land has been restored, including former industrial sites, car parks and warehouse yards. The initiative also expands access to green spaces and involves schoolchildren. The project's author is architect Stefano Boeri, creator of Milan's 'vertical forest', who previously received an award from the European Lung Foundation (ELF) for his work on improving air quality.
Global context: the scale is there, the pace is not
The same day, UNEP released a report on the state of ecosystem restoration worldwide. Work is under way on 252 million hectares across 149 countries — the largest documented effort of its kind. UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said that, at the midpoint of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, humanity 'is still not restoring nature at the scale and speed needed'. Progress towards the '30×30' goal — protecting at least 30 percent of degraded land and marine areas by the end of the decade — remains uneven: restoration of terrestrial ecosystems has reached almost half of the global target, while in freshwater, marine and coastal ecosystems, which are degrading fastest, progress is lagging, and annual funding needs to grow more than fourfold. According to the report, restoring just 15 percent of priority areas would absorb up to 30 percent of CO2-equivalent emissions since the industrial revolution and prevent up to 60 percent of species extinctions, while achieving the global goals could create up to 32 million jobs by 2030. Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity Astrid Schomaker called on governments to tackle the root causes of degradation and build a 'restoration economy' that supports jobs in the long term.
