Cities, Nature and the Leaders of Tomorrow

by Global Managing Director, Cities, The Nature Conservancy,August 2016

The Conservancy’s LEAF and Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities program interns, monitor trees impacted by Hurricane Sandy in New York City. Photo © Karine Aigner

Orlando Raez has been working in city planning since 2004, but he's been thinking about environmental issues and the relationship between cities and nature for much longer. An early interest in nature led Orlando to apply to The Nature Conservancy's

(Leaders in Environmental Action for the Future), which provides paid summer internships for high school students and helps educators from environmental high schools share best practices and scientific resources. That experience influenced his decisions to study environmental policy and eventually pursue a career as a city planner in southern Florida. Now he's hoping to take some of his environmental concerns into the political sphere as he launches a campaign for mayor of Hollywood, Florida. I recently spoke with Orlando about the connections between cities and nature, the role of education and youth programs, and how The Nature Conservancy (TNC) can support cities working to engage their citizens in environmental issues.

Pascal Mittermaier: Tell me a little bit about your experience with the LEAF Program.

Orlando Raez: I'd learned about environmental issues at school and from television programming growing up, but I never had much opportunity to experience the natural environment in meaningful way. When I heard about LEAF, I took advantage of the opportunity and I spent a summer living in Altmar, NY, just north of Watertown, NY. It's a small town, a farming community. My job was to team up with TNC naturalists to learn about invasive plants affecting natural habitats and work on some of the invasive eradication measures.

Practical Application of Eco2 Cities Initiative: Guide for Practitioners
Brown Bag Lunch Series
September 12, 2011

This BBL introduced practical applications of the Eco2 Cities Initiative. Eco2Cities is a sustainable urban development initiative launched in 2009 as a part of the Bank’s Urban and Local Government Strategy. Its objective is to help cities in developing countries achieve greater ecological and economic sustainability in synergy. Eco2 Cities builds on the interdependence of ecological and economic sustainability. An integrated approach across sectors appears to overcome many barriers to urban sustainability and offers communities a path towards increased well-being for the short- and long-term. Pilot operations are ongoing in Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. 

Following an introduction by Hiroaki Suzuki of the Eco2 concept, including its four principles and implementation status, Ryoko Iizuka presented the Eco2Guide, which has been developed based on the Eco2 Book to help cities put the Eco2 concepts into practice on the ground. The 60-page Guide aims to stimulate the transformation of city governance around the cornerstone of leadership and collaboration for planning integrated urban development. The Guide is divided into two parts: Part I - Fundamentals of Eco2, which includes self assessment based on the four Eco2 principles, and Part II - Practical Elements of Eco2, which is further divided into three sections including Eco2 Leadership, Eco2 Planning, and Supportive Environment. The Guide also refers to methods and tools and introduces cases and interviews with practitioners. The Guide is intended for city officials who have a critical role in deciding the development path and integrated urban planning of the city. Eco2 Cities: Concept, Implementation and Final Agenda (pdf 1,501k)
Hiroaki Suzuki, Lead Urban Specialist and Eco2 Team Leader, World Bank

IEES/ZHAW Symposium 2012 - Eco-Cities and Ecological Engineering

26 - 28 January 2012: New solutions through transforming traditional ways of thinking

Our world is approaching a phase where several resources will become scarce at the same time: energy, nutrients, water availability, space... The wealth and well-being of coming generations will depend on us being able to adapt our economies to the finite world that our planet actually is. 

Transforming today’s cities into sustainable eco-cities is one of the main adaptations that will be necessary. Ecological engineering offers a holistic approach, a wide spectrum of possible solutions and a wealth of business opportunities. It might well become one of the key factors in this transformation process. 

There is a major obstacle against this transition: conventions and paradigms in the minds of planners, engineers, architects and politicians. In the past 200 years, they have been the drivers of an unprecedented success story in our societies. However, today these inherited ways of thinking increasingly represent barriers to new and more sustainable approaches!

• Eco2 Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities (388 page book)

• Eco2 Brochure (20 page synopsis of the book)

• Study of Japanese Experiences on Sustainable Urban Development including Pollution Control and Management, Resource/Energy Efficiency and GHG Reduction (213 page report released in February 2011)

• Summary of the Eco2 Cities Programme in French (6 pages)