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The establishment of a fund that will collect resources from companies and citizens to be allocated to forestation in the Metropolitan City was announced today

Milan, November 21 2019 – The ForestaMi Fund is born. The announcement was made today by the Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala, in the presence of the President of the Council of Ministers Giuseppe Conte, during the "World Forum on Urban Forests - Milano Calling 2019" at the Triennale di Milano.

“The goal is to plant a total of 3 million new trees throughout Milan and in the metropolitan area by 2030 - explained the Mayor of Milan and the Metropolitan City Giuseppe Sala -. To carry out this great urban forestry project, everyone's collaboration is needed: institutions, businesses, associations, citizens. The ForestaMI Fund, which will be operational in the next few weeks, will help us transform the resources collected into green, directing them towards initiatives of environmental value and interest".

The Fund was created on the initiative of the Municipality and Metropolitan City of Milan and the Lombardy Region, will be set up at the Fondazione di Comunità Milano Onlus and will collect contributions from companies and citizens who want to participate in the large urban forestation plan of the ForestaMi project. Among the first companies to support the conception and launch of the project were Enel and Snam, through its subsidiary TEP Energy Solution and the Snam Foundation.

“We support the initiative to implement urban forestation with the related benefits for citizens who increasingly need a green and sustainable city - said the vice-president of the Lombardy Region Fabrizio Sala -. Trees are fundamental elements because they bring oxygen and combat polluting dust. Greenery in the city represents an essential element for the quality of urban life".

The resources collected will be managed by a specifically identified Scientific Committee which will support and accompany the forestation intervention in collaboration with the public and private bodies involved from time to time.

“As the Milan Community Foundation, together with the North Milan and Ticino Olona Community Foundations, we are pleased to participate in ForestaMi, making our skills and channels available for the collection of the resources necessary for the development of the project - declared Giovanni Azzone, President of the Milan Community Foundation -. The urban forestation intervention could have an important impact on the territory in which we are present, not only from an environmental and pollution reduction point of view, but also from a social and economic point of view, if incentives around greenery are forms of participation, active citizenship and solidarity that will involve more actors, resources and energies capable of enhancing the realities present in the area and regenerating bonds and relationships between the people who live in our communities".

Climate change has, in fact, significant social impacts, because it highlights and exacerbates economic, health and quality of life inequalities. Think of the impacts of heat waves on the most fragile segments of the population such as the elderly, children, hospital populations, or on the weakest territorial areas, for example, the most concreted peripheral areas. Fondazione Cariplo is also involved in these issues. 

"In addition to an overall sharing of the value of ForestaMi, on which our community foundations are collaborating, in particular the Milan Community Foundation - commented the President of the Cariplo Foundation Giovanni Fosti -, a specific contribution that the Cariplo Foundation is defining with the The Education Department of the Municipality of Milan is to pay particular attention to municipal buildings that host nurseries and nursery schools. Having carried out an initial monitoring in a nursery school and nursery school in via Rubattino, an extension to other schools in peripheral areas most subject to heat waves and at the same time characterized by greater social hardship".

The Fund is part of ForestaMi, the research project undertaken by the Polytechnic of Milan and financed by the Falk Foundation with the support of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane Group through the subsidiary FS Sistemi Urbani. The study identifies the areas of the Metropolitan City where space can be opened up to forestation, investigating in particular the areas most affected by the effects of climate change and mitigating the heat island effect or reducing flood risks through new resilience ecosystem services.

"Multiply the number of trees and other plants present in the cities of the world - underlined the professor of the Polytechnic of Milan and scientific director of the ForestaMi project Stefano Boeri -, replace thousands of hectares of asphalt and sheet metal with green surfaces (the parked cars which we often do not use), bring living nature not only into courtyards and along avenues but also onto the facades and roofs of houses, schools, museums, shopping centres. All these are no longer just gestures of healthy ecology, but necessary and urgent choices.  We must plant thousands of trees if we want our cities, from being the main responsible for climate change on our planet, to become the protagonists of a challenge that becomes more difficult every day, but which is still open: that of trying, if not to stop, at least to slow down the warming of the planet. With ForestaMi, Milan takes up this challenge - and aims to become one of the most active protagonists". 

Already in 2018, as part of ForestaMi, 85.000 trees were planted by the Metropolitan City Municipalities which will become 200.000 in the spring of 2020 thanks to the work carried out with parks, associations, local authorities and the help of citizens. Wetlands, forestation of fountains, environmental compensation and depaving of car parks are some of the interventions carried out, which actively work to improve the quality of the landscape and air in the Metropolitan City.

It will be possible to follow the progress of the activities by consulting the site www.forestami.org.

The project is strengthened through the solid collaboration between the Municipality of Milan, the Metropolitan City, Parco Nord Milano and Parco Agricolo Sud Milano for the construction of a Large Metropolitan Park through shared policies and projects that can promote urban forestation.