«This administration – says Merola – bequeaths excellent prospects for a city with more trees and greener. In addition to participating in all the calls that the Ministry of the Environment is proposing to the cities, we also dealt with the forestation of land owned by the municipality of Bologna but which are located outside the city limits: among the examples I can bring that of the wooded area of the Marconi airport as part of the update of the airport masterplan and a future park that we will share with the municipality of Casalecchio di Reno and which has recently been approved by the municipal councils of both bodies. I would add that the large infrastructure projects such as the Passante or the tram, all already financed, provide for a good share of urban forestation. In particular, the Passante will bring with it 130 hectares of forest ».
In Florence the “Donate a tree” project
For the first time, Florence will make a green plan, or a mapping of the city starting from the areas with the highest temperatures. In the first term of Mayor Dario Nardella over 20 thousand trees were planted, in the second there will be another 25 thousand. In detail, 2000 specimens have been planted since January 2020 while in 2021 we are around a thousand (but the figure, of course, is destined to increase). And in the metropolitan city, the Ministry for Ecological Transition financed the project for 6,800 trees.
Among the innovative projects there is also that of the “Air Factory”, a device based on plants able to purify the indoor air almost completely, removing fine dust, volatile organic compounds and any other type of volatile pollutant. Inaugurated in a pharmacy, the project was commissioned by a big name in the sector like Stefano Mancuso.
Still with Mancuso, Nardella added, «we have developed an urban forestation plan with vertical walls both on the schools, twelve in total, and on the public housing. This serves to reduce CO2 but also for educational purposes, for example to increase the attention of children ».
Florence is also the city where you can donate a tree to a loved one: “There is also a participatory urban forestry project – explained the Councilor for the Environment, Cecilia Del Re -. Thanks to the “Donate a tree” portal, citizens can choose where to plant a tree in the city and dedicate it to a loved one. In one year, more than a thousand citizens have donated trees, helping to increase greenery and strengthen the relationship between man and nature ».