Final Day Highlights 2007   Sunday, 25 November Today presentations were made for Category E (population over 750,000). NB the awards will be announced at 10p.m. (GMT) tomorrow, Monday 25 November.

Don’t treat us as a used car lot - Abuja, Nigeria (Cat E)

In a wide ranging presentation giving an overview of the bid to put the environment at the top of the agenda for the young capital of Nigeria, Isa M Shuaibu, Director of Parks and Recreation for Abuja highlighted the issue of old vehicles being imported to the country leaving cities such as Abuja at risk of being a dumping ground for broken-down and gas-guzzling cars.

“There is a danger that we are being treated like a dump site. At an earlier presentation during this event, one community highlighted the benefit of how in many parts of the world they are trying to use more environmentally friendly cars to replace the existing ones. These old ones are being received by us as new ones and this is so unfair. It is taking advantage of poverty levels in such areas of the world. Events like LivCom bring us together. Just as a problem like aids knows no boundaries, it could well be that the issue of fuel emissions here will create a new crisis for the environment that will have a global impact. We need to join hands together and solve this – it should be of primary concern on a global level.”

However, in putting the environment at the top of Abuja’s agenda, in his speech to the he outlined key initiatives such as a massive tree planting scheme in which half a million trees a year are being planted to make Abuja a ‘Natural Haven’. The project involves the whole community from school children to government ministers and the military.  He revealed how a green-areas recovery programme had seen 80% of the city’s inappropriately developed spaces restored giving access to ordinary people to open spaces in 12 new public parkland areas.
 

An amazing decade - Wujin, China (Cat E)

Wujin is 2700 years old. Once a rural town situated between Nanjing and Shanghai, it has seen remarkable positive development in the last ten years. With the enormous expansion of Shanghai the country population was in danger of hemorrhaging to the big cities. To reverse this trend Wujin has created a state of the art garden city. They eventually hope to have 45% parkland.

Dr. Bill Brown, giving his fourth city presentation at Livcom, explained how the whole community has been fully behind the project. Farmers have been re trained and re housed. A comprehensive and sensitive building programme has also incorporated the structural heritage of the city.

There has been a spectacular clean up of the waterways, demonstrated by the fact that ten years ago only 2% of sewerage was treated and now it is 90%. Also the ancient moat is now clean.

The ‘greening’ of Wujin has included the forestation of old quarries and a massive tree planting effort. Trees are almost sacred in China says Dr Brown and at Wujin all those aged between eleven and sixty must plant two trees a year. Newly wed couples also must plant a tree. This amounts to one million plantings a year.

Wujin is keen for outsiders to make the city their home and work place. As in much of the world, the average age of the population is getting older. A Chinese proverb states “ For today plant rice, for tomorrow plant trees and for the future plant people.”

To make Wujin a nice place to be ‘planted’ the planners are creating a green sustainable environment for the future.

Parks a priority: Johannesburg, South Africa (Cat E)

Johannesburg forms the largest urban complex in South Africa and has an urbanization rate of 97%. Of the 3.6 million inhabitants 33% are housed in less than adequate accommodation. A high population density and rapid rate of urbanization increases demands on the infrastructure, which places extreme pressure on the city’s natural resources.

To address this, Johannesburg City Parks was established as a municipal owned entity in 2001 and is mandated to develop, manage and maintain designated public open spaces.

Under this remit come open spaces such as parks, street trees, conservation areas and also cemeteries. In the past there had been an imbalance in favour of the richer areas of the city, but the new plan is to regenerate open spaces in the previously poorer as well as conserve the existing green zones. Joburg is actually the most treed major city in the world, but currently this mainly benefits the northern portion of the city leaving inadequate tree coverage in the previously disadvantaged areas.

An initiative to address this is a programme to plant 100,000 trees in five years. This is on target with 20,000 planted in the first year. There is an obvious need to preserve and even acquire more public open space rather than let the few remaining open areas in and around the city to be swallowed up by urban sprawl and increasing density.

Open parks have a role to play in releasing tension, aggression and hostility in crowded urban settings and channel anti-social impulses into socially acceptable activities.

Johannesburg City Parks conservation portfolio also includes a number of nature reserves, bird sanctuaries, ridges, wetlands, river corridors and greenways.

There still exists a mindset that thinks that providing public open space is a non-essential luxury commodity. These perceptions must be changed. A casual relationship between public open space social well being and the ecological balance between man and the environment create a sustainable environment. 

 

A race against time – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Cat E)

The Saudi capital’s name, Riyadh in English, Ar-Riyadh in Arabic, is the plural of  Rawdah  meaning garden or meadow. The name is derived from the natural hollow where flood-water collects and the soil is covered with greenery and fragrant flowers. The city became well known in the first Saudi state in the 18^th century before becoming the capital of the second Saudi state with its landmarks of the city wall, government palace, grand mosque and main residential districts. Its growth has been rapid.  In less than half a century, its area has increased more than one hundred times and its population has increased from 40,000 to 4.5 million.

Among the Kingdom’s major achievements include efforts to control the largest-ever oil spill in the Arabian Gulf after the Kuwait liberation war and at a more grass roots level in  Riyadh itself, efforts are being made to identify and provide solutions for the environmental challenges that development brings.

A spokesman for the city said: “As Riyadh’s population expands, there is a non-stop race to ensure that infrastructure and services keep pace with the city’s growth. A recent study has shown that the city’s traffic is increasing as fast as the population. Daily car trips in the city are now five million compared with one million 20 years ago.”

Air pollution, water and soil contamination and waste disposal are among the key environmental challenges highlighted by the city’s submission.

Solutions include an Air-Quality Study and Study of Water Pollution. Tree-lined roads are regarded as “green lungs”  to help reduce pollution from traffic while grassy areas are irrigated through an automated network whose treatment stations purify waste-water for re-use.