Liveable Cities Forum kicks off in Montréal

The Liveable Cities Forum: Designing Biodiversity Friendly Communities, started yesterday with a high level panel and a host of interesting technical discussions on urban biodiversity from cities around the world.

The opening panel, consisting of Executive Secretary of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), Dr Ahmed Djoghlaf; the Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks of the Province of Québec, Minister Pierre Arcand and Saint Lauren Borough Mayor and councillor of Montreal, Alan De Souza, welcomed delegates to this official side event to the Ecocity World Summit, hosted by Enviroment Canada and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.

Dr Djoghlaf highlighted the role of cities in the battle against biodiversity loss, and outlined the developments for local governments on the international stage, culminating in the Plan of Action on Sub-national Governments, Cities and other Local Authorities and Biodiversity that was endorsed by the parties to the CBD at the tenth Conference of the Parties last year.

In the second panel the Deputy Mayor of Paris, Fabienne Giboudeaux; Stephen Monet of the City of Greater Sudbury; Helene Roumani from the City of Jerusalem – a LAB Pioneer City -  and Katherine Campbell from Parks Victoria in Australia (currently on secondment to the CBD) outlined the work their cities were doing for urban biodiversity.

All presentations will be available on the Liveable Cities Forum website shortly, please log on to see them.