Last updated: October 2021
The Tree Strategy is a municipal action plan in progress, aiming to address some of the main sustainability challenges described in the Environmental Program of Malmö City. Its main relations to sustainability challenges include improved health and well-being, decrease differences in those among different social groups and increase biodiversity. The Strategy includes a range of possibilities for evaluating its ecological and social success (ref. 1).
Tree Strategy of Malmö
Created by: Mona Falck, retrieved 08/29/2018 from Tim Delshammar
Overview
Nature-based solution
- Grey infrastructure featuring greens
- Alley or street trees and other street vegetation
- Institutional green space
- Parks and urban forests
- Large urban parks or forests
- Pocket parks/neighbourhood green spaces
- Green corridors and green belts
Key challenges
- Climate action for adaptation, resilience and mitigation (SDG 13)
- Climate change adaptation
- Water management (SDG 6)
- Stormwater and rainfall management and storage
- Green space, habitats and biodiversity (SDG 15)
- Habitat and biodiversity restoration
- Habitat and biodiversity conservation
- Green space creation and/or management
- Regeneration, land-use and urban development
- Promote natural styles of landscape design for urban development
- Inclusive and effective governance (SDG 16)
- Effective management
- Social justice, cohesion and equity (SDG 10)
- Environmental education
- Social cohesion
- Social interaction
- Health and well-being (SDG 3)
- Enabling opportunities for physical activity
- Improving mental health
- Improving physical health
- Cultural heritage and cultural diversity
- Protection of historic and cultural landscape/infrastructure
- Promotion of cultural diversity
Focus
Creation of new green areas, Maintenance and management of urban nature, Ecological restoration of ecosystems, Knowledge creation and awareness raising
Project objectives
The strategy’s vision was to become one of the world’s largest arboretums (ref. 2).
Declared aims were to (ref. 1, 2):
- increase biodiversity
- create a comfortable climate
- establish conditions to improve the citizens’ physical and mental health
- contribute to preserve the city’s cultural history
-change attitude towards trees: trees are to be seen as common resources, not obstacles of city development.
- provide good access to environments with trees to the citizens of Malmö
- have vital trees in Malmö – where the proportion of old trees increases
- have a long-term sustainable tree stock in Malmö – with a broad variety of species
- involve the citizens of Malmö in the conservation, care and development of the city’s tree stock
- decrease differences in those among different social groups .
The strategy set concrete targets and responsibilities for tree management on different municipal stakeholders, but it also aimed to involve larger landowners. The targets and responsibilities were linked to concrete budget posts, which makes the strategy transparent and operationalizable. (ref. 2)
Implementation activities
To realize targets [1]:
- All the approved detailed city plans shall aim to have enough space (under and above the ground) to achieve the future target of 25% crown cover.
- Plant on average at least 1000 trees per year in public spaces in existing areas where the crown cover is the lowest (residential areas shall be prioritized).
- Carry out measures to vitalize trees – at least 20% of trees older than 70 years shall be vitalized. At least 80 % of the newly planted solitary trees shall be generation-trees (in public spaces)
- At least 20% of the newly planted trees shall be generation-trees (in public spaces). Plant yearly on average 50 new tree species so that the number of species in public spaces is at least 1000 in the entire city.
- Dialogue and collaboration with the citizens on trees in public spaces
- Spread knowledge to citizens on trees, involve the citizens in develop Malmö’s tree stock and work together with the citizens to take care of the health of trees.
Climate-focused activities
Climate change adaptation:
- Increase or improve urban vegetation cover to help reduce outdoor temperature
Biodiversity conservation or restoration-focused activities
Biodiversity conservation:
- Protect and enhance urban habitats
- Preserve and strengthen existing habitats and ecosystems
- Create new habitats
- Reduce negative impacts and avoid the alteration/damage of ecosystem
- Protect species
- Undertake specific measures to protect species
- Control and clean invasive alien species
- Means for conservation governance
- Raise public awareness
- Public engagement
- Capacity building
Biodiversity restoration:
- Rehabilitate and restore damaged or destroyed ecosystems
- Restore species (native, endangered, or unspecified)
- Public engagement
Main beneficiaries
- Local government/Municipality
- Public sector institution (e.g. school or hospital)
- Non-government organisation/Civil Society
- Private sector/Corporate/Company
- Researchers/University
- Citizens or community groups
- Young people and children
Governance
Management set-up
- Co-governance with government and non-government actors
Type of initiating organisation
- Local government/municipality
Participatory approaches/ community involvement
- Joint implementation (e.g. tree planting)
- Citizen monitoring and review
- Other
Details on the roles of the organisations involved in the project
The Streets and Parks Department is responsible for the implementation of the Tree Strategy with the involvement of citizens of Malmö, some other departments and bigger landowners (ref. 1).
Project implemented in response to ...
... an EU policy or strategy?
Unknown
... a national policy or strategy?
Unknown
... a local policy or strategy?
Yes
(The Tree Strategy, with its concrete targets, supports overarching planning documents of Malmö City, such as the Comprehensive Plan (2014), the Environmental Program (2009-2020) and the Natura Conservation Plan (2012). The Tree Strategy is being developed in parallel with the Plan on Green and Blue Environments in Malmö (Plan för Malmös gröna och blå miljöer) and these two documents together are to replace the previously ruling Tree Plan (Trädplan, 2005), which was an action plan on the municipal departments’ level. In addition, the Tree Strategy supports the development of an accessible and sustainable transport system, which is described in the Traffic- and Mobility Plan (Trafik- och mobilitetsplan, 2016). The Tree Strategy is also being developed to support the recently approved Cloudburst Plan of Malmö (Skyfallsplan för Malmö, 2017) (ref. 1).)
Financing
Total cost
€2,000,000 - €4,000,000
Source(s) of funding
- Public local authority budget
Type of funding
- Earmarked public budget
Non-financial contribution
Type of non-financial contribution
- Provision of labour
Who provided the non-financial contribution?
- Citizens (e.g. volunteering)
Impacts and Monitoring
Environmental impacts
- Climate change
- Lowered local temperature
- Strengthened capacity to address climate hazards/natural disasters
- Environmental quality
- Improved air quality
- Reduced noise exposure
- Improved soil quality
- Water management and blue areas
- Increased protection against flooding
- Improved stormwater management
- Green space and habitat
- Promotion of naturalistic styles of landscape design for urban development
- Increased green space area
- Increased conversion of degraded land or soil
- Increased number of species present
- Increased protection of threatened species
Economic impacts
- Unknown
Socio-cultural impacts
- Social justice and cohesion
- Improved social cohesion
- Fair distribution of social, environmental and economic benefits of the NBS project
- Improved access to urban green space
- Increased opportunities for social interaction
- Increased involvement of locals in the management of green spaces
- Health and wellbeing
- Improved physical health
- Improved mental health
- Cultural heritage and sense of place
- Promotion of cultural diversity
- Protection of natural heritage
- Increased sense of place identity, memory and belonging
- Education
- Increased support for education and scientific research
- Increased knowledge of locals about local nature
Type of reported impacts
Achieved impacts
Presence of formal monitoring system
Yes
Presence of indicators used in reporting
Yes
Presence of monitoring/ evaluation reports
No evidence in public records
Availability of a web-based monitoring tool
Yes
References
1. Kiss, B. (2017). NATURVATION - Case Study Working Paper on Malmo. Available at: Source link (Accessed 7 August 2020)
2. Kiss, B. et al. (2019). INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OFNATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS: PROJECT REPORT. Available at: Source link (Accessed 7 August 2020)
2. Kiss, B. et al. (2019). INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OFNATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS: PROJECT REPORT. Available at: Source link (Accessed 7 August 2020)
Tree Strategy of Malmö
Created by: Mona Falck, retrieved 08/29/2018 from Tim Delshammar