Adelaide supports Chattanooga and Breda to become National Park Cities
Monday, June 26, 2023 at 4:59pm
Adelaide is supporting Chattanooga in USA and Breda in the Netherlands in their campaigns to become National Parks Cities.
Since achieving National Park City status in late 2021, Adelaide has assisted in the campaigns of several cities around the world in their journeys to join the global National Park City family.
This has included panel discussions, briefing sessions, presentations and peer-review meetings.
Because each city is so very different in terms of geography, culture, history and socio-demographic characteristics, the journey of each city to join this movement looks a little different.
Adelaide is proud to work with the National Park City Foundation to assist Breda and Chattanooga to value and enjoy the nature in their urban environments and make them even greener, wilder and fairer in the future.
We look forward to both these cities joining the family during 2024 and to working with many more on their campaigns in the coming months and years.
We invite you to enjoy this discussion held as part of the Chattanooga campaign as an example of the thinking behind and our participation in the international movement.
A panel of representatives from the Adelaide and London National Park City projects, along with the London-based National Park City Foundation, spoke at the launch to discuss meaning, motivations and benefits of the National Park City movement. The Adelaide representatives, all from Green Adelaide, included Brenton Grear, Dr Sheryn Pitman and Professor Chris Daniels.
The panel reflected on benefits since their cities gained the status, including London’s engagement with the community through volunteer rangers, which gave volunteers more confidence in environmental leadership, and a shift in perspectives within the community about their surroundings.
Among those noted in Adelaide were an increase in the awareness of the importance of trees, both for wildlife and for cooling urban areas, along with increased appreciation of urban nature without having to go outside of the city to enjoy it.
While the panel attended by videoconference, their discussion reached a crowd of about 200 people who attended the launch at Chattanooga’s Waterhouse Pavilion.
Green Adelaide Presiding Member Chris Daniels shared the importance of being part of the global movement to connect people with nature and each other, and discussed the ways native animals are part of our identity.
‘Biodiversity is really important for creating a sense of place,’ Chris said.
‘We are who we are in large part because of the nature around us.’
Along with Chattanooga’s campaign for National Park City status, Canberra, Berlin, Tokyo, Sacramento, Galway, Madrid, Breda and Glasgow are also vying for the status.
With Adelaide becoming just the second city in the world to gain this status – late in 2021 – a successful campaign by Chattanooga could see it join the family and become the first National Park City in the US.
Watch some of the Chattanooga campaign launch on YouTube.