Forestami, an urban forestry project in the Metropolitan City of Milan, received the United Nations World Restoration Flagship Award at Cop17, recognising projects committed to the recovery of ecologically degraded areas.
How can we bring nature and biodiversity back into our cities? That is the question Forestami is trying to answer in practical terms — the urban forestry project of the Metropolitan City of Milan that aims to increase tree canopy cover across the territory by 5 per cent by 2030. On 29 October, the project received an important international recognition: during the United Nations Cop17 on biodiversity, currently under way in Yerevan, Armenia, Forestami was awarded the World Restoration Flagship Award, a prize that recognises projects committed to the recovery of ecologically degraded areas. It also became the first Italian project to receive this recognition and the only European one among the eight selected in 2026.
These days we are at Cop17 alongside Forestami, and the announcement came during Restoration Day, the Cop17 session dedicated to ecosystem restoration. The recognition rewards large-scale environmental recovery projects and, for the first time, has also been awarded to initiatives developed in urban contexts. Alongside Milan, the experiences of Seattle, in the United States, and Barranquilla, in Colombia, were also recognised.
Collecting the award in Yerevan is Maria Chiara Pastore, professor at the Politecnico di Milano and scientific director of Forestami, alongside Italian ambassador to Armenia Alessandro Ferranti, representing the Italian government. "This is not just about planting trees, but about transforming scientific knowledge into collective action, reconnecting people with nature and making biodiversity an essential part of our urban future," she told us. "This award is also a responsibility to inspire other cities."
The recognition falls within the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030), which aims to prevent and reverse the degradation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Projects selected as World Restoration Flagships are presented as examples of interventions that can contribute to international restoration targets. The inclusion of urban areas further confirms the need for action in cities too — action that can encompass interventions on vegetation, soil and ecological connections between green areas, in territories where buildings and infrastructure occupy a significant share of the available space.
The urban projects recognised alongside the Metropolitan City of Milan are Green Seattle Partnership, in the United States, which over twenty years has already restored 831 hectares of urban forests and planted 1.5 million native plants, involving citizens, schools and volunteers in the removal of invasive species, planting and forest management. And Urban Nature Reborn, in Barranquilla, Colombia, a project aimed at recovering the Ciénaga de Mallorquín, a coastal wetland where mangroves and other natural habitats are being restored, while also engaging local communities by creating employment opportunities for fishermen, nature guides and small tourism-related businesses.
In recent days, alongside Forestami, we have come to understand that when talking about reforestation we must start from tree canopy cover — that is, the percentage of a territory's surface area covered by tree crowns. Unlike the number of trees planted, this parameter makes it possible to assess the space actually occupied by arboreal vegetation and how it evolves over time. Forestami's goal is to increase tree canopy cover across the Metropolitan City of Milan by 5 per cent by 2030, creating a vegetative network, improving connections between green areas and promoting biodiversity. An increase in tree canopy cover brings positive effects that, in this period of environmental and climate crisis, play an ever more fundamental