The Nature of Cities

#TNOCEssay From living in nature → to living as nature.
A call to step outside, learn with First Nations, and create new urban rituals of care for the more-than-human city. 🌱

Read: www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2026/02...

#UrbanBiodiversity #MoreThanHumanCities

From alleyway games to play among ruins, this powerful essay reflects on childhood, memory, and the right to safe public space in a city rebuilding itself.

When children can play freely again, a city begins to heal.
Read more: bit.ly/4aN5S98

#TNOCessay #ChildFriendlyCities #PublicSpace #Damascus

@margauxboeraeve.bsky.social

🌿 We’re running a short global survey listening to how civil society organisations work with nature in their communities.
4–12 min • anonymous • multilingual

Part of the EU project #NetworkNature.
Please take part & share 💚 @biodiversa.eu @iclei.org

👉 thenatureofcities.typeform.com/to/iM8zPyV7

🐝✨ A #NBSComic has just landed!

At Sweet-Spot, flower strips are blooming and pollinators buzzing. Reports say the ecosystem is thriving… but is it really?

To Bee or Not to Bee explores the promise — and pitfalls — of NbS like flower strips.

📖 nbscomics.com/2026/02/17/t...

#NetworkNature

You can still participate in this survey! Interesting questions about how we connect with nature and the challenges we face.

🌍 Reminder: Global Survey on Citizen Action for Nature

The last major survey on nature-based solutions was in 2015 — and only in Europe.
This new global survey updates the picture with today’s realities and community voices worldwide.

🗺️ Add your voice by Jan 15
👉 buff.ly/NLzQTxG

🌿🐾 What if wildlife were stakeholders in urban planning?

A new #TNOCroundtable explores cities as shared habitats — and what changes when we design with, not just around, nature.

Join the conversation:
🔗 www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2026/02...

#UrbanNature #MoreThanHumanCities #Biodiversity

#TNOCessay

What if cemeteries could also support biodiversity and community wellbeing?

May East explores how burial grounds are being reimagined as living urban commons.

👉 www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2026/02...

Have you visited a place like this?

YouTube video by ICLEI Global Impact video from the SPARK Project in the Philippines

🚲 Sparking #ActiveMobility in the Philippines! In Quezon City and Pasig City, the IKI-funded #SPARKproject shows how short-term street pilots can boost walking and cycling, cut emissions, and build strong community ownership.
@iki-germany.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaeh...

If you care about nature in urban areas, you'll want to read this new roundtable at @tnoc.bsky.social on how we can "give wildlife a place as stakeholders in decisions about urban planning", which has essays from 22 contributors (incl me) from 18 cities around the world! Come join the conversation.

🌱 Open Call | We support & invite you to share your story

At TNOC, we support and invite initiatives caring for parks, community gardens, riverbanks & green corridors to join the What’s That Green? Governance Lab.

🗓️ Deadline: 14 Feb
👉 whatisthatgreen.com/open-call-wh...

Nature lover?
Community builder?
Educator, activist, neighbour, volunteer?
Curious how nature can help solve real problems?

✨ This survey is for you.

Your voice helps shape a Citizen Action Roadmap for Nature

👉 thenatureofcities.typeform.com/to/iM8zPyV7

Tag someone who should join @iclei.org

🌍 We’re heading to #UrbanFuture 2026 in Ljubljana!
Bold ideas, real action, better cities.

Check out the programme 👉 urban-future.org/event/uf26-l...

We’ll be there — join us! 🚀
#UF26 #CityChangers #BetterCities

New #TNOCessay
Laura Shillington asks: what happens when students trust AI more than their own senses?
A sharp, honest reflection on education, GenAI, curiosity & being human in a techno-social-natural world. 🌱📱
www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2026/01...

How Artists Help to Transform Natural Resources Management: Building a Theory of Change
A coral essay by 7 voices across Glasgow, New York & Amsterdam.

Not about linear solutions — but trust, time, imagination, and working with complexity.

Read on The Nature of Cities buff.ly/Ja6QYKo
#TNOCessay

Over the past weeks, people from many different countries, regions, and community contexts worldwide have already shared their experiences, challenges, and ideas for working with nature.

👉 Add your voice and help strengthen a truly global roadmap: buff.ly/dwQLfcv

The Nature of Cities is part of the programme at Urban Future 2026, joining a global community of CityChangers to inspire, challenge & connect.

📍 Ljubljana | 24–27 March 2026
👉 Join the movement & register: buff.ly/7gfLLSl
#PeopleMakeCities #UrbanFuture #UF26 #TheNatureOfCities #CityChangers

@carlyziter.bsky.social

#TNOCEssay
Carly Ziter reflects on returning to her hometown of Windsor and discovering how cities, even those shaped by industrial mythologies, can begin to repair, resist, and re-imagine their relationship with nature.

👉 Read the full essay and join the conversation: buff.ly/zaExP5D

Perhaps “Why not here” is the question we should all be asking as we re-imagine urban nature in the places we love.

New essay from me in @tnoc.bsky.social, reflecting on a recent visit home, and the beauty and potential of an often-overlooked city.

www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2026/01...

5–10 Oct 2026 | Cali, Colombia 🇨🇴
The The Nature of Cities Festival arrives in Latin America for the first time.

🌿 Theme: TRUEQUE — exchange of knowledge, creativity, trust & care for cities that care for life.

🤝 Sponsors & collaborators welcome

Join us
👉 tnoc-festival.com/wp/#HELP

🌿 We’re running a short global survey listening to how civil society organisations work with nature in their communities.
4–12 min • anonymous • multilingual

Part of the EU project #NetworkNature.
Please take part & share 💚 @biodiversa.eu @iclei.org

👉 thenatureofcities.typeform.com/to/iM8zPyV7

As TNOC enters its 15th year, we’re grateful for this global community that keeps asking good questions, holding complexity, and pushing boundaries with care and hope. 🌱

👉 Revisit the highlights from TNOC 2025:
🔗 www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2026/01...

✨ What does it mean to be a good ancestor?

44 voices come together in this #TNOCRoundtable by The Nature of Cities to reflect on a question that connects us all

Start the year with this reading
Join the conversation & share what resonated
Tag someone who should read it

🔗https://bit.ly/4bjKGJK

#TheNatureOfGraffiti
Cheetah — Cape Town, South Africa
Submitted by: Pippin Anderson
A cheetah painted on a city wall — fast, alert, and impossible to ignore.

🔗 buff.ly/y369MNh

#TheNatureOfGraffiti
When Nature and Art Merge — Bangalore, India
🖋 by David Maddox

Photographed in Cubbon Park, one of Bangalore’s largest green lungs and historic public spaces.

🔗 buff.ly/O6PLLfv

TNOC brings together artists, scientists, practitioners & community leaders worldwide to make cities better for nature and all people.

Your donation supports:
• Free essays, roundtables & exhibitions
• TNOC Festival
• Open, accessible urban knowledge

Support our work.https://buff.ly/kqTfIeA

#TheNatureOfGraffiti
Classical Flower — Athens, Greece
🖋 Submitted by Valerie Gwinner

There are many examples of graffiti and street art around the world that draw on images and ideas from nature.
Have you seen any?

📸 Upload yours to the gallery.
buff.ly/uL8BfGO

This is an invitation to humility and courage at once: to act without guarantees, to plant trees whose shade we may never sit under, to repair what we can, to refuse what harms, to build lasting relationships. buff.ly/5fGXsBA