Abstract
The population in Mexico is concentrated in 15 metropolitan areas with more than one million inhabitants; these agglomerations produce more than 75% of the national GDP. Most greenhouse effect gases (GHG) generated in the country come from these cities, consequently, innovative strategies aimed at managing human activities in them are the best possibility to face climate change. In this context, Green Infrastructure (GI) becomes prominent, providing numerous Ecosystem Services (ES) essential for climate change mitigation and adaptation (1). Innovative policies such as those involving active citizen participation in decision-making processes are highly relevant to the adequate management of GI. Governance of GI –with emphasis on citizen involvement, could turn into beneficial effects to deal with the numerous challenges of metropolitan areas (2). The goal of this article is to identify and characterize the citizen initiatives related to the management of urban forests in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (GMA) –one of the three most populous agglomerations in the country–, and to determine the ES provided by these greenspaces. While there are many studies on GI in Mexico, this one will shed light on the processes to address the metropolitan scale from a governance approach (3). Metropolitan governance of planning of the GMA has gone through a transformative process in recent years. The creation of the IMEPLAN (Institute of Planning and Management of Guadalajara Metropolitan Area) has been a milestone. This institution identified and referred to urban forests as key elements to address climate change in the POTmet (GMA Territorial Plan). As a result, IMEPLAN proposed the creation of the AMBU (Metropolitan Agency of Urban Forests) responsible for the management of urban forests, which environmental relevance is also an important asset in the Climate Action Plan of the GMA. This institutional structure was leveraged by citizen initiatives and mobilizations that claimed public attention to these green spaces. To identify these citizen initiatives, secondary sources such as newspaper and scientific articles related to metropolitan Guadalajara were consulted. For characterization purposes, fieldwork, as well as public policy programs and plans, were also reviewed. Mapping and interviewing of stakeholders including public officials, members of grassroots movements, and users of urban forests were conducted, too. To precisely focus the study and interviews on the ES framework, Provisioning, Regulating, Cultural and Support services were considered (4). The paper concludes with recommendations on key innovative factors of citizen initiatives for the management of urban forests which promote inclusion and collaboration with social, public, private, and academic sectors. These recommendations may be considered in future metropolitan planning experiences to improve policy action addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation to ultimately building resilience in metropolitan areas. Keywords: Green infrastructure | Metropolitan governance | Metropolitan planning | Climate change (1) Benedict, M. A., & McMahon, E. T. (2001). Green infrastructure: Smart conservation for the 21st century (Vol. Monograph Series). Washington, D.C.: Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse. (2) Wilker, J., Rusche, K., & Rymsa-Fitschen, C. (2016). Improving Participation in Green Infrastructure Planning. Planning Practice & Research, 229-249. doi:10.1080/02697459.2016.1158065 (3) Gerlak, A. K., Elder, A., Pavao-Zuckerman, M., Zuniga-Teran, A., & Sandeford, A. R. (2021). Agency and governance in green infrastructure policy adoption and change. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 1-17. 2:10.1080/1523908X.2021.1910018. (4) Gómez-Baggethun, E., Gren, A., Barton, D. N., Langemeyer, J., McPhearson, T., O'Farrell, P., . . . Kremer, P. (2013). Urban ecosystem services. In T. Elmqvist, M. Fragkias, J. Goodness, B. Günerlap, P. J. Marcoutillo, R. I. McDonald, . . . C. Wilkinson, Urbanization, biodiversity and ecosystem services: Challenges and opportunities (pp. 175-251). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7088-1_11
