Italy: A new garden in Rome celebrates sustainability – and you can visit it without even leaving your house
Its features include a sacred wood, fruit orchard and a ‘cube meadow’ – an open-air installation of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
By Victoria Masterson
World Economic Forum
23 Sep 2021
Excerpt:
The G20 Green Garden is in Rome’s Appia Antica Park – a protected urban area that is home to many archaeological remains of ancient Rome.
For those who can’t tour the garden in person, the G20 Green Garden app allows for virtual visits; and either way, visitors are invited to “reflect on the future of the planet”.
New trees will be planted in the wood this October to symbolize the G20’s commitment to sustainability.
And opposite the garden’s Church of Saint Urban, which was originally a Roman temple, an “iconic tree” will be planted to symbolize the “values and objectives which must unite the international community and countries, commencing with the protection of biodiversity”.
Rome’s G20 Green Garden project links with the UN’s Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, which aims to halt and reverse environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, as well as the Green Cities Initiative, run by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
The latter focuses on using green spaces and technologies to improve the health and well-being of people living in urban areas.
