Dr camilo Ordonez¹

¹The University of Melbourne, Richmond, Australia

Many cities have turned to nature-based solutions in the desire to build resilience in the urban landscape. Nature-based solutions are activities, programs, and policies aimed at addressing urban challenges through interventions based on natural elements, such as increasing the number of trees and tree-canopy cover in a city. Cities are characterized by transition points where planning regimes, and governance structures and processes, diverge; spaces where growth patterns intensify and urban physical elements expand. While many cities have ambitious targets and tree-planting initiatives to increase tree-canopy cover, the success of these initiatives is greatly challenged by the difference between local and metropolitan governance structures and processes, including the coordination of local and state policies, or the coordination of stakeholders. There is currently no clear understanding of how municipal managers address this local-metropolitan convergence. We try to answer these questions with empirical data sourced through interviews and surveys with people involved in municipal urban forestry in many municipalities along an urban-rural gradient in Melbourne, Australia. These data were analysed to understand the underlying governance structure and processes in different types of municipalities along an urban-rural gradient. We discuss how are findings can shed light on the governance of nature-based solutions