A framework for achieving mutual benefits for nature and sports in cities

Sports and cities are intrinsically intertwined, as ref lected in a multitude of indoor and outdoor sports1 practiced daily in urban contexts, and by sports events – local, national and international – regularly staged in cities. Investing to enhance urban biodiversity provides a potential opportunity for sports to build a long-lasting and socially-positive legacy in cities, as spending time in green spaces – including for outdoor sports activities – has widely-demonstrated physical and mental health benefits for urban dwellers. These benefits also enhance urban areas for athletes: whether they are running, canoeing, rowing, sailing or cycling, athletes depend on a healthy environment. The benefits associated with biodiversity-rich cities are numerous. Nature in urban areas contributes to a healthier place to live by creating a barrier to noise, absorbing air pollutants and cooling the air during the summer months. It creates a safer place to live by providing protection from floods and landslides, and a more fun and enjoyable place to live by offering recreation, visually pleasing surroundings and education opportunities. Bringing these benefits to the urban population, which today has reached over 55% of the total world population, makes investing in raising the quality of urban environments a good way also to contribute simultaneously to environmental and social goals, embodied by the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG 3 and SDG 11.2 3 Nature can thrive in urban settings, especially if underpinned by a diversity of species and habitats, and cities can support both people and biodiversity, if they are designed and managed with conservation goals in mind. In comparison to other highly human-impacted landscapes such as intensive agriculture, cities can include diverse and functional habitats for many species. In recent years, scientific research in urban ecology has provided new insight into the specific features of the urban environment which are most relevant to biodiversity and conservation objectives. Spaces dedicated to the practice of sports can promote these objectives with purposeful design and management. The urban regeneration projects that can sometimes occur with large sports-driven urban planning efforts are rare opportunities to introduce the ecological elements critical to urban health and resilience. In particular, sports fields, pitches and the areas around sports venues constitute an important component of unpaved, preserved green space in cities, where the opportunity to increase their value for biodiversity is significant. Many cities have expanded and grown around open sports grounds, leaving them as potential ecologically rich oases in an urban context. This guide focuses on how existing and new sport venues both indoors and outdoors, as well as sports events of all sizes, can contribute to the restoration and enhancement of biodiversity in cities by integrating specific structural and management elements that will increase suitable habitats for plants and animals to thrive. The guide also highlights the benefits that protected areas play in urban settings and how these can be amplified by sports, as well as a number of tools that could be deployed to measure success.

source :

https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2020-031-En.pdf