Dear Paul, may I get more information on the Urban Ecology News. For your information I enclosure info on "TREE CITY". Best regards Guido "Tree City" an innovative development program - call for participation and sponsorship Release: March 15, 1995 Dear Sir or Madam, As a freelance Natural Resource Consultant, I wrote some years ago a state-of-knowledge report on urban forestry in "developing" countries. To further stimulate the development of tree planting in "developing" countries I am planning the program "Tree City", for which I am looking for partners and sponsors. Justification of the program: Given the growing social and environmental problems associated with rapid and uncontrolled urbanization in many parts of the "developing" world, ensuring the provision of basic human needs for city dwellers is likely to be a focal development issue for many years to come. In view of current demographic shifts, many of yesterday's rural poor are becoming today's urban poor. In the not too distant future about half of all people in the "developing" countries will be living in an urban environment. Urban trees can improve the quality of life by providing many goods like fuel, low-cost construction material and food, and services such as microclimate enhancement. Surprisingly, the international donor community have made little effort to allocate sufficient funds to developing tree planting programs for resource-poor urban people. The basic idea of the program is to develop and test an innovative, creative and cost-efficient approach to planning and implementation of tree planting activities in resource-poor settlements. The program will incorporate progress made in information technology, business re-engineering and participatory project design and implementation. The program will include following activities: 1. Create an electronic discussion system (News Group TREE CITY) to link people interested to participating or sponsoring the program with people executing tree projects on field level; 2. Develop an organizational structure of the program; Identify three or more cities and local partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America who will execute pilot projects at the field level; 3. Conduct participatory rapid appraisals with local residents in each sub-project to diagnose their opportunities and constraints with regard to tree planting; 4. Conduct an in-depth study in at least three resource-poor settlements to generate basic data for process oriented planning and implementation of each sub-project; 5. Develop a user-friendly electronic tree information management system for tree program planning and implementation that can be used at local level; 6. Organize a video conference to present the process and approach to donor agencies (governmental and non-governmental); 7. Develop a "Tree City" computer game (based on the success of Sim City) and an interactive video on CD-Rom in which the player can simulate a tree project in a resource-poor spontaneous settlement. Funds raised by selling these multi-media CDs will be used directly for urban forestry projects. Would you be interested in participating in or sponsoring the program? I look forward to receiving your reply and hearing your ideas. Sincerely yours, Guido Kuchelmeister, Consultant Dr. Guido Kuchelmeister Program Consult for Development Forestry, Agroforestry, Soil & Water Conservation Graf-Kirchberg-Straae 26 89257 Illertissen GermanyTel.: +49/7303/41626 Fax: +49/7303/42114 Email: 100441.3577@compuserve.com
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