On July fourth I participated on a day of community gardening at the Parc Raspail: together with some 15 neighbours and friends we spent the day inside of this green spot in the south of the region, collecting garbage, clearing the paths from nettles and wild branches, opening some spaces for picnics and games, and letting some other wild to allow nature to remain undisturbed. That day is the last step of a journey of almost two years where neighbourhood residents joined hand to make their parc again available to everyone.
About a year ago, I introduced in this blog Brussels’s Bois de la Cambre and the contention that was taking place to maintain or not motorised traffic through the park. In the post’s conclusion I was reflecting on the fact that, despite an apparent consensus on the importance of urban forests, in scarce urban land choices need to be made to arbitrate between mismatching priorities, ranging from providing space for leisure and the possibility to enjoy nature, to granting privileges to a country’s elites, or develop motorized mobility infrastructure.
This blogpost is based on an interview conducted by CLEARING HOUSE researcher Nicola da Schio with Maëlle De Brouwer, deputy mayor of the city of Ukkel in charge of Green Spaces, in the Brussels Capital Region. Just after the first project workshop, Mme De Brouwer spoke about what the city did with its green spaces in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and about her vision for the future of Ukkel.
In the last few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has spread all across the world and is still dominating the headlines at this time. Notwithstanding global and regional differences, the basic elements of how we live have radically changed due to government prevention policies, the fear of contracting the virus and the actual spread of the disease. In this context, at CLEARING HOUSE, we realised that it was not possible to carry on our work and research as if nothing was happening.
In aerial pictures of the Brussels region, Belgium, two large green areas stand out: the Royal Domain of Laeken, situated in northern industrial suburbs of Brussels, and the Bois de la Cambre, in the south, connecting the Sonian Forest to the city.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant Agreement 821242.
