WHO delegation visits Cork to see biodiversity projects
Cllr Tony FItzgerald along with World Health Organisation members Philip Chvatal, Czech Republic; Kira Fortune, WHO director; Maria Young, Greenspaces; Yannick Nadesan, France; Ingvill Dalseg, Norway; Tsering Kalde and Denise Cahill of Cork Healthy Cities, during their visit to the community garden in Clashduv Park, Cork. Pictures: David Keane.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) delegation visited Cork on Friday to see how its pioneering ‘healthy cities’ projects could be replicated across Europe.
The WHO’s healthy cities political committee met in City Hall, with representatives from France, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Greece, Spain, the UK, and Norway, before visiting the city’s newest community garden and biodiversity haven.
The garden in Clashduv Park is recognised as a best-practice approach to supporting biodiversity and promoting food sovereignty.
“We are keen to promote democracy within the food system at local level,” said Maria Young, the coordinator of Green Spaces for Health.
For 35 years, the WHO European Healthy Cities Network has brought together 88 designated cities and over 20 national networks to pioneer changes through projects that create healthier urban settings that support the health and well-being of the people that use them.
Cork has been part of the network since 2012 and has delivered dozens of ‘healthy city’ projects including community gardens and allotments, playful streets projects, including one which led to the pedestrianisation of the Marina, and play and culture trails through the city.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar met the delegation in City Hall before delegates, including Dr Kira Fortune, a regional advisor to WHO Europe, visited Clashduv to see how the community garden was developed over the last year through a partnership between Green Spaces for Health, Cork Healthy Cities, Cork City Council, and the local community on a quarter acre site within the council-owned park.
The community built a polytunnel, installed 18 raised beds for organic vegetables, planted 360 native trees as a hedgerow, hand-dug a pond that is becoming home to a variety of species, and launched a new cookbook with recipes by local resident, chef Mandie Rekaby, dedicated to produce from the garden.
The garden hosts a bio blitz this Saturday, starting at 8am with a dawn chorus event, a botany walk, an insect safari, and concluding at lunchtime with a guided walk by Éanna Ní Lamhna.
Lord Mayor Cllr Deirdre Forde said Cork has a lot to be proud of, and a lot of insight to share from its decade of healthy cities work.
“The covid-19 pandemic reminded us of the complexity of the public health challenges we face today — challenges that no one city or country can address on their own: we cannot solve them in isolation,” she said.
“These challenges require cooperation — in other words, shared challenges require shared solutions and responses.”
Fianna Fáil Cllr Tony Fitzgerald, who hosted the meeting, said: “Our shared goal across Europe is to engage local government in promoting health for our citizens.”
