Bringing Nature Back to Cities. Governing, Communicating and Living with Urban Biodiversity in the Mediterranean

Bringing Nature Back to Cities asks how biodiversity is governed, communicated and lived in contemporary urban settings, and what this reveals about the possibilities and limits of ecological transition. Developed within the Italian National Biodiversity Future Center, in particular its programme on communication, culture of nature and societal impact, the book follows this question through Mediterranean and Southern European cities, where dense fabrics, institutional fragilities and climate pressures collide with growing expectations for greener, healthier and more liveable environments. Combining documentary analysis, expert interviews and a comparative reading of cases such as Milan, Florence, Genoa, Palermo and Tirana, the volume shows how urban biodiversity is shaped at the intersection of planning systems, political narratives, fiscal constraints and everyday practices of care. It traces the gaps between ambitious strategies and uneven implementation, highlights emerging forms of citizen engagement and environmental communication, and examines how biodiversity is woven into broader agendas of climate resilience, social justice and urban regeneration. The book’s central outcome is a Blueprint that organises these insights into an accessible orientation framework for cities and city makers. Rather than prescribing a single model, it offers a way of recognising structural constraints and realistic levers for change, and of linking local experience to international debate. The book speaks to scholars, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in urban biodiversity, urban governance, environmental sociology and planning, and to all those who are working to make cities more just, more resilient and more richly alive.