Healthy and Biodiverse Edible Cities | Lunch Talk #21

Food forests as nature-inspired systems that combine trees, shrubs, herbs, and perennial plants into layered, productive landscapes have gained momentum globally as sustainable alternatives to conventional agriculture and urban green spaces in recent decades. These ecosystems not only offer edible abundance and food sustainability but also strengthen biodiversity and provide multifunctional shared spaces for communities. In this webinar, we will explore how food forests are being developed as long-term, community-driven projects in cities and rural areas, while shedding light on their diverse and evolving functions.

About the Speakers:

Tomas Remiarz has been designing, planting, maintaining and researching forest gardens for over 25 years, working across the UK and several European countries with an emphasis on the restoration of land and communities. He specialises in creating functional, edible landscapes and is author of the book “Forest Gardening in Practice” (2017). In his talk, Tomas will look at how forest gardens can help build beneficial links between rural and urban areas and the role they can play in land restoration and urban regeneration.

Dr Jennifer Schulz studied Landscape Architecture at the Technical University Berlin followed by 15 years of working as a landscape planner specializing on edible forest gardens. Returning to academia and after her PhD on Restoration Planning at TU München she developed the idea and assessed the feasibility of bringing Forest Gardens to cities. Since 2018 she leads the project "Urban Forest Gardens" at the University of Potsdam, where she and her team are researching ecological and social effects of urban forest gardens in three pilot projects that have been created together with practice partners in a participatory way in Berlin and Kassel. In the webinar, Jennifer will present these three pilot projects and the associated research as well as an insight into the nationwide support for urban forest garden initiatives and the knowledge transfer that is being carried out in the project for administrations and initiatives.

Program

Welcome & Introduction by Ina S?umel (5 min)

Presentation by Tomas Remiarz (10-15 min)

Presentation by Jennifer Schulz (10-15 min)

Questions from the chat and open discussion (25 min)

The webinar will be recorded except for the open discussion.

The event will be conducted in English. However, you are very welcome to provide questions and input in German as well.