From Friday (October 18th) to Saturday (October 19th), CPIE hosted their first ever Festival du Monde à l’An Vert (“Festival of the World in its Green Year”). The idea behind this local festival is to inform stakeholders about what Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are, what challenges they can address and how anyone can get involved. It also serves to inspire communities into mainstreaming and integrating NbS in their urban planning.
Fully packed Friday: games, workshops and a documentary
The Friday (18th) was dedicated to schools. Multiple local CPIE partners showed animations to help the kids better understand current social challenges such as climate change adaptation, risk reduction, and human well-being. These challenges helped emphasize the need for NbS. SYMSAGEL was also present and played a game about the evolution of the riverbeds and the impact of urban planning. There were 6 different schools in total, allowing 160 kids and the 18 adults accompanying them to play along. Afterwards, there was time to debrief and share what everyone had learned. Each school will soon receive a summary.
Simultaneously, there was an afternoon session dedicated to professionals and elected representatives. This allowed them to better understand the synergies between the various stakeholders and how to collaborate on NbS projects. The participants took part in the conferences and workshops, but the turnout was quite small. This once again proves the importance of ResiRiver and begs the question: how can we raise awareness about the importance of this topic?
Friday evening ended with a documentary filmed in the Northern region of France. It focused on runoffs on agricultural lands and how to preserve the soil. The film ended with an open discussion about the importance of changing the ways we treat our soils. This session was open to the general public and 16 people attended.
Serene Saturday: lots of activities
Saturday was open to the general public and offered a great variety of activities. From the animations on NbS and societal challenges, to an open galery with expos, workshops, games, and an immersive walk in the forest nearby. There was a concert planned for the afternoon, but sadly this had to be canceled due to the crowd being too small.
All in all, the festival is an ambitious tool to mainstream NbS. And although the road to getting everyone on board is long, everyone who visited the festival was satisfied with the format and believed in our project. The festival will become an annual event, and will change location through CPIE’s territory of action.