The Gree-Blue City program for management of urban afforestation in the cities of Araraquara and São Carlos, State of São Paulo

Abstract

The Gree-Blue City Program is an environmental public policy that established the Urban Afforestation as its main topic. In this regard, the general purpose of this work was to investigate the influence of the Urban Afforestation Directive of this Program for Management of Urban Afforestation in the cities of Araraquara and São Carlos, state of São Paulo. Therefore, the specific purposes were: 1) To investigate actions, best practices adopted, and difficulties found to meet criteria of the Urban Afforestation Directive in the cities of Araraquara and São Carlos, considering the context of the cities studied; 2) To know the feeling of the interlocutors from the mayor’s office of the respective cities. The methodology used was an exploratory qualitative approach, by employing the following methodological procedures: bibliographical research, documentary research, and semi-structured interviews with civil servants of the cities of Araraquara and São Carlos. One of the main results was the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the two cities, such important data for contextualizing each criterion of the Urban Afforestation Directive. It was found that the Urban Afforestation Directive (DAU) of the Gree-Blue City Program (PMVA) mobilized actions aimed at the Management of Urban Afforestation in the cities studied, taking into account their most different contexts. However, it is necessary to overcome gaps and challenges in order to comply with the DAU with continuous, lasting, and effective actions in the cities.