Cities4Forests is a movement conceptualised to catalyse political, social, and economic support among city governments and urban citizens to integrate the inner, nearby, and faraway forests into city development plans and programs. Cities4Forest helps cities from around the world connect with and invest in forests. The project is initiated by a consortium of international agencies like World Resource Institute (WRI), Pilot Projects and REVOLVE with the involvement of mayors’ offices and supported by other sub-national agencies from around the world. The project will be implemented 45 cities from across the world for the project which aims at incorporating forests into the urban strategy to address climate change issues. Kochi is the only city selected from India on the list.

The Initiative was launched on 7^th August 2019, in Kochi. The launch witnessed stakeholders from various walks of life – City Administration, engineers, city planners, conservationist, civil society, educational and research institutions come together in a bid to use  the platform of Cities4Forests to leverage green infrastructure of the city to improve resilience.  Participants shared an aspiration to help reduce deforestation, restore forests (including more trees in cities), and manage forests more sustainably. The goal of the project is to amplify current best practices and extend the deliberate city-forest relationship to the global scale on which cities and forests interact. On behalf of Kochi Municipal Corporation, the Centre for Heritage Environment and Development (c-hed) supported the organization of the event.