Are we promoting green cities in Latin America and the Caribbean? Exploring the patterns and drivers of change for urban vegetation

As cities opt for green policies to address urban socio-ecological challenges it becomes important to evaluate how the urban landscape responds to them, and if these responses are strengthening the benefits of nature for all. The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region is one of the most biodiverse and urbanized regions of the world, which makes it imperative to understand how greening policies have impacted the distribution, accessibility, and quantity of vegetated areas in cities through time. Using a landscape ecology approach, we explored the effects of local urban dynamics on the pathways of urban vegetation in ten LAC capital cities in the last 20 years. Our results showed a great fluctuation of vegetation cover change for the region, with Santiago (Chile) losing more than 10% of its urban vegetation to Brasilia gaining 19%, while fragmentation and inequities in the distribution of vegetation increased in all cities. Cities followed four pathways of vegetation change, displaying different patterns of change in fragmentation, size of the vegetated patches and their clustering. This discloses that the greening policies and actions adopted in LAC cities led to increased vegetation cover, or avoided its loss, but did not assure a better distribution of the green and its benefits. Vegetation in LAC cities are still fragmented, where vegetation is not connected and is not equitably distributed, showing that policies in place have not addressed distributional injustice yet. This is corroborated by the assessment of drivers of change where we found social factors were the most important determinants of urban vegetation dynamics. Results from our study provide evidence for developing policies towards urban greening and connectivity, not only to prevent further biodiversity loss but also for creating more resilient communities and cities that address environmental inequities.