KarunaNews Story

Paris will plant an "urban forest" of nearly 500 trees at Place de Catalogne, a busy roundabout near the Gare Montparnasse railway station. "The temperatures one could feel in this little forest will be 4 degrees lower compared to what we could have outside it and so, it will be very pleasant," said Mayor Anne Hidalgo. "There's also some work on recycling rainwater, and here, too, we can recycle rainwater to be able to water, maintain, allow this urban forest to thrive." The roundabout is now a bike-friendly area, which connects to a bike lane leading to suburbs south of the city. The site is expected to be fully planted by June 2024. Hidalgo launched an initiative in 2019 to incorporate more urban forest areas throughout Paris, aiming to cover half of the city in vegetation and to become a carbon-neutral city by 2050.