Since joining the Cities4Forests network in 2022, Pilot Projects has been working with the City of Paris to find the opportunity to initiate a Partner Forest program.
In response to the replacement of the wooden decking on the Pont des Arts, the opaque French municipal procurement process, and the encouragement of Cities4Forests’ publication on the advantages of “conservation timber” as a sustainable building material, a retroactive Partner Forest connection and public awareness campaign through the wood used on the bridge was proposed. Based on the city’s recent project (assuming sourcing for the Pont des Arts meets Partner Forest criteria) a connection would be established with the forest community that harvested the wood to tell their story to the city of Paris.
More info on the Pont des Arts proposal can be found here. 
Following a series of virtual meetings in Q1 and Q2 2023, an in-person meeting with the City of Paris, ATIBT, and FSC France was held at the City of Paris’ Académie du Climat in June 2023, where the communications potential of the as yet unidentified source of the wood (Balinga) for the newly renovated Pont des Arts was reviewed. A workshop to engage key city vice mayors was tentatively scheduled for Q4 2023. 
In lieu of this workshop, however, the City of Paris’ International Relations department decided to revive their previous engagement campaign (2021-2022) on connecting francophone cities and Central African forests through a series of conferences in Q4 2024 and 2025. Planning meetings have been held in March and April 2024. As part of the city’s Partner Forest program, it is anticipated that these future conferences will address direct ways that cities can help conserve tropical forests (e.g. through conservation timber procurement, payment for environmental services, training, and cultural exchange programs) in order to have a measurable impact that can be communicated as a goal at the UNFCCC COP30 in Bélem in December 2025.