The process of urbanization and concentration of most part of the world‘s population in cities imposes new challenges to the organization of human settlements and to the environmental protection, adversely affecting the quality of life of people and the environmental sustainability, in which urban environments are included. Among many variables that interfere in the sustainability of cities is the existence of urban vegetation, but that has no specific legal protection in the Brazilian legal system. In this scenario, this essay has the purpose to define the legal content of the expression “urban vegetation” with the identification and systematization of laws that regulate the urban flora in the Municipality of Belém (PA). We use in this essay the deductive method and documental research. We discuss the definitions of city, urban, sustainability and quality of life. We analyze the constitutional powers to legislate about environmental and land use law since 1988. We also systematize the main legal e non-legal categories used to define and to study the urban vegetation, presenting, as well, a summary of the urban vegetation‘s main functions, emphasizing its differences with the non-urban environment and its dynamics, leading to the conclusion that this protection must be understood as a process. After analyzing the federal, state and local laws in force in the municipality of Belém, we conclude the Brazilian legal system has no definition that encompasses all particularities of the urban vegetation, but there is regulation in all legislative levels for it, which must be interpreted according to the particularities and principles that rule the urban space and in light of the cooperative federalism.
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