Food security and cultural benefits from urban green spaces: Exploring urban foraging as a silently growing global movement

Abstract

Urban green spaces and urban forests are a source of immense biocultural diversity and ecosystem services. India has more than 53 fast expanding urban areas and many urban residents have interests in relishing wild edibles. So far the practice of urban foraging has not been very efficiently recorded and reported, hence it goes unacknowledged by urban planners, authorities and policymakers. A bibliometric analysis was carried out to mine out meaningful information on urban foraging from the available research data to understand the evolution and the structure of existing research, the influential authors, institutes, funding agencies and the countries. The paper endorses the concept of urban foraging that can help to secure biocultural diversity, nature connectedness and sense of belongings while appreciating the dietary benefits of urban green spaces in India.