Abstract
Gathering of uncultivated food from green spaces, also known as foraging, is observed in urban areas across the world, but the literature focuses predominantly on the global north. Our study examines the existing urban land management structure and its approach to urban foraging in the eastern coastal region of South Africa. Through interviews with municipal officials in nine cities, we identified different stakeholders and their roles in urban green space management. We then used network analysis to represent interactions and influence of these stakeholders, and environmental worldviews to determine organisational and perceptual barriers to and enablers of foraging in urban green spaces. The policy on urban green space management, as well as land managers themselves are amenable to the concept of foraging in public spaces. Lack of knowledge on wild indigenous species and sustainable offtake, ambiguous, coarse, or lacking policy, and normative views of pristine nature may hinder foraging. We recommend pathways for policy and stakeholder partnerships to incorporate sustainable foraging in their biodiversity conservation and land stewardship strategies.
Highlights
Urban open space is a valuable resource globally, with over half of the world’s population residing in cities, and an annual urbanisation rate of 1% in developing and middle-income nations [1]
Formal open spaces are characterised by landscaping features and amenities such as seating to facilitate public access and recreation. These are distinguished from informal open spaces, which lack improvement or demarcation, but are often used by the public for recreational purposes, and are viewed by municipalities as areas for future development and conversion to formal parks (CS2, PM3, CS3, PM5, EM3, CS4)
Foraging is a permissible activity in most urban open spaces in the study area, with tacit support from policy and land managers
Summary
Urban open space is a valuable resource globally, with over half of the world’s population residing in cities, and an annual urbanisation rate of 1% in developing and middle-income nations [1]. Urban green space constitutes predominantly undeveloped space within urban and peri-urban limits that supports multiple ecological and social processes [4] It includes vegetation surrounding managed structures such as roofs, power lines, and verges [5, 6], managed formal spaces such as public parks, gardens and forests [7], unmanaged informal spaces such as vacant lots and edges [5], as well as urban forests [8].
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