9 minute read
How − and why − do botanic gardens engage with the community?
How − and why − do botanic gardens engage with the community?
Matthew Nicholson, volunteer editor, Notes from the Nursery
I am a member of the nursery team in a botanic garden and work as a bush restorer. Please get in touch if you would like to contribute to this section in the future by emailing me at nicholson20@hotmail.com.au
Over the past 10 or 15 years many botanic gardens worldwide have undergone a transformation in how and what they communicate to patrons, including the establishment of a social media presence. In this article I will attempt to summarise the way this transformation towards greater community engagement has occurred, the pedagogy employed in this engagement, and the programs established to communicate with the community.
Many botanic gardens, who seek to broaden their audience and are well placed to educate visitors on environment and conservation issues, are redefining their purpose and mission as social entities and are examining their roles both within and outside the sector. To do this they need to effectively communicate their role and value to the audiences they seek to attract and explain how gardens act as a metaphor for human interaction with the botanical world. This can be done by showing how humans have interacted with the world in the past through the inclusion of economic sections in botanic gardens (such as areas that showcase interactions through trade and bush tucker), and how we interact with the botanical world today and in the future, through climate change exhibits and herbaria.
In the last issue of THE BOTANIC GARDENer, I wrote on the ways in which issues relating to climate change are disseminated by gardens to the visiting public, such as via research articles, interpretive signage, talks/workshops and children’s plays. The way in which we interact with our environment certainly plays its part in engagement with the public, but this isn’t the whole story. Botanic gardens, through a range of public initiatives, are constantly seeking ways in which they can communicate information relevant to their remit and be socially responsible in the information they relay.
Primack et al. (2021) write concerning the role of botanical gardens in climate change research, and adequately describe how botanic gardens accomplish this – by having the experienced and knowledgeable horticulturists under their employ create unique resources that are able to host diverse collections of plants growing in ex situ conditions (as is the nature of a botanic garden –hosting plants outside their natural environment in manufactured environments mimicking natural growing conditions).
There are important conversations to be held concerning indigenous people’s medicinal (and otherwise) use of plants and the fact that many common and botanic names remain to this day named in honour of the people connected with the slave trade. [(The genus Hibbertia, being just one example, derives its name from George Hibbert, who made a fortune from slave trading (Summerell, 2022)]. These conversations, I believe, should be between those positing the eradication point of view and those examining the question from an ethical standpoint, such as Longstaff (2020). I’m of the opinion that rather than shying away from the conversation around how these contentious individuals behaved, and removing their names, we should by now have matured enough as a society to have reasoned discussion about the abomination that was the slave trade. This should serve as an education point, to merge the botanical and cultural. Perhaps modifying some aspects of interpretation (adding QR codes to highlight contentious naming) when warranted, would be enough?
Collaborative think tanks, such as the one conducted by the Research Centre of Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester and BGCI in 2010, are extremely useful (Dodd and Jones, 2010). In these meetings botanic garden management meets regularly with stakeholders (Friends groups, local authorities, schools, local elders and other community groups) and brainstorm how they can provide an engaging, educational service to the community, as well as gathering much-needed funding for the valuable work botanic gardens do for conservation efforts. As the report highlights, small workforces and ‘a lack of staff with specialist experience’ in community-based work may lead to a lack of a broader vision. An ‘inward focus’ upon collections may also lead to the idea that due to their specialist nature, botanic gardens have not always felt the need to account for their social role to their governing bodies. This point may well form the catalyst for think tanks such as this in regional botanic gardens smaller than – but just as important as − the University of Oxford or the Botanic Gardens of Sydney.
People who can see at least three trees from their home, have 30% tree canopy cover in their neighbourhood and live less than 300 m away from the nearest park or green space have better mental health and use less medication
The wellbeing of people who utilise the green spaces of botanic gardens for recreation purposes has been examined and studies have been conducted showing that botanic gardens ‘could be places’ (Kohlleppel, 2002) that help people cope with stress and anxiety. A more recent study from Barcelona, Spain, found that people who can see at least three trees from their home, have 30% tree canopy cover in their neighbourhood and live less than 300 m away from the nearest park or green space have better mental health and use less medication than those who do not (Nieuwenhuijsen et al., 2022).
Burgeoning industries and practices – horticultural therapy and forest bathing, for instance –were founded upon the calming effects of horticulture, gardening and immersing oneself in nature. Horticulture provides opportunities for reconnection with nature and the earth that some people working in offices seldom have the chance to experience. An example of a project aiming to connect people to nature was one held by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Melbourne, in partnership with the Department of Neuroscience at Monash University, in March this year. The ‘Botany Brain Camp’ used ‘the gardens as a brain map … to navigate the hemispheres, lobes and cerebellum on a botanical brainstorm that connects the amazing plant world with our own magnificent brains’.
‘Botanical gardens represent interesting arenas for research in environmental psychology and environment-behavior relations’ because they have ‘assumed a strong social relevance’ (Carrus et al., 2017), given the increased urbanisation occurring in society, and the psychological effects that the concrete jungle can have on people. Carrus et al. (2017) provide appropriate statistical analysis of the data on levels of perceived restorativeness, including ‘physical and psychological benefits’ as well as ‘subjective well-being’, the results of which were as initial predictions indicated – ‘levels of perceived restorativeness were generally high’ (Carrus et al., 2017).
In conjunction with the positive psychological effects botanic gardens have on many people, there exists opportunity to decrease the heat islands caused by urban sprawl and concrete buildings. I once again point to the green walls and roofs pioneered in Singapore, which have since been taken to other countries with replicable results. At Bogor Botanic Gardens, West Java, Indonesia, a time series analysis of the amount of green vegetation and land surface temperatures was conducted over a period of seven years (2013–2020), with measurements taken from Bogor City as a comparison. Inside the Bogor Botanic Gardens, the measured temperature was cooler than in the city by several degrees (Rahayu and Yusri, 2021).
Some botanic gardens have extended their outreach to plant sales, including those run by Friends groups. In some instances, money made from Friends’ plant sales goes directly into projects that assist in making botanic gardens interesting for their patrons.
There are also indications of a correlation between high school horticulture classes and students’ decisions to major in horticulture at degree-level – an impetus, perhaps, for closer engagement with schools which have conservation, school gardens or environmental studies as part of their curriculum. With no employment downturn predicted in 2023, horticulture is a large industry with 32,200 jobs predicted this year, according to the latest figures from Open Colleges
Horticulture is a large industry with 32,200 jobs predicted this year.
Other botanic gardens have education programs for children, providing unique learning activities. The capacity for mental and physical engagement provided by these education programs is one that is already catered for in some primary schools by the inclusion of school gardens. In some schools, pupils are encouraged to join school gardening groups, create outdoor classrooms, and exploit their artistic skills in landscaping. They might plan simple garden beds and then have the hands-on experience of planting a garden and taking care of the growing plants. Staff within the botanic garden in which I work have been involved in school holiday gardening programs. Not only are they great for the schools and students, but horticulturists such as me also enjoy getting out into the community, demonstrating our knowledge and working with the pupils. Who knows − perhaps we sowed the seeds for future careers in horticulture or plant science!
References
Carrus, G, Scopelliti, M, Panno, A, et al. (2017). A different way to stay in touch with ‘urban nature’: the perceived restorative qualities of botanical gardens. Frontiers in Psychology, 8:914.
Dodd, J, Jones, C. (2010). Redefining the role of botanic gardens – towards a new social purpose Research Centre of Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester and BGCI.
Kohlleppel, T. (2022). A walk through the garden: can a visit to a botanic garden reduce stress?. HortTechnology, 12(3), 489–492.
Longstaff, S. (2020). The ethics of tearing down monuments. The Ethics Centre.
Nieuwenhuijsen, MJ, Dadvand, P, Márquez, S, et al. (2022). The evaluation of the 3-30-300 green space rule and mental health. Environmental Research, 215(2):114387.
Primack, R, Ellwood, R, Gallinat, A, et al. (2021). The growing and vital role of botanical gardens in climate change research. New Phytologist, 231(3):917−932.
Rahayu, EMD, Yusri, S. (2021). Bogor Botanic Gardens as a nature-based solution for mitigating urban heat island and microclimate regulation IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 914:012050.
Summerell, B. (2022). Slave traders’ names are still stamped on native plants. It’s time to ‘decolonise’ Australia’s public gardens The Guardian, 1 October 2022.
