Designing edible landscapes : the social construction of green infrastructure in Vigo, Spain

Abstract

Este capítulo de libro aborda la creciente atención sobre el papel de los paisajes productivos para cumplir con las necesidades de seguridad alimentaria, biodiversidad y aspectos estéticos del paisaje en áreas urbanas. Dado que en muchas áreas urbanas se considera que una parte sustancial del espacio verde público es de baja calidad, la pregunta central en este capítulo es cómo se puede mejorar la calidad de estas áreas públicas transformándolas (parcial o completamente) en un paisaje 'comestible' multifacético. El carácter innovador del capítulo radica en el análisis de una respuesta localmente fundamentada a la alienación y la falta de sostenibilidad del sistema alimentario global.

There is an increasing attention for the role of productive landscapes in complying with the necessities of food security, biodiversity and aesthetical landscape aspects in urban areas. Since in many urban areas a substantial part of green public space is considered to be of poor quality the central question is how the quality of these public areas can be improved by transforming (parts of) it into a multi-facetted ‘edible’ landscape. This case study centres on the design and optimization of green infrastructure in and around Vigo (300,000 inhabitants), in the northwest of Spain. Vigo’s green infrastructure consists of municipal parks, many scattered plots of private land in use of vegetable gardening and maize production, and ‘commons’ managed by neighbourhood communities. The case study focuses on the commonly managed areas, in which decision-making processes on land-use opportunities by local groups direct the development of the city-region’s green infrastructure: urban and peri-urban agriculture and forestry (UPAF) in which the dominant land-use pattern shifts from mono-forestry to a multi-facetted edible landscape, thus again including food production.