LivingGreen LiveableCities Special Issue: Study Published!

“Two million gardens could be the biggest National Park in Ireland”: pathways to nature in domestic gardens.

Nature and biodiversity are in crisis. Ireland, despite its ‘Green’ perception, is ranked 13th lowest in the world for its biodiversity. There is little knowledge of how the 2 million gardens in Ireland accounting for 359,000 acres of land could be used as sites of nature and biodiversity restoration.

The study sheds light on how to build stronger nature pathways in gardens through practical learning. However, it exposes a sense of nature disconnection and two layers to shame:

1) if gardens are not seen as tidy resulting in social judgement &

2) shame about how we are passing on a depleted biodiversity to future generations.

The study suggests that gardens have untapped potential as sites of positive collective action to reverse the biodiversity crisis and enhance human health. Using a metaphor of a national park provides scope to reframe narratives around gardens. Such a reframing could focus on the benefits to the person and their wellbeing, to the garden itself and to local and global biodiversity. The social dynamics unearthed in the study suggest a tipping point where shame and judgement could be counterbalanced by the efficacy of collective action. Aggregated actions in each garden can be do-able, effective and self-determined.

As the participants say “if you think of that much land and if everyone did a little bit in, in their space…it wouldn’t take long before we’d really get connected with nature and change maybe biodiversity” 

Read the full paper here:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2024.2381968