Home Gardenscapes as Sustainable Landscape Management on St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean

Abstract

Abstract:Home gardens are an important topic for landscape research due to their intersectional contributions to plant diversity conservation and local livelihoods. As sites of ecological restoration, gardens transform small-scale landscapes toward higher plant richness and density. We examine "gardenscapes" on St. Eustatius, a small Caribbean island, focusing on how plants growing around a home contribute to ecological and ethnobotanical measures of plant diversity, and how residents value the importance of gardens to their livelihoods. Through a survey of 14 gardenscapes and 11 home interviews, we report 277 plant species, including 31% native and 69% non-native, high plant densities and structural evenness, 260 plants with uses, and a total of 363 uses, especially as ornamental plants (184) and for other environmental services (16), but also food (101), health remedies (50), material uses (10) and symbolic services (2). Participants indicated that home gardening could be difficult due to drought and pests, but provided resources and incomes to livelihoods, especially through the production of food products. Several respondents reported that gardening was a declining activity on St. Eustatius, but this study shows how gardening activities offer a biocultural approach to conservation that supports plant diversity and livelihoods across the island's highly-modified natural landscape.

Relationship between Rural Settlements’ Plant Communities and Environmental Factors in Hilly Area of Southeast China

“…Based on morphology, Liu Peilin introduced the types, configuration forms, and distribution characteristics of residential buildings in detail [37]. Regarding architectural garden plant landscape, ethnobotany research especially focuses on the plant varieties demanded by residents, that affect the distribution pattern of the rural plant community [7,38]. In addition, garden plant varieties are closely related to the form of courtyard enclosure, architectural style, and architectural type manifested by human activities in settlements.…”

“…Several studies have focused on the diversity characteristics of settlement plant communities and their influencing factors, ethnobotany of settlement, and the optimization of human ecological landscape construction, domestically and overseas [7]. In terms of policy, the construction of beautiful villages proposed by the Chinese authority is an important approach to rural revitalization in China [8].…”

Exploring the Role of Science in Sustainable Landscape Management. An Introduction to the Special Issue

“…García-Llorente et al [17] consider landscape services as provided by social farming, including food production, agrobiodiversity, the preservation of local varieties, and aspects of human health. Berkowitz and Medley [18] express the values that home gardeners experience as services, for example, in terms of enjoying species, inspirational, and health benefits. Opdam and Steingrover [19] show how companies may gain corporate benefits by including landscape services in their food chains and social strategies.…”

“…Other studies in this special issue illustrate different ways of cooperating with practitioners in landscape management, ranging from individual gardeners [18], via social farms [17], to governance networks [24] and landscape transformations [20]. In these examples, scientists play different roles.…”

“…In these examples, scientists play different roles. They may (1) contribute to understanding the relation between landscape services and the response by users and owners of pieces of land [18], (2) provide information about landscape indicators for sustainability [20], or (3) organize the process and facilitate joined vision building and decision making about interventions [20,21]. The need for this role diversity can be understood with help of the analysis by Raquez and Lambin [31], who investigated 46 case studies to learn how scientific information had contributed to social-ecological transformations towards sustainability.…”