Urban foraging, resilience and food provisioning services provided by edible plants in interstitial urban spaces in Mexico City

In the context of decreasing food security, and as part of the '100 Resilient Cities' group, Mexico City (CDMX) has committed itself to achieving resilience through local food systems, green infrastructure and ecosystem services development. This paper reports on two surveys mapping the di...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Local environment Vol. 26; no. 7; pp. 825 - 846
Main Authors:	Hare, Matthew, Peña del Valle Isla, Ana
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Abingdon Routledge 03-07-2021 Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects:	Cities Dispersal Dispersion Ecosystem services Ecosystems Feasibility Feasibility studies Food Food security Food service Food supply Foraging behavior Fruit trees Fruits Geographical distribution Green infrastructure Herbs Infrastructure Local food systems Mapping Pavements Planting Plants Plants (botany) Polls & surveys Provisioning Resilience SDG 11 Social-ecological systems socio-ecological system Species Trees Urban areas Urban foraging urban resilience Vegetables Walking Mexico
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Summary:	In the context of decreasing food security, and as part of the '100 Resilient Cities' group, Mexico City (CDMX) has committed itself to achieving resilience through local food systems, green infrastructure and ecosystem services development. This paper reports on two surveys mapping the distribution of species of edible plants growing in publicly accessible interstitial spaces (e.g. central reservations and pavements) in subtropical, central CDMX. It also reports on an initial assessment of the feasibility of using such spaces for foraging. Rather than improving everyday food supplies, the maintenance of these spaces as areas for emergency foraging would ideally increase urban resilience in the face of extreme food supply shocks. The surveys used a direct species identification approach whilst walking ∼20 km of streets and identified thirty-six species of edible plants including not only fruits and herbs, but also vegetables. The results permitted the satisfactory assessment of three out of five feasibility conditions: (i) suitable growing conditions, (ii) provisioning capability and (iii) the existence of multiple plant dispersal pathways (including both natural processes and deliberate planting, as well as, more speculatively, unintentional human-mediated dispersal). Two other important feasibility conditions for foraging - (iv) usage and (v) a favourable planning environment - were not able to be judged based on the field data. CDMX promotes the planting of fruit trees in avenues, but this paper shows that local socio-ecological systems sustain a greater variety of edibles growing in a wider range of interstitial spaces. Ignoring this would represent a missed opportunity for urban resilience.
ISSN:	1354-9839 1469-6711
DOI:	10.1080/13549839.2021.1922998