Wildlife gardening for collaborative public–private biodiversity conservation

ABSTRACT

Complementary public and private conservation action is required to sustain native biodiversity in cities. Residents can contribute by wildlife gardening – removing environmental weeds, cultivating indigenous flora, and improving habitat in their gardens. There is currently little guidance about how best to involve residents in wildlife gardening and align their work with public land management. We explored how a purposively chosen wildlife gardening program in Melbourne, Australia engaged and supported residents to augment local government efforts to conserve indigenous biota. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with program members to understand the program’s impact on their gardening and their connections with their council and community. Unpublished Council survey data were used to position interview findings on wildlife gardening activities and the value of program features. Interviewees detailed how they modified their gardening to assist their council to conserve indigenous biota. Five program features were implicated in this change: (1) on-site garden assessment; (2) indigenous community nursery; (3) communication hubs; (4) a framework that fosters experiential learning and community linkages; and (5) endorsement of each garden’s potential conservation contribution. Collaborative wildlife gardening programs can engage residents to manage their land to achieve landscape-focused conservation goals while building relationships with council and community.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban biodiversity
• nature conservation
• wildlife gardening
• environmental education
• urban nature conservation
• biodiversity conservation

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Cecily Maller for her valuable guidance and contributions to this study and manuscript, and to two anonymous reviewers whose constructive feedback has greatly improved the article. The authors sincerely thank the staff of the City of Knox, members of the Knox Environment Society, and participants in the Knox Gardens for Wildlife program who generously contributed their time and ideas for this research as interviewees.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Laura Mumaw http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6164-8482

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted with funding support from the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions [grant number CE11E0083]. LM is supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award (Australian Federal Government) and SB is supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship [FT130101225].