Savitha Swamy, a research scholar from Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) is initiating an urban ecology project which involves surveys on biodiversity in various neighborhood parks in Bangalore.
Savitha is looking at the long term sustainability of Bangalore’s urban green spaces. This study will be used to come up with models to conserve urban green spaces and the biodiversity that it shelters which is disappearing in an alarming rate.
The central question of this study is “how do the urban green spaces function as socio-ecological systems and deliver some key ecosystem services within the city?
The study will adopt different methods of identifying parks for the study, ecological sampling, social surveys and social surveys.
People’s attitude influences environmental conservation action in the city. A scientific study on environmental psychology showed that people are attached to their home environment followed by the green spaces in their neighborhood. This has an overall effect on people’s working and living cultures.
Another major player in the urban conservation is the government and successful urban green space conservation may largely weigh on them, says Savitha. Hence, green space conservation requires engagement with multiple players at various scales, she adds.