Coping with Extreme Circumstances
Through Community-Led Local Nature
Interventions: A Science-Based Policy
Analysis
Diana Benjumea and Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo
1 Key Messages
1. Community-led local nature interventions are coping strategies to extreme events
created by low-income communities to help them sustain their health and
wellbeing.
2. Nature interaction and community activism enact feelings of stewardship and
leadership in the communities that lead to nature preservation.
3. Local nature intervention projects led by low-income communities are part of a
secondary green network that could be acknowledged as part of the main city’s
urban green infrastructure.
4. More quality research is needed to understand the social dynamics that led to the
creation of local nature intervention projects and their impact on the health and
wellbeing of the communities.
2 Community-Led Local Nature Interventions
Over the last decade, the city of Medellin, Colombia has implemented diverse
programmes to promote urban resilience and eco-urbanism within its most vulnerable
communities. From 2007, the local government launched the mega-plan—known
locally as the “Plan Maestro Area Centroriental”—to recover public spaces at the
city’s peripheral border and control the proliferation of illegal settlements found
D. Benjumea (B)
Thammasat University, Khlong Nueng, Thailand
e-mail: d.benjumea@neurolandscape.org
A. Olszewska-Guizzo
National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: a.o.guizzo@neurolandscape.org
© Zhejiang University Press 2021
F. W. Gatzweiler, Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme,
Urban Health and Wellbeing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6036-5_10
57
Through Community-Led Local Nature
Interventions: A Science-Based Policy
Analysis
Diana Benjumea and Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo
1 Key Messages
1. Community-led local nature interventions are coping strategies to extreme events
created by low-income communities to help them sustain their health and
wellbeing.
2. Nature interaction and community activism enact feelings of stewardship and
leadership in the communities that lead to nature preservation.
3. Local nature intervention projects led by low-income communities are part of a
secondary green network that could be acknowledged as part of the main city’s
urban green infrastructure.
4. More quality research is needed to understand the social dynamics that led to the
creation of local nature intervention projects and their impact on the health and
wellbeing of the communities.
2 Community-Led Local Nature Interventions
Over the last decade, the city of Medellin, Colombia has implemented diverse
programmes to promote urban resilience and eco-urbanism within its most vulnerable
communities. From 2007, the local government launched the mega-plan—known
locally as the “Plan Maestro Area Centroriental”—to recover public spaces at the
city’s peripheral border and control the proliferation of illegal settlements found
D. Benjumea (B)
Thammasat University, Khlong Nueng, Thailand
e-mail: d.benjumea@neurolandscape.org
A. Olszewska-Guizzo
National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: a.o.guizzo@neurolandscape.org
© Zhejiang University Press 2021
F. W. Gatzweiler, Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme,
Urban Health and Wellbeing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6036-5_10
57