Citizens / local communities

Doh Eain, which means “Our Home” in the Burmese language, is a community-centred design firm that converts trash alleys in Yangon into gardens, composting stations, street markets, playgrounds, and art galleries, where community members can make memories and positive change.
As Yangon has one of the lowest public space-per-person ratios in South East Asia, Doh Eain saw a role for a social enterprise to preserve and improve heritage and urban landscapes directly with the people and communities who inhabit them. Doh Eain’s vision is to collectively make cities more vibrant, inclusive and sustainable places to live, work, and enjoy by maintaining the city's unique characteristics and creating an urban environment that enables people and society to thrive. Their mission is to preserve heritage, improve public spaces, and organise activities that connect people with places, employing a user-centred and participatory approach. In doing this, they aim to inspire and enable people to participate in reshaping their city while retaining cultural heritage (1).
The Yangon's alley gardens project started when a group of young, local and expatriate residents in Yangon decided to set up a small permaculture garden, however, they could not find a suitable plot of land for it (2). As a consequence they had to change the focus and transplant green pots filled with vegetation and vegetables into the back alleys. The implementer used an innovative technique by using bokashi composting of food waste, with around 80 households signing up to take part in the initiative. (5)
The initiative was quite successful as it helped break the cycle of throwing trash out the window into alleyways and built several elevated garden beds. (6)

Mue Yen Mueng Yen (Cool Hands Cool City) is the name of a green community as well as their first project that aims to plant more trees in Chiangmai city, Thailand. Volunteers of Mue Yen Mueng Yen are concerned about the pollution and extreme climate issues in the city. They gathered around the belief that healthy green space can help mitigate these issues and make their city more livable. (Ref. 1,2,3,4)
The first phase of the Mue Yen Mueng Yen project consists of three main activities. The first one is a tree-planting challenge: when 1 person plants a tree, they challenge 3 other friends to do the same. The second activity is offering 5,000 native saplings to anyone interested in planting trees for free. The third one is to plant 800 trees around the old moat in Chiangmai inner city as a green corridor. (Ref. 1,2,3,4)
Besides this initial project, the Mue Yen Mueng Yen community also works on various environmental projects. For example, spreading the tree-planting challenge to other parts of the country, and organising workshops about tree planting, maintenance techniques, native species and on rice growing (Ref. 6 ).

Wajre Urban Forest is Maharashtra state's first urban forestry project developed on the outskirts of Pune city (1, 2). This project was done in a collaboration involving the public, corporate, NGOs and governmental actors (3). A barren land of 16 hectares, also used as a dump yard by the nearby residents, belonging to the Maharashtra Forest Department, was taken by the TERRE Policy Centre in association with support from TATA Motors and Persistent Foundations as CSR Partners (1,3). The project was targeted to reduce air pollution and provide a site for the recreation and relaxation of urban residents of the city (4).
A total of 9500 plants belonging to 23 indigenous plant species of 6-8 ft were planted (1,2). The plants have now transformed into trees 9-10 feet in height (1, 5). The park also provides the opportunity to engage citizens by the provision of adopting specific plants in your name (5). The park is frequented by morning and evening walkers, with approx. 1000-1500 people per day (1,3).

As part of the Green Pakistan Programme (GPP), the Ministry of Environment of Pakistan initiated a plantation drive on the Margalla Hills, threatened by climate change, droughts, floods and deforestation. Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP) is a national park of Pakistan located in the capital city, Islamabad. It was established in the 1980s with a total area of about 173 square kilometres constituting Margalla Hills, Shakarparian Park, Rawal Lake and the Cultural Complex (2,5). The primary purpose of GPP was to protect the environment and revive forests, as Pakistan is a forest-deficient country having 5.01 per cent of its total area under forest cover. The park is under the supervision of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) which ensures the management, maintenance and preservation of wildlife and other species in the park vicinity. The campaign was set to take place over 5 years between 2017-2022. Furthermore, as part of the same program, an awareness campaign was started to generate knowledge about plants and make Islamabad green and beautiful. Thousands of people visit the national park daily to enjoy the natural environment and healthy recreational facilities and relax by looking at the serene landscape and natural viewpoints of the city visible from the different trails of the park. (1,2,3,4,5)

The project focuses on creating communal vegetable gardens in different barangays (small territorial and administrative districts forming the most local level of government) in Iloilo City. As part of the Plant Plant Plant Program of the Department of Agriculture, the project was initially implemented in 12 districts in the city, to provide jobs, and nutritious food and increase public awareness about food production and security amidst the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Since then, the project has expanded to 44 more districts, and the city has also issued a regulation to institutionalize urban gardening activities in the city. The communal gardens are expected not only to serve as a source of food but also as a source of livelihood to combat the threat of hunger and poverty. Apart from vegetable gardens, the city also looks into introducing integrated farming in which districts can also plant fruit-bearing trees and raise chickens and tilapia and also provides a series of seminars to empower district residents to produce and sell their food. Currently, around 300 hectares in the city are planted with rice and vegetables [1,2,3]

Food safety has come a long way and today it is one of the biggest challenges globally, especially in the developing world. According to the World Bank, Viet Nam is one of the countries prone to food-borne illnesses and food safety is a major concern for the public there (1). Increased droughts, floods and salinization have further enhanced and endangered food supplies. Access to healthy food is not optimal. To solve this issue, some Vietnamese private companies came up with a solution. In 2013, a shoe factory in the city of Dongnai (located around 30 km away from Ho Chi Minh City) established a welfare facility for the factory's employees, called Farming Kindergarten. The building was designed with the idea of serving 700 children of the workers by providing healthy food, as well as environmental education. The design includes a green roof where vegetables are cultivated alongside playgrounds for the children. The roof is designed in such a way that it is the perfect environment where children learn about the importance of agriculture and strengthen their connection with nature (2, 4, 6). The harvests from the garden are distributed to the children's families, contributing to a rather small family budget of Vietnamese workers (the average income of Vietnamese workers is just 180 USD per month) (7).

Rapid urbanization and a steep increase in population determined a loss of open spaces in Dhaka, the capital and the largest city of Bangladesh. To counteract these issues, Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) (one of the two municipal corporations in Dhaka, a governmental unit responsible for administering and providing basic infrastructure to the city) has implemented the Green Dhaka Campaign. One of the initiatives under the Green Dhaka Campaign is the renovation of Justice Shahabuddin Park, located in a dense area of Dhaka. (1, 6)
The intervention was initiated in 2017 and consisted of revamping the park by revitalizing the existing pond, planting new trees, and providing amenities for the people living in the neighbourhood where the park is located. The design decisions were taken by prioritising the opinions of different user groups and in consultation with naturalists. The idea of the 9-acre park was to create a safe, "inclusive and accessible public space for all inhabitants, free of crime and violence". (2)
The renovation also consisted in retaining the majority of trees present in the park, as they offered a variety of species such as medicinal trees, fruit trees, and floral trees. This helped with preserving the biodiversity of the space as well as a healthy environment, lauded by the majority of visitors, making the park a favourite of the locals. Three distinct lanes are also made available in the park for jogging, walking, and cycling. (1,2,3,4)

In 2016 the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), one of the municipal local government authorities of Dhaka initiated a plan to revitalise 19 of the city’s parks and 12 playgrounds. One of them is Rasulbag Shishu Park, previously a derelict area surrounded by residential tower blocks, tiny shops and street market stalls. Besides reconditioning a derelict area, DSCC considered it of utmost importance to address some environmental and planning aspects. One of them is the fact that Dhaka is located in a region severely exposed to flooding during the rainy seasons. Poor planning of the city, with narrow alleyways, which have no proper drainage, contributes greatly to transforming streets into rivers. As such, in 2018 DSCC started redesigning the area, counting on a participatory approach throughout the community. No trees were taken down throughout the entire process; all other already-existing trees in the park were included in the design. Most of the native shrubs and trees make up the rows of orchards that line the park's perimeter, disguising its crumbling walls and softly merging them into its surroundings. To establish an environmentally friendly and aesthetically beautiful boundary, various plants, including flowers and fruit trees, have been planted around the park's furthest edges. It was expected that the intervention would revitalize a sense of community in an already failed public space. (Ref 1, 2, 6)

The International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) Myanmar and its local collaborative organizations developed a community garden at Inn Dein village to ensure access to diverse and safe food amidst the current internal crisis in Myanmar. The community garden is a part of the wider research project “Climate-smart villages as platforms for resilience building, women empowerment, equity, and sustainable food systems”, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The expected outcomes are to benefit over 4,200 internally displaced persons (IDP) (due to COVID-19 and internal conflict) in Inn Dein and the Yangon Monastery Camp in Nyaungshwe. The community garden was established in the close vicinity of the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp. The garden area is about 1.5 acres and rented for three seasons from the owner. Saplings were supplied for agroforestry purposes and a community support fund has also been provided for income generation and livelihood activities. Sprinkler irrigation has been installed to cover the whole land area, and 20 types of crops, including several legumes crops and vegetables such as mustard, radish, carrot, coriander, okras, eggplant and pumpkin are being cultivated. This project is particularly important in the current situation "[because of the lack of opportunities to direct support to IDP camps and the risky situation in food supplies, access to food and nutrition for IDPs is critically important." This project benefits both addressing food insecurity and increasing green space in the neighbourhood of the IDP camps. (Ref 1).

In Senegal, urban flooding in the rainy season causes major damage to public and private infrastructure, and poses considerable social, economic and health-related risks to the human population, in particular the poorest. Poor drainage systems mean that rainwater floods the whole neighbourhood, paralysing transport, and economic activities and posing health and safety risks due to stagnation and contamination (e.g. increase in water-borne diseases). To respond to such emergencies, in 2015 several stakeholders (Senegalese government, local authorities in Dakar and the local community) initiated a project that aimed to build resilience to flooding in informal settlements of Dakar. The project consisted of building resilience to floods by focusing on 3 fields: 1) infrastructure (floodwater evacuation, solid waste management, urban gardening and greening); 2) policy (district flood contingency plans and national policy advice); and 3) capacity building (training and awareness building for beneficiaries and key stakeholders, with a special focus on empowering women). The project was concluded in 2017 however its benefits are still felt today by the inhabitants of Greater Dakar. (1,2,3)