Communitary herbarium, a way to disclose the natural heritage by involving the local inhabitants
The project aims to deepen knowledge and disclose the natural heritage of the Azores by building an herbarium with the local community. Participants are involved in naturalistic observation, drawing and field work, promoting a reconnection with nature through this process. In this way, they can establish an emotional relationship with the territory linked to their life experiences. This results in an acknowledgment of our interdependence with the natural world allowing the adoption of new habits
Local
Portugal
The Municipality of Nordeste, in the Autonomous Region of the Azores was involved in the project.
Mainly rural
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2021-12-31
As an individual
First name: Bruno Last name: Márquez Gender: Male Nationality: Chile Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Estrada regional 5A Town: Vila de Nordeste Postal code: 9630-161 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 912 229 303 E-mail:bruno.marambio@gmail.com
The project developed deepened the knowledge about the native and endemic flora of the Azores, as a way to access and disclose the natural heritage of the archipelago. In this way, an herbarium was made together with the community, through naturalist observation, field work, drawing and collecting plants, as a way to build knowledge from their own experience and relationship with the territory. An herbarium is a collection of dried, preserved and identified plants or plant parts, accompanied by information such as the identity of the collector, the place, the date of collection, etc. These are classified and used as material for the study of botanic, research and environmental education. The particularity of this initiative is that knowledge is not only elaborated by scientists or specialists, but also, it was intended to involve the community as part of the process, making them authors of works of art and creators of knowledge together from the activities developed. This increases sensitivity and knowledge of nature, creating a sense of belonging for the inhabitants with their heritage, of which they are participants as they observe and organize their space and create relationships with their territory.
The participants collected more than 100 specimens of 31 different species. At times they have remembered their contact with them and traditional uses in the past, creating new memories from their own experience and this new way of looking at and reconnecting with nature. Besides the product of the herbarium, it is important to point out that the implementation of the process was fundamental, because it was developed together with the community and had an important effect on the final result. In order to increase the impact of the project, an exhibition was held to allow the rest of the community to access the knowledge developed through the herbarium. This exhibition proposes a new look from aesthetics to re-signify and revalue the relationship with nature.
Herbarium
Naturalist
Endemic flora
Community
Involvement
The project was aware of the need for sustainability. In all the process the project put attention to reduce its ecological footprint and reutilize the material as much as possible, always trying to use biodegradable or recyclable materials.
For the curatorial process of the plants. With the idea of reduce the generation of waste, old newspaper was used instead of buying special papers. The selection of the materials used considered their environmental impact, prioritizing the use of locally produced wood (Cryptomeria japonica), thus reducing the ecological footprint. In addition, in the creative process of the structures and supports for the exhibition, the design sought to minimize waste of this material.
The main objective of the project is to reconnect the local population with the native species of the Azores. These species are seriously threatened by the presence of exotic and invasive species that are often more familiar to the locals themselves. Therefore, by bringing the community closer to these native species, we promote awareness of the importance of conservation of severely vulnerable habitats and biodiversity in general.
The transfer of the exhibit to a local entity (Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds) allows it to expand his impact beyond the local context in which it was built, extending it to the rest of the community of the island of São Miguel and the Azores and extending it over time.
The project seeks to generate an herbarium through naturalistic field work. The aesthetic in the way the plants were displayed in the exhibition helps to understand the content from the point of view of beauty. In this way, the plants are transformed into works of art. The composition in the exhibition space, allow us to observe the details and compare them. Therefore, have a better understanding of them and discover the unique beauty of each species.
The exhibition is not only the result of a work, but also includes the process as an important part of the project. Direct contact with the territory was fundamental in the individual and collective experience.
To include it, the exhibition has a selection of photographs and drawings that reflect part of the work done by the community, where smiles are part of new narratives of the relationship with biodiversity and the drawings are a conscious way to bring and represent this re-signification of the relationship with nature. In addition, the link between rigor and aesthetic care allows the samples to fulfill a functionality as material for the disclose of natural heritage, environmental education and botanical study by academics and researchers.
The project seeks to highlight the importance in the process of reconnecting with nature by proposing four outings with community participants. These activities consisted of naturalistic observation while plant samples were collected and drawings were made. As a way of democratizing knowledge and scientific participation, the participants themselves were responsible for the collection and preparation of the samples that constitute the herbarium. In fact, the name of each participant who collected a plant is included in the record of each specimen.
The project included different age groups, with the participation of two groups of senior citizens. This was very significant because this is a group that generally has few opportunities to carry out activities, little considered in environmental education, and at the same time with a great potential because they have a childhood experience related to many of these species. Their participation allowed an exchange of information between the traditional uses of these plants and current scientific knowledge that contributed to enrich the final result of the project. For example, the common names compared to the scientific names, the location where they used to find the plants and the now lost uses themselves, plants for food, tool making, etc.
The citizens where part of the project in four activities with open inscription. The objective was to include the local community in the process of construction of the herbarium. One objective of the project was to involve the participants in the process of making an herbarium, as a way to deepen, reconnect and revalue the natural heritage of the Azores. They were given basic tools for understanding the laurel forest, its importance and why we must protect it. The participants contributed directly to the final exhibition through the collection of plants and drawings made during the activities, so they are co-creators of the project.
The active participation of the community allowed the enrichment of the project and directly influenced the final design of the exhibition. The experience of the field work allowed the participant to add a special value to the drawings and the stories told, which later, were captured and showed in the exhibition.
The need to include the process meant to give a face to the creators of the herbarium, so photographs of the activities were included.
These, in addition of showing the result to the authors of the collected pieces, allow us to appreciate how this experience was transformative in the way they perceive and inhabit nature.
For their part, the drawings reflect a capacity for synthesis to represent and capture on paper a word, an emotion, a poem, a plant, an experience.
In this way, the project became something more than an herbarium, a meaningful experience for the inhabitants that is transmitted to all those who visit the exhibition. It generates awareness in the community and allows the elderly to have a space in environmental education. In this way, the inhabitants are empowered so that they can access knowledge of their natural heritage and value it, showing that it is possible to create new and beautiful initiatives that are also inclusive and respectful with the environment.
In a local level, the “Câmara Municipal de Nordeste” through a senior citizen program they organize the contact with the participants, helping with the transportation and a space for the exhibition. The main value of this collaboration was the possibility to make public the project within the community of the local area. This, allowed us to get the people more involved in the activities and gain visibility.
In parallel, « Serviços Florestais de Nordeste » put to our disposition another space for he exhibition. For them, this project is interesting due of the relation with the community and the use of wood as a natural resource incorporated in the construction of the structures.
Another stakeholder of the project was “Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves” who helped with the disposition of spaces, transportation, publicity and a space for the exhibition in “Centro Ambiental do Priolo”. Being an organization that works directly with the environment, the exchange of ideas was essential in order to obtain better results. In addition to being the ones who, once the project was finished, maintained the herbarium to manage it and be able to use it as exhibition, dissemination and environmental education.
In a regional level, two entities were engaged in the project:
“Azores2027” the application of Ponta Delgada to the European Capital of Culture with the support of the Government of the Azores in an inclusive and collaborative project. “CRESAÇOR” the Regional Cooperative of Solitarity Economy and his goal is to promote the solidarity economy and local and community development in the Azores. CERSAÇOR financed the project and Azores2027 was the promoter who helped to make it visible to a European scale through they social medias. This was a fundamental step to reach a larger impact of the products and the results of the project. Placing the herbarium as an articulative example of social inclusion, aesthetic and sustainability.
The bases of this project were completely transdisciplinary because it intends to explore the disciplinary frontiers through the exchange of dialogues, knowledge and experiences.
Architecture is based on the organization of space and the relationships that occur in it. Inhabiting the territory is used as a tool to generate a link of reconnection with nature and to add a sense of aesthetics and attention for beauty in the entire project.
This is incorporating the artistic and design vision, together with the knowledge of carpentry on the construction of structures and the exhibition. In addition, the methodology, schedule and logistics of the project were elaborated from the knowledge that an architect applies in the elaboration of an architecture and construction project.
On the other hand, knowledge of biology and botany were essential for the project in the identification of species and the development and curatorship of an herbarium.
These disciplines are approached from a naturalist vision of registration and direct contact with nature. In addition to these two disciplines strongly present in the project and their associated knowledge, the creation of social relationships was essential to generate a relation with the participants, so that they could get involved with the explanations, motivated to participate and establish real contact with nature in order to access both knowledge and empirical experience.
The direct positive impact was the participation of the 39 volunteers who collaborated and carried out the field work. This because in the project was fundamental to carry out a process for the co-creation of the herbarium. The particularity of this initiative lies in the fact that the knowledge was not only elaborated by scientists or specialists, but on the contrary, it sought to involve the community as part of this process, transforming them into authors and creators of the knowledge as a whole from the activities developed. This participation allowed the volunteers to have access to first source knowledge, in contact with nature, sharing the technical/scientific dimensions with the popular wisdom and many years of experience of the elderly participants.
The result of the work of the participants was the exhibition, with which it manages to recover and revalue the natural heritage of the archipelago, often hidden by other more striking exotic plants, but which are not part of the ecosystemic dynamics of the islands. This exhibition also allows the rest of the community to have access to the knowledge elaborated through the herbarium, proposing a new look from the aesthetics to re-signify and re-value the relationship with nature.
The project generated a positive impact sensitizing the community of the importance in the ecosystem services and why we have to take care of them. This is directly related with the category of application because the project search to reconnect the community with the nature complementing the experience of inhabitant the territory and the scientific knowledge, in a direct and indirect form to the participants and the rest of the community present in the exhibition.
To see more details, in PDF Communitary Herbarium the project is presented. And the other PDF is a chapter of book about the importance of transdisciplinarity and doing Herbarium for an architect published in Lisbon Architecture Triennial
This is not an environmental education project, nor is it a research project, and it is not exclusively an artistic exhibition, but at the same time it is all three. This union seeks to generate knowledge, disclose it, and at the same time include the community in a process that allows its reconnection with nature through a direct experience with the territory.
The particularity of this project is that it joins the philosophy of doing with the methodology to generate a proposal to involve the community in a co-participatory and co-creative process of discovery of the native and endemic flora.
It is also innovative to have worked with senior citizens because they are people who have experience with the plants of the archipelago, when these projects are usually carried out with children. In this case, in addition to generating new experiences, it opens the possibility of re-signifying past experiences. As an example, one of the participants told us that when she was young she was never interested in plants, they had no value for her, and she regretted not having discovered them earlier, but at the same time she was grateful that this experience had allowed her to rediscover the beauty and importance of these native species.
Many entities develop environmental education and/or nature conservation projects, aiming to sensitize communities on the importance of preserving the various ecosystems. This proposal can mark a line of work in the path of reconnecting human beings with their existence as a species within the diverse ecosystems of the planet. This is done on the one hand, through direct contact, observation and staying in the territory that allows the collection activity. And on the other hand, the care for aesthetics and the transformation of this material into a work of art reinforces the value of the experience itself, and allows it to be transmitted to a wider group of people.
In this way, the field work and the contact with the territory transforms into fundamental tools to collect information through the register and the empiric experience. So then, incorporate these dynamics and information in the different creative process, having a great replicability in different contexts.
The great potential that this project has is that it can be replicated in whole or in part in multiple contexts, generating initiatives that take advantage of this philosophy and methodology. Proposing new projects that involve the community actively in the process of conservation and research of biodiversity, along with the artistic/creative process of building a final product that puts these elements in value. For example, from this project other collaborators are currently thinking of making a replica for the LIFE Ilhas Barreira project, but it could also be rethought using other groups of species such as insects, or other types of naturalistic observation activities through drawing and/or photography. Thus, this methodology of contacting the territory, used for investigation or/and artistic creations, can be replied in other various group of people, context and possible products because these three elements (community, environment, artistic creation based in experience) are always present.
The loss of biodiversity has accelerated in recent years, through habitat degradation and overexploitation of the territory. This is a global problem that is accelerated by the disconnection of human beings with nature. We are increasingly an urban society that is dependent on technology and has forgotten our inter-dependence with the rest of the living beings that make up the planet. This exhibition aims to encourage this reconnection by recovering the awareness that we are one more species, and therefore dependent on the balance of ecosystems. Raising awareness about ecosystem services and the importance of their conservation allows us to reintroduce dynamics of connection with nature through citizen science activities, environmental observation and field work. Here, the proposal sought to access knowledge about biodiversity while enjoying nature with respect and care for its preservation trough creative and artistic works.
