Desafios para a implementação de hortas urbanas comunitárias em Natal/RN: perspectivas e diretrizes

Abstract

The community gardens are directly related to the concepts of sustainable cities, participation and social cohesion and can help promoting urban quality of life and to strength democracy. For this reason, many cities have adopted or tried to implement community gardens. The aim of this paper is to draw guidelines to the implementation of community gardens in Natal in such a way that they can be functional in social, environmental, political-administrative and economical aspects. To reach this purpose, different aspects related to the community gardens are discussed, especially regarding to their planning, physical characteristics and social dimension. Three representative situations related to the theme are analyses in this paper, to comprehend Natal’s situation: Gramorezinho, the attempt to implement a community garden at Garotinho da Copa’s square and the educational community garden at Escola Estadual Aldo Fernandes. The expectation for this paper is that it can contribute to discussions regarding the presented topics in Natal and that it can inspire new scientific studies about the theme.