Urban foraging is gaining prominence as a means to interact with urban green spaces, in addition to being crucial in ensuring nutritional security for underserved communities.

As published in Mongabay India on 26 January, 2023.

Kush Sethi does not remember the day, but he remembers the exact moment when he started paying attention to urban weeds. While following a Bengaluru-based volunteer group on Facebook that worked to clean public spaces, Sethi noticed one vital component missing in the ‘after’ clean-up pictures. Along with removing garbage/debris and painting the walls, the cleanliness drive also involved removing small green patches that adorned the pavements and the roadsides. When Sethi left a comment asking about the plants, he got the response that these weeds became catalysts for further littering, and therefore needed to be cleared out.

Today, Sethi is an educator, ecological gardener, entrepreneur and forager based in Delhi who raises awareness about urban flora. Through nature walks, he is trying to get city dwellers to notice the greenery around them and value plants beyond their recreational benefits. And one way he does this is by introducing them to urban foraging, which is the harvesting of plants, fruits, fungi, herbs and other produce, from formal and informal urban greenspaces such as parks, lakes, unused lands, roadsides and other public areas.

The recent interest in urban foraging stems from a burgeoning interest in urban ecology, according to Seema Mundoli, faculty at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Nature-based solutions for urban ecosystems and the role of nature in cities are some of her areas of interest. “As the interaction between people and nature in cities has increasingly come into focus, foraging becomes one of the ways to understand these transactions,” she added.

The pandemic has elevated interest in urban green spaces, with people observing their immediate surroundings more keenly. “I remember observing pumpkin flowers near my house one day, and they would disappear the next day. I later learned from my domestic help that she would pluck them and use them in her cooking,” said Mundoli.

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