HANDS ON THE LOCAL GREEN: COMMUNITY-BASED PROJECTS OF GREEN SPACE CO-DESIGN IN SLOVAKIA

Abstract

In recent years, we have experienced an increase in volunteering actions in Slovakia, accompanied by investments into climate change mitigation measures. Green spaces provide the public with the opportunity to take on an active role in the climate action as one of the UN sustainable development goals. However, unprofessional interventions often have negative consequences, for instance we can observe how trees that were planted in good will by enthusiastic residents during Socialism, need to be felled these days, because they were planted too close to the building facades. Therefore, it is very important that enthusiastic activism has professional support and/or leadership. Recently, there have been several voluntary actions coordinated by landscape architects or other professionals. In this paper we will present these good practices by the example of three selected initiatives - 1) Park rodín Tvrdošovce (Park of Families, ViZia civic assoc.); 2) Zelený plán Galanta (Green Plan, civic association), and 3) Strom darom Nové Zámky (Tree as a Gift, ETC, civic assoc.). The study will provide a comparative analysis and evaluation of these three voluntary actions, with a particular focus on their commonalities and differences, in the context of citizen engagement, co-design and shared residential active recreation experience.