As a step to reduce the impact of climate change and improve the quality of life in the city, the City of Brno has agreed to participate in a state-subsidized guerilla gardening project. The city will allocate unused plots and land owned by the city to residents to use freely for their own gardening purposes. Photo credit: Freepik / For illustrative purposes.
Brno, Jun 12 (BD) – Brno City Council has agreed to apply to participate in the ‘Guerilla Gardening’ project announced by the Ministry of Finance. The project should help reduce the impact of climate change and improve the quality of life in cities, by encouraging the short-term planting of green space in currently unused plots, either for productive or aesthetic purposes.
The project differs from the traditional ‘guerilla gardening’ movement, in which gardeners cultivate land that they do not have the legal rights to, such as abandoned or neglected sites, areas that are not being maintained, or private property. Instead, residents will be able to use unmaintained and unused land owned by the city of Brno, which the city will hand over to those willing to participate via a map application. “Residents will thus have the opportunity to actively participate in the formation of the city, and to use the land to grow crops for their own consumption,” said First Deputy Mayor Petr Hladík (KDU-ČSL).
The project will be implemented by Mendel University, in cooperation with the city of Brno. The estimated total budget for the three-year project is CZK 7 million, which will be funded by the Applied Research Program of the Ministry of Agriculture. CZK 1.5 million of the budget will be made available to the city to cover staff salaries, application development, and the necessary technical equipment. The remaining CZK 5.5 million will be used by Mendel University, mainly for soil analysis of selected plots.
