Guidelinesforstrategicenvironmentalplanningand.docVIP

Guidelines for strategic environmental planning and management of the peri-urban interface by Peri-urban Research Project Team Development Planning Unit (DPU) University College London Submitted to the RUAF Workshop on Appropriate Methodologies for Urban Agriculture Research, Policy, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation Nairobi, October 2001 Introduction For centuries, urban and peri-urban farming has provided important sustenance to city dwellers. Locally produced food and raw materials have historically been more accessible than exotic products to all but the wealthier of city residents. And although there is evidence from around the world that agriculture in and around some cities continues to thrive, a more abundant body of evidence seems to point to a rapid reduction in peri-urban land suitable to agriculture, particularly in situations of rapid urban growth and in areas where the by-products of that growth effectively reduce the availability of land for farming. In the richer city regions, the rapid emergence of industrial estates and storage facilities, leisure complexes, low-density residential developments and highly-intensive farming pose a threat to traditional peri-urban agriculture, whilst in poorer contexts, deforestation, over-grazing and over-farming, pollution, poor infrastructure and land speculation, are some of the factors which limit the development of peri-urban agriculture. Interventions aimed at supporting peri-urban farming must take these and other complex realities into account. In particular, the traditional separation between urban and rural authorities makes any intervention difficult, and peri-urban areas and their inhabitants tend to fall victim of an institutional void. This separation, and the consequent failure of conventional top-down approaches to the planning of peri-urban areas, have led to calls for more participatory approaches to planning. And because of the important natural resource component present in peri-urban