The Importance of Urban Green Spaces

Green space are defined as "places where there is contact with nature, a place of visual variety and place where children can learn about nature"

This spaces are considered as desirable assets for cities and an important part of the urban environment. The management of open spaces plays an integral part in the sustainability of the urban environment. Parks and other green amenities are often valued as physical settings of the city thus they contribute much to the quality of life and to the sense of well being of urban dwellers. The benefits offered by open spaces range from aesthetically, recreational to ecological. The management of green spaces therefore ensures the availability of clean air around the city through filtering of pollutants produced in large economic activities in the city. 

The importance and value of urban green spaces (more especially the parks and gardens) has been long debated. However, this topic seems to be more important now than ever, thus many cities recognize the importance of urban green spaces to enhance the image of their cities. Large world cities has the oldest parks in the world, for instance; the Green Park of New York, Royal Park of London, Red Square of Russia and Boston Park of Boston; America. 

I therefore encourage young cities to consider the provision and protection of these spaces within their towns, thus it is a goal for each city to achieve sustainability. A sustainable city is described as one that contains the integration of the three main urban environments, mainly the physical, economic and social environment and thus benefits offered by Urban space cannot be ignored.

Web2.0 UNIT2: Social Media Tools and Services

1. Group Productivity and Collaboration Tools
This lesson was quiet interesting, I must say. We have been introduced to various social media tools and services, and a variety of situations in which they are applied and also he role of provisioning web technology for yourself and your organization.

 2. Technology Stewardship
This lesson describes  the role of provisioning web technology for yourself and your organization. It also provide guidance on how to identify appropriate web based or self-hosted applications and on how to set up them and support their use by others. I was also impressed with the new way how to identify appropriate web based or self-hosted applications.

3. Content aggregation, curation and  syndication
This lesson taught met an easy strategy for distributing, receiving and reviewing information in a more efficient way, without visiting each Web site individually on a regular basis. I learned that, instead of constantly visiting a website to check for updates, you can actually subscribe to a content feed and get the new content delivered to their computer at the time of publication.

3. Tagging and Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking and tagging was one other interesting topic which I learned. I normally had problems when searching for information but from this course I learned the easiest way which is "tagging" by associating the item you are searching with key words that describe the content and is much faster. there are many ways of tagging which one can use. You can also bookmark your favorite pages so that you can read them later at your own time.

 4. Blogging and Micro blogging
This lesson is one that meet my expectations from this workshop, i always wanted to know how to do blogging and I am happy to say that I finally open up my blog page where i can share my thoughts and views. I was also having few problems using micro blogger such as twitter, but now I can use twitter effectively.


5.Online video and image sharing

Audiovisual is one of the powerful way of communicating, thus it can go beyond literacy and linguistic barriers. This lesson introduces us to the basic concepts related to producing, uploading and sharing digital video and photography on the web.


6. Pod casting and Online radio
Lastly, I have also learned an interesting topic "pod-casting" which is a form of distributing audio files over the Internet. this allows users to access them by subscribing and downloading them. this is a very interesting way of sharing information (in video and audio formats). the online radio on the other-hand has outweighed  the old radio system thus you can listen to it anytime, any where you are and it is much faster.



Once again, Thank you very much CTA, indeed Web2.0 is a catalyst for Development especially in Africa

Web2.0: Lesson 1: Social media for Development

1. Introduction to Web 2.0 and Social Media
Under this topic I was introduced to the definition of web2.0 which refers to the "interactive web-based services that help people share information and collaborate online more easily than with earlier tools" In principles, web2.0 allows people to communicate,collaborate and create a network, emphasizing "Collective intelligence" 

2.Social Networking Sites and Communities
Under this lesson I have learned a lot about social networking and how it is important in the organization. As a consultant I am very much pleased to learn new ways of communicating to my colleagues and also how to connect to people with common interest. This is very important to the growth of my organization thus we are able to share lessons learned with people in different countries as well as to share new business strategies.

3. Privacy, Intellectual Property and Access to Social Media
From this lesson I was made aware of social media privacy, security and intellectual property issues; as well as understanding the implications of access inequality.I also learned that, while social media has a potential to reach  out to such large and diverse audiences it has both benefits and challenges which need to be considered in social media strategy. I was also informed that when you are sharing your information, you can also decides on who should see your posts, who control the data, who owns it etc and this is called "privacy"

4. Current Issues and New Ideas
Under this lesson I came to a realization that Social Media is evolving and thus there is change in the way information are shared, new ways of communicating etc. This also brings along new communication devices and that we must always consider the emerging technologies.

INDIGENOUS vs EXOTIC PLANTS IN NAMIBIA

There is a gap of knowledge when comes to selecting indigenous trees compare to the exotic trees for urban greening. This is is a grave concern because Namibia is a driest country and thus water is a very scare commodity.Big towns like the City of Windhoek, Swakopmund, Walvis Bay and others do recognize the importance of trees within the urban areas, they are usually faced with a challenge of increased water bills resulted from watering of trees, shrubs etc. In most cases this leads to some gardens to be abandoned for sometimes in order to recover such debts. This to me is not a smart solution and certainly not a solution anyone is looking for. The problem with increased water bills is actually a direct result of planting EXOTIC PLANTS over INDIGENOUS. this is particularly a case because exotic plants requires more water to grow compare to the indigenous plants.

Some people argue that they prefer exotic plants because they look more attractive, produce nice flowers, nice shades than the indigenous. This to me is a false believe because, I have toured the country enough to see nice indigenous trees, with nice shapes and  flowers within our forests. I would like to see more nurseries propagating our indigenous plants. The Government, and particularly the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry play a pivotal role in this by reducing the imports of flowers/plants from other countries like South Africa. Moreover, MAWF should stock up their nurseries with all kid of indigenous plants and also start promoting the use of indigenous trees in landscaping and gardening. This will help to reduce water usage while at the same time encouraging towns to start looking after their landscapes. Generally, apart from providing shades, the presence of trees in urban areas have many benefits such as regulating air quality, reduce energy consumption, conservation of biodiversity within cities, reduce pollutants, supplying us with fresh air (oxygen) and many more. 

                                                             Acacia erioroba     
                                                                                                                               

 

  Jakarada