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The Embassy at Work

SAVE Water by Designing a Park:
Competition Gets Cypriots Involved in Water-wise Landscaping

April 1, 2009

 

Through a partnership with a local community, several garden centers, and other businesses, the water-wise landscape design competition will raise overall awareness of xeriscaping
Through a partnership with a local community, several garden centers, and other businesses, the water-wise landscape design competition will raise overall awareness of xeriscaping

The USAID-funded Supporting Activities that Value the Environment (SAVE) project has launched a park design competition to help motivate Cypriots to adopt water-wise landscaping techniques and to demonstrate how community action can result in environmentally responsible practices…and a beautiful park! Given the island’s meager and dwindling water resources, every effort to save water contributes to ensuring the proper management of this critical resource.

 

Through a partnership with a local community, several garden centers, and other businesses, the water-wise landscape design competition will raise overall awareness of xeriscaping—an approach to gardening that reduces or eliminates the need for supplemental irrigation. At the same time, the park that will be created will serve as a tangible demonstration of how using plants acclimatized to the arid climate of the Mediterranean need not compromise garden aesthetics.

 

Contestants will be asked to create a complete park design for a 300 square meter site. The winner will earn a monetary prize and see their idea brought to life as a model ‘eco-park’
Contestants will be asked to create a complete park design for a 300 square meter site. The winner will earn a monetary prize and see their idea brought to life as a model ‘eco-park’

Contestants will be asked to create a complete park design for a 300 square meter site. The winner will earn a monetary prize and see their idea brought to life as a model ‘eco-park’. Apart from soliciting designs from budding landscape architects and other home-gardening enthusiasts, this park project has mobilized the community in which the park will be located and several local firms around the issue of water conservation. The community will undertake the park’s maintenance and upkeep, while local businesses are donating the plants, trees, mulch and a water tank.

 

This campaign is part of SAVE’s work to build local capacity to better protect and manage Cyprus’ valuable natural and cultural resources. Like all U.S.-funded programs in Cyprus, SAVE is aimed at facilitating reunification of the island, including through better protection and management of the island’s natural and cultural resources.

 

Read the competition announcement [pdf 125kb]