Distance Learning Amenity Horticulture Course
"This course provides a more in-depth look at factors impacting on amenity horticulture".
CONTENTS
There are 7 lessons in this module as follows:
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Adapting Amenity Horticulture to Changing needs
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Macro Panning for Amenity Land Provision
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Resources and Information.
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Environmental impacts
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Economic Impacts
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Community Involvement
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Developing a Management Plan
Aims
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Identify optional management approaches for amenity horticulture sites.
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Determine varying features of optional management approaches for amenity horticulture sites.
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Explain planning concepts and processes used for provision of amenity land.
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Identify and describe up to date information sources relating to changing influences on the amenity industry
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Explain current social environmental issues as they evolve in a changing political climate, for example community involvement, sustainability, public/private partnerships
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Explain current economic issues as they evolve in a changing political climate, for example community involvement, sustainability, public/private partnerships
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Describe Methods of community involvement from user surveys and consultation exercises through to physical involvement using volunteer groups.
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Explain the relationship between the amenity industry, government policies and communities.
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Critically evaluate the means by which the community can be engaged with the amenity industry.
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Determine the impact of community policies on local strategies
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Determine relevant issues (social, political, economic and environmental) that relate to management of amenity sites.
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Develop an appropriate management plan for an amenity site.
Scope of this Course
What Is An Amenity Horticulture Site?
An amenity horticulture site can be defined as ‘Land primarily used for recreation, pleasure, visual enhancement or environmental protection or improvement rather than for the production of economic crops’. Under this definition, there is a very broad spectrum of land uses for amenity horticulture sites, and no one management strategy can be applied to all types of amenity horticulture pursuits.
An amenity site is any land dedicated to any of the functions below, alone or combined:
Amenity horticulture can include natural parks, as they need some degree of plant and vegetation management, and also nurseries where plants are grown to be used in landscaping. It includes city parks, green belts and road landscaping. Broadly it includes all types of activities relating to landscaping.
Care should be taken not to confuse an Amenity Horticultural Site and ‘Civic Amenity Site’. The latter refers in the UK to council recycling facilities where skips, containers and sheds are located for residents to deposit their recyclable wastes.
Some sites are managed intensively, like nurseries, historical gardens and recycling sites; others require less input, for example, road landscaping and natural park management.
Challenges to the Amenity Horticulture Industry
The amenity horticulture industry has evolved with the use of landscapes by humans. In this respect the amenity industry is as old as humans, since when we started living in organised communities, decisions were made in respect to the location of dwellings, foraging and hunting areas, and other areas of community life. The larger the community, the more complex landscape planning that evolved.
Nowadays the amenity industry faces political, social, economic and environmental challenges:
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Political: Policies decided by different groups define the landscape, be it urban or rural. They can be out of consent, or imposed. They can be of local scope, or international. In general the tendency now is to have consensus though, as democratic values are promoted as a valuable political regime in many countries of the world and globalisation becomes increasingly dominant. Fortunately, with those also come sustainability principles which promote community participation.
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Social: Demographics are a key factor in changing the landscape. In many areas population pressure is impacting negatively on amenity sites, while in other areas population growth has meant that poorly managed areas receive sufficient funding to be properly managed. One of the latest social trends affecting the amenity industry is the greater community involvement in the management of public land.
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Economic: Funding is crucial for any amenity site to survive, be it urban or rural, private or public. Funding can be done by making some profit from the area visitors or, as in the case of public funding, through allocating tax funds to an area annually. There are mixed solutions, where private amenity sites are economically supported at a certain percentage, and where public sites are supported through private donations.
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Environmental: Pollution, population pressure, erosion, climate change, loss of diversity and invasion by exotic species are just some of the factors affecting amenity horticulture sites throughout the world.
Management of Horticultural Amenity Sites
Who manages amenity horticulture sites? These days many different professions are involved in the management of natural and designed landscapes, including architects, town planners, engineers, landscape architects, environmental scientists, sport and recreation specialists, botanists, biologists, horticulturists and agronomists. Depending on the size and nature of the site, and the inputs required to manage that site, people from these (and possibly other) professions might be employed as specialist consultants, as site managers or as team leaders.
One important trend in the management of amenity horticulture sites is that issues are no longer confined to financial and personnel management, but also to social, environmental and cultural aspects which have to be taken into account to make decisions. This is now named as ‘sustainability’ and ‘social responsibility’.
The management of a horticultural site typically includes the following tasks:
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Defining a mission, vision, goals and activities planning
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Ensuring that the above are reached or planned within a specified timeframe
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Managing budgets
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Managing human resources
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Managing material resources
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Managing natural resources
More Information on ACS Distance Education and our courses
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Study at Home Amenity Horticulture Course
"This course provides a more in-depth look at factors impacting on amenity horticulture".
Learn more on planning within amenity horticulture sites.
Identify concerns and consider responses.
Develop amenity sites for recreation, pleasure, visual enhancement and environmental improvement.
Prerequisite : You must complete Amenity Horticulture I before attempting this course.
