Use of public urban green spaces for spiritual services in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Urban green spaces provide an array of ecosystem services. Spiritual services provided by urban green spaces are widely used, but are often overlooked and rarely quantified. These services are accessed at sites of specific religious or sacred significance or more general urban green spaces used for religious practices that require natural or semi-natural, outdoor settings. We sampled twelve public green spaces in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to determine their use as sites for religious gatherings, interviewed visitors to green spaces and religious congregants about such and used the travel cost method to assign a value to the green spaces for spiritual benefits. Religious gatherings were observed in all twelve sampled green spaces, and 7% of a random sample of visitors to the urban green spaces said that they participated in such. Amongst the worshippers, 71% said worshipping outdoors was part of their religious practices and 29% said they did so because they had no building in which to worship. Most (79%) worshipped in public green spaces 1-4 times per week. Many felt that it would be easier if the city council designated specific and quiet areas in public green spaces for their religious observances, which they could then help maintain. The mean value of spiritual services was determined to be US$93 +/- 79 /ha/yr, and tended to be highest in the high density, poorer suburbs. These results reveal the significance of urban green spaces for spiritual purposes and indicate the need for greater recognition amongst researchers and city planners and authorities to secure and maintain such benefit flows.