Botanical Gardens as Drivers of Climate Change Mitigation and Urban Sustainability in Ondo-State, Nigeria

The increasing pace of urbanisation implies that the fate of urban biotic communities, of which the local botanical gardens are a vital part, will continue to hang in the balance. The disappearance of plants from urban environments often endangers humans, reduces urban cooling and increases global warming and climate change. Consequently, threats to botanical gardens often provoke negative impacts on human ability to resuscitate and restore damaged native plant species, and invoke greater damage on the environment from permanent loss of plant conservation and genetic diversity. Threats to botanical gardens provoke negative impacts on human ability to resuscitate and restore damaged native plant species, as well as invoke greater damage on the environment through permanent loss of plant conservation and genetic diversity. This paper utilises site visits, oral and telephone interviews of eleven (11) botanical garden operators from the three geopolitical zones of the State, and published sources during the study. It was revealed that poor awareness and funding, lack of interaction, and non-implementation of botanical gardens criteria, are some of the problems facing botanical garden operators in the State. To date, attempts at linking the local botanical gardens to climate change mitigation and urban sustainability in Ondo-State is lacking, Policy measures that target the identified administrative and technical lapses identified are therefore recommended.