The community that is of great value to me is Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa. The reason this place is so special to me is because when I did my exchange program in South African during my senior year of high school, my host families house was right down the road from there so we would go hang out all the time. It’s one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to in the world. Although it is pretty well know place throughout the world, I think it truly doesn’t getting the proper recognition it deserves. Being a National Botanical Garden, its untouched beauty is so beyond beautiful that if anything were to happen to it, that would truly be a tragedy.
Since it is a National Botanical Garden, Kirstenbosch has little tech but one of the more important pieces of tech they do have is their shuttle cars. These shuttle cars are used during shuttle car tours. These cars are important to the community because it is a way that allows everyone to experience the gardens without needing the ability to walk. Since the gardens are so huge the shuttle cars are a way that allow everyone to see. With that being said, they are the only vehicles that are allowed to be used within the gardens itself. This means that the footprint that is being left is was low as possible for the cars to still run and it allows everyone to see the beauty that the garden offers. The second tech is stage that gets set up during the summer for the Kirstenbosch Summer Sunset Concerts that occur every Sunday during the summer. This stage is important to the community because it allows the summer concerts to happen and it’s something that everyone in Cape Town looks forward too. It has a low footprint because it only happens during the summer and the only true technology is the sound system that gets set up. Plus the stage is only up during the weekend in the summer and once summer is over that stage isn’t there at all. So it’s a very minimal tech.
A digital tech that I would ban in the garden is cell service, which then creates cell phones to not work. The reason I would do this is because the garden is so beautiful that being on your phone distracts you and others from truly enjoying it. The point of a National Botanical Garden is to get back in touch with nature. Being on your phone and being distracted by social media or texting or calling, takes away from that and runs the experiences you should truly be getting. It would also benefit the others within the garden because they don’t have to hear people making phone calls and they would be able to enjoy the experiences they came for. I feel like phones are an invasion of our personal time and an invasion of our relationship with nature. Having the ability and access to such a beautiful and well kept national treasure shouldn’t be destroyed by the pollution of cell phones.
When a community is deciding to ban a tech or to promote one, they should have a townhall/meeting and there needs to be a representative from everyone involved or effected by this tech. During this townhall everyone who wants to speak should be able to speak. They can discuss how they feel toward this technology and the person making notes should keep a tail of how many positive and how many negative things were said about the technology. After this happens, in order to make it truly democratic, they must come to a vote on if something should be banned or promoted. This vote will decide what they will do and it shall be the people of the community that vote and therefore make the decision.
Reference:
https://www.sanbi.org/gardens/kirstenbosch/
https://www.sanbi.org/event/kirstenbosch-summer-sunset-concerts-2018/19
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