Winners of the “Jardins Mais Endemicos” contest receive landscape architecture projects

Dec. 22, 2022

With the motto “Give more Azores to your accommodation”, three tourist accommodation units from the six winners of the contest Jardins Mais Endémicos (Gardens More Endemic), a competition promoted by the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and Climate Change, integrated in the Azores Miosotis Award and developed by the LIFE VIDALIA project, received on December 14, at the Faial Botanic Garden, the corresponding prizes, that is, one landscape architecture project per tourist unit.

The accommodations present, Abrigo da Cascata (São Jorge), Casa da Abrótea (Pico) and My Azorean Home (Faial), showed their satisfaction and thanked all the support given by the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and Climate Change. The remaining accommodations received their projects via web.

The ceremony was attended by the Regional Director for the Environment and Climate Change, the Vice-President of Horta City Council, the Director of the Faial Environment and Climate Change Service and the architect Cláudia Gomes who materialized, with the support of the LIFE VIDALIA project team, the prizes in question.

With the completion of the gardens, the outdoor spaces of the Miosotis Azores accommodations will have a more differentiated tourist offer, with nature experiences where the native and endemic flora of the Azores is part of the “tourist package”, with aromas, tranquillity, photography, history, science, among others. With the implementation of the gardens, the LIFE VIDALIA project reinforces one of its indicators, the commitment of tourist accommodation to the good conservation practices of the Natura 2000 network.

The planting plans and descriptive memoirs provide for a total of 2031 plants of native and endemic flora, including the Vidalia (Azorina vidalii) and the Azorean Lotus (Lotus azoricus), whose variability reaches the value of 31 different species.

In terms of nature conservation, these architectural projects also allow for the added value of not introducing more exotic species with an invasive character in the Archipelago.

Find out more about LIFE VIDALIA at www.lifevidalia.eu/en/