Greening in the Red ZonePresentation given Oct 17, 2012CUNY Center for Urban Environmental

Reform

CUNY School of Law2 Court Square

Long Island City, NY 11101

A presentation of theNew York City Urban Field StationQuarterly Research Seminar Series

A partnership between the USDA Forest Service

andNew York City Department of

Parks and Recreation

Keith G. Tidball, PhDkgtidball@cornell.eduwww.civicecology.org

Valuing Community-based Ecological Restoration in Human Vulnerability and Security Contexts

Road map for today

• Brief Intro to Civic Ecology Lab• Human Security and EJ linkages• Definitions, Context & Study Site• Research Question & Framing• Initial Models• Mining for Mechanisms (results)• What Does It All Mean?• Broader Context & Application

3 things to walk away with:

– Possible utility of methodology that is pragmatic and well-suited for coupled biophysical/social research

– A greening in the red zone process or cycle model• contains fundamental key sequential components • nuanced on a case-by-case basis reflecting landscape,

disturbance intensity, and other factors

– Five greening in the red zone mechanisms

…founded on the belief that humans can act to enhance the ecosystems of which they are a part.

Urban Community Forestry

Community Gardening

Habitat & Watershed Restoration

• community-based environmental stewardship (civic ecology practice)

• education & learning situated in these practices (civic ecology education)

• people & institutions involved• ecosystem services produced by

people, their stewardship, & educational practices

…the study of the interactions, including feedbacks, among four components of social-ecological systems

The Civic Ecology Lab

• Environmental Dimensions of Human Security

• Community All-Hazards Management

HUMAN VULNERABILITY & SECURITY CONTEXTS ….

+ +Population growth Climate Change Resource scarcity

= Red Zones

Number of armed conflicts 1946 – 99http://www.newint.org/features/1999/04/01/thefacts/

Human Security: An EJ lens?

“Freedom from want, freedom from fear and the freedom of future generations to inherit a healthy natural environment – these are the interrelated building blocks of human, and therefore national security.”Kofi Annan. “Secretary-General Salutes International Workshop on Human Security in Mongolia.” Two-Day Session in Ulaanbaatar, May 8-10, 2000. Press Release SG/SM/7382.

Dodds & Pippard, 2012

“Human security refers to the quality of life of the people of a society or polity. Anything which degrades their quality of life – demographic pressures, diminished access to or stock or resources, and so on – is a security threat. Conversely, anything which can upgrade their quality of life – economic growth, improved access to resources, social and political empowerment, and so on – is an enhancement of human security .”

Human Security: An EJ lens?

Nature and Human Security• How do the benefits of involvement and interactions with nature improve human

security, and conversely, how do these interactions also benefit the environment?

• Environmental security not one domain of human security , rather, how the environment and nature permeate all domains of human security.

• Focus is upon identifying, documenting, and disseminating “win-win” policies and best management practices for both human security and sustaining and enhancing ecosystem services through applied research and extension.

Brief Intro to Civic Ecology Lab Human Security and EJ linkages• Definitions, Context & Study Site• Research Question & Framing• Initial Models• Mining for Mechanisms (results)• What Does It All Mean?• Broader Context & Application

Map Check

What is a red zone?“Red Zones” refer to multiple settings (spatial and temporal) that may be characterized as intense, potentially or recently hostile or dangerous, including those in post-disaster situations caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, as well as those associated with terrorist attacks and war.

View of Middleburgh Valley from Vromans nose in Schoharie County, New York Daily Gazette, August 29, 2011

A tsunami ravages a portion of the Japanese coast. Credit: Reuters

What is greening?• “Greening” is an active and integrated approach to the appreciation,

stewardship and management of living elements of social-ecological systems.

• Greening takes place in cities, towns, townships and informal settlements in urban and peri-urban areas, and in the battlefields of war and of disaster.

• Greening sites vary -- from small woodlands, public and private urban parks and gardens, urban natural areas, street tree and city square plantings, botanical gardens and cemeteries, to watersheds, whole forests and national or international parks.

• Greening involves active participation with nature and in human or civil society (Tidball and Krasny 2007)—and thus can be distinguished from notions of ‘nature contact’ (Ulrich 1993) that imply spending time in or viewing nature, but not necessarily active stewardship.

RED ZONE-- HURRICANE KATRINA & THE NEW ORLEANS SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM

 Image by NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite or GOES.

A FOREST OF SYMBOLS

LAND COVER & CANOPY IMPLICATIONS

Wang & Qu, 2009. Assessment of post-hurricane forest damage using optical remote sensing. Spie. http://spie.org/x35463.xml

Chambers, J. Q., J. I. Fisher, et al. (2007). "Hurricane Katrina’s Carbon Footprint on U.S. Gulf Coast Forests." Science 318: 1107.

NEW ORLEANS CANOPY LOSS

Nowak, D. J. and E. J. Greenfield (2012). "Tree and impervious cover change in U.S. cities." Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 11(1): 21-30.

Photo of New Orleans after Katrina - NOAA

AVG -1.8

“A FAILURE OF RESILIENCE” AND OTHER (PREMATURE?) EPITAPHS

“All Coherence Gone: New Orleans as a Resilience Failure” (R. Westrum, 2006)

RETRODUCTIVE RESEARCH QUESTION

• General- If greening is happening in red zones, what could the model and theory be that might explain greening’s occurrence?

• Specific- If, despite the dominant discourse of a failed city, tree planting is spreading throughout the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, what models, built of mechanisms, can explain this phenomena?

A LITTLE MORE ON RETRODUCTIVE MODELS…

• Models are built of mechanisms such that, if they were to exist and act in the postulated way, they would explain the phenomenon being examined.

• Underlying mechanisms can only be known by constructing ideas (models) about them; and models reveal the underlying mechanisms of reality.

• Emphasizes tendencies of things to occur, as opposed to regular patterns of events.

Brief Intro to Civic Ecology Lab Human Security and EJ linkages Definitions, Context, & Study Site Research Question & Framing• Initial Models• Mining for Mechanisms (results)• What Does It All Mean?• Broader Context & Application

Map Check

Experience loss, grief, helplessness and turn to nature in form of trees for solace

Recognize in natural assets (trees) a place to start anew, to move beyond loss, grief , helplessness

Begin action to enhance, restore natural assets, which recovers symbols, rituals and sense of place

Catalyzes ??

Initial models

SECOND MODEL… A SEARCH FOR MECHANISMS

Tidball, KG & ME Krasny. 2008. “Raising Urban Resilience: Community Forestry and Greening in Urban Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Contexts.” Paper presentation at meetings of the Resilience Alliance, “Resilience 2008,” Stockholm, Sweden: April.

Initial models

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS…

What Initiates?

Repeat & Expand?

How much?

What kind?

Initial models

WHAT MIGHT INITIATE GREENING?

What Initiates?

Urgent Biophilia

Restorative Topophilia

MemorializationMechanism

Social-Ecological Symbols and Rituals

Tidball, KG. 2012. Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Attractions in Disaster Resilience. Ecology and Society, 17 (2):5.

Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Accepted at: Ecological Economics.

Tidball, KG, ME Krasny, E Svendsen, L Campbell, & K Helphand. 2010. Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience. “Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems: the Role of Learning and Education,” Special Issue of Environmental Education Research, 16(5): 341-357.

Tidball, KG (Accepted; expected 2012). Trees and Rebirth: Social-Ecological Symbols, Rituals and Resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans. In: Tidball and Krasny, Eds., Greening in the Red Zone: Disaster, Resilience, and Community Greening. Springer publishing.M

echanism

s

PD*

*Positive Dependency complex

Mining for Mechanisms

MECHANISM 1 = URGENT BIOPHILIA

URGENT BIOPHILIA

• Attraction humans have for the rest of nature (and the rest of nature for us?)• Process of remembering that attraction • Urge to express it through creation of restorative environments

• restore or increase ecological function• confer resilience across multiple scales

(Holling and Gunderson 2002)

Based on Biological Attraction Principle (Agnati et al. 2009)

Analogous to Newton’s Law of Gravitation

Biological activities, processes, or patterns are all deemed to be mutually attractive

Biological attractive force is intrinsic to living organisms and manifests itself through the propensity of any living organism to act

Tidball, KG. 2012. Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Attractions in Disaster Resilience. Accepted at: Ecology and Society.

Mining for Mechanisms

MECHANISM 2 = RESTORATIVE TOPOPHILIA

• Topophilia = love of place (Tuan, 1974,1975,1977)

• Emphasizes attachment to place and the symbolic meanings that underlie this attachment

• Base for individual and collective action that repair and/or enhance valued attributes of place

• Not only attachment, but also on meanings (Stedman, 2003,2008)

• Urgent biophilia & restorative topophilia together comprise “positive dependency”

• Positive dependency is resource dependence that enhances resilience, rather than eroding it

Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Submitted to: Ecological Economics.

Mining for Mechanisms

MECHANISM 3 = MEMORIALIZATION • spontaneous and collective memorialization of lost ones through gardening and tree planting

• community of practice emerges to act upon and apply these memories to social learning about greening practices

• confers SES resilience, through contributing to psychological–social resistance and resilience and to ecosystem goods and services production

Tidball, KG, ME Krasny, E Svendsen, L Campbell, & K Helphand. 2010. Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience. “Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems: the Role of Learning and Education,” Special Issue of Environmental Education Research, 16(5): 341-357.

Mining for Mechanisms

MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS

http://candychang.com/sexy-trees-of-the-marigny-2011-calendar/

Tidball, KG (Accepted; expected 2012). Trees and Rebirth: Social-Ecological Symbols, Rituals and Resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans. In: Tidball and Krasny, Eds., Greening in the Red Zone: Disaster, Resilience, and Community Greening . Springer publishing.

Mining for Mechanisms

MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS II

N = 34Mining for Mechanisms

MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS III

N = 36

Mining for Mechanisms

HOW DOES THE CYCLE REPEAT & EXPAND?

Desired systemVirtuous cycle

Undesired systemVicious cycle

potential for action perpetuating virtuous cycle

barriers to change

(bifurcation zoneor ridge)

potential for actions perpetuating vicious cycles

Repeat & Expand?

Mining for Mechanisms

“GREENING” VIRTUOUS CYCLE MECHANISM

Repeat & Expand?

“VIRTUOUS”

4. Ecosystem services

1. Greening activities commence

3. Natural capital

2. Individual & family well-being

Feedback “primes” virtuous cycle to repeat and expand

Mining for Mechanisms

RED ZONE VICIOUS CYCLE

“VICIOUS”

5. Depletion of social capital 

3. Natural capital eroded

4. Loss of ecosystems services

1. Red Zone community

2. Rioting, looting, etc. undermine individual and family well-being

Feedback “primes” cycle to repeat and expand

Repeat & Expand?

Mining for Mechanisms

QUANTIFYING TREE PLANTING EFFORTS

How much?

Mining for Mechanisms

ROAD MAP FOR TODAY

Brief Intro to Civic Ecology Lab

Human Security and EJ linkages

Definitions, Context & Study Site

Research Question & Framing

Initial Models

Mining for Mechanisms (results)

• What Does It All Mean?

• Broader Context & Application

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

FINDING 1 -- There appears to be a “greening in the red zone process or cycle” that contains fundamental key sequential components, but that likely is nuanced on a case-by-case basis reflecting landscape, disturbance intensity, and other factors .

2. Use available green assets1, Individuals gravitate toward available green assets for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace 3. Clusters form-

communities of practice

4. Restore and create new green assets

5. Larger greening movement emerges

6. Greening activities recover & restore sense of

place

7. New sites recruit new individuals; expand cycle

Social-ecological system recovery & resilience processes

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

FINDING 2 -- Within this “greening in the red zone process” there are at least five important mechanisms that explain how the system functions from one sequential frame to the next:

• Urgent Biophilia

• Restorative Topophilia

• Memorialization

• Symbol & Ritualization

• Expansive Virtuous Cycles

Positive Dependency

Red zone commences

Social-ecological system recovery & resilience processes

2. Use available green assets; experience therapeutic benefits

1, Individuals gravitate toward available green assets for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace 3. Clusters form-

communities of practice

4. Restore and create new green assets

5. Larger greening movement emerges

6. Greening activities recover & restore sense of

place

Urgent Biophilia

mechanismRestorative Topophilia

mechanism

Memorialization mechanism

SES Symbols & Rituals mechanism

Virtuous Cyclemechanism

IMPLICATIONS & APPLICATIONS

Are there examples of this besides the New Orleans case?

Application for DNR? How do we go about “…maximizing biodiversity, enhancing and sustaining ecosystems, mitigating climate change, and managing natural resources in partnership with local groups, state agencies, and national and international environmental organizations...” in ephemeral, perturbed social-ecological systems like red zones?

What can we learn from Greening in the Red Zone regarding issues of social justice and environmental justice in the urban or peopled landscape?

How can policy makers and planners include Greening in the Red Zone concepts in their work?

CONCLUSIONS

Things to walk away with:

• Possible utility of methodology that is pragmatic and well-suited for coupled biophysical/social research

• A greening in the red zone process or cycle model

• contains fundamental key sequential components

• nuanced on a case-by-case basis reflecting landscape, disturbance intensity, and other factors

• Five greening in the red zone mechanisms

Thank you!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Northern Research StationNew York City Urban Field Station