Grz for tokyo city univ guest lecture

Presentation given Nov 30, 2012

Tokyo City UniversityFaculty of Environmental and Information Studies

Yokohama, Japan

Keith G. Tidball, [email protected]

Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions Toward Peace

Greening in the

Red Zone

What does this…

…have to do with this ?

Why do humans turn to nature, and restoring nature, in the wake of conflict and disaster?

Of what use might greening in human vulnerability and security contexts be in managing social-ecological systems for resilience and transitions to peace?

HUMAN VULNERABILITY & SECURITY CONTEXTS ….

+ +Population growth Climate Change Resource scarcity

= Red Zones

ROAD MAP FOR TODAY

• Definitions, Context, & Study Site

• Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model

• Framing

• Initial Models

• Mining for Mechanisms (results)

• What Does It All Mean?

• Broader Context & Application

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 associated with terrorist attacks and war, as well as in post-disaster situations caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.

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.

Some examples

Replanting of the Urban Forest of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Living Memorials creation throughout NYC, Washington D.C. , and Shanksville, PA after 9/11

Establishment of Band-e- Amir National Park in the midst of conflict in Afghanistan

Conservation efforts in demilitarized border lands in the Korean peninsula and between Greece and Cyprus

Restoration of Iraq’s wetlands, supported by community-based natural resources management among Iraq’s Marsh Arabs & partnerships with the scientific community

Evidence of the importance of greening

scientific journal articlesscholarly bookspopular press and news media public initiativeswebsitesblogs

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

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

Context - Study Site


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.

http://spie.org/x35463.xml

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?

Research Question

WHAT FRAME?

Harré, 1986. Varieties of Realism: A rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford, Basil BlackwellBhaskar, 1989. Reclaiming Reality. London and New York: Verso.Bausch, 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York: Plenum.Bhaskar, 1979. The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton, UK: Harvester..

)(Harré & others)

(Sayer)

(Bhaskar 1979)

Framing

The purpose of scientific activity no longer stands out as a statistical putting together of surface phenomena in an observed reality. The important thing … becomes to conceive this reality as an expression for, or a sign of, deeper-lying processes. Alvesson (2000)

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.

Framing

METHODS – A MIXED MODELS APPROACH

Track 1 Greening Orgs

Phase 1

In-depth interviews (5)

Document analysis

Phase 2

GIS Mapping

Track 2Trees & Recovery

Phase 1

Exploratory interviews (30)

Phase 2

In-Depth interviews (30)

Photo Essay (5)

Track 3Tree PLANTING & Recovery

Phase 1

Exploratory interviews (30)

Participant Observation

Phase 2

Participant observation tree

planting

Phase 3

In-Depth interviews (25)

Photo Essay (5)

Phase 4

Focus group

Phase 5

GIS Canopy and Surface area

analysis

(Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003)

Retroductive modeling: via multiple literature and theory synthesis Iterative methods and data “mash-up” – difference between ”field data” & “experimental data”

Ethnographic qualitative methods

GIS quantitative methods

What models, built of mechanisms, can explain Greening in Red Zones?

ROAD MAP FOR TODAY

Definitions, Context, & Study Site

Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model

Framing

• Initial Models

• Mining for Mechanisms

• Approaches & Findings


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).

Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Ecological Economics. Doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.10.004

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 2013). 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

echanisms

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.


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.


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.


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.


MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS II

N = 34Mining for Mechanisms

MECHANISM 4 = SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYMBOLS & RITUALS III

N = 36


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?


“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


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?


QUANTIFYING TREE PLANTING EFFORTS

How much?


ROAD MAP FOR TODAY

Definitions, Context, & Study Site

Research Question in the form of Retroductive Hypothesis/Model

Framing

Initial Models


• What Does It All Mean?


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 & APPLICATIONSAre 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?

The greening in the red zone modeland mechanisms may be a beginning …

Big picture issues

• Humans have lost their ecological identity; how can it be remembered and recovered ?

(Clayton & Opotow, 2003; Clayton 2003)

• Are there clues about how we might recover

our ecological identity in the way humans respond

to large scale disasters?

• How should we value community-based ecological

restoration in human vulnerability and security

contexts?

“…humans may be heavy hitters, but we must remember that nature bats last.” David Suzuki

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

Ontological Assumptions Part IA Realist orientation…

Often, researchers conflate descriptions with objects.

1. The world is real, independent

of us.

2. Things exist, act independently of our descriptions.

3. Reality concept-dependent, not

concept-determined.

4. Descriptions = world of ideas

(transitive).

5. Objects = world of reality & nature

(intransitive).

Ontology

The ultimate objects of social scientific enquiry exist and act independently of social scientists and their activity. (Bhaskar 1989)

Empirical

Actual

Real

Socia

l Rea

lity

Epistemology – Critical realism

Social reality is viewed as a socially constructed world, a result of:

• social actors’ cognitive resources (i.e., the social has to be interpreted and understood)

• material but unobservable structures of relations

TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE • We must distinguish between intransitive structures and mechanisms and transitive

concepts, theories and laws that are designed to describe the former.

Transitive = changing dimensions of scientific experience such as different historical conceptions of the world

or

Ptolemy’s planetary motion Copernicus’ planetary motion


Intransitive = causal mechanisms science seeks to discover and which exist in themselves regardless of whether or not humans exist.

TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE CONT.

If the atomic model of oxygen is correct and oxygen does indeed have six electrons in its outer orbit and two electrons in its inner orbit, this is an ontological feature of oxygen atoms that is intransitive to our various theories and conceptions (the transitive) of oxygen. That is, according to Bhaskar, oxygen possesses these properties in itself, not merely for us, and these properties act and do their thing regardless of whether anyone knows it. Science is the search for these mechanisms, and requires a practice in order that they might be revealed or discovered.


As adapted from Holling and Gunderson (2002), a stylized depiction of the four ecosystem functions ( r, K, Ω, α) and the flow of events among them. Arrows show flow speed in the cycle; closely spaced arrows represent slow change and long arrows represent rapid change. The cycle reflects change in two properties (1) the Y axis is potential inherent in accumulated resources; (2) the X axis is the degree of connected among controlling variables. The transition from the K phase to the Ω phase is depicted here as ‘The Red Zone.’ Expression of biophilia is also represented, corresponding to the Y axis and potential. Low connectedness is associated with loosely connected elements whose behavior is dominated by external relations and variability. High connectedness is associated with elements whose behavior is dominated by internal relations that control or mediate external variability. The ‘back loop,’ in green, represents the stage during which urgent biophilia is likely expressed. The exit from the cycle at the left of the figure suggests the stage where the potential can leak away and where a ‘flip’ into a less organized and desirable system is likely.

WHAT FRAME?


)(Harré & others)

(Sayer)

(Bhaskar 1979))

Framing

WHAT FRAME?


)(Harré & others)

(Sayer)

(Bhaskar 1979))

Framing

SO, WHY RETRODUCTIVE?

Inductive Deductive

Retroductive

WHAT’S THIS ABOUT?

Big picture issues

• Humans have lost their ecological identity; how can it be remembered and recovered ?

(Clayton & Opotow, 2003; Clayton 2003)

• Are there clues about how we might recover

our ecological identity in the way humans respond

to large scale disasters?

• How should we value community-based ecological

restoration in human vulnerability and security

contexts?

Context

“…humans may be heavy hitters, but we must remember that nature bats last.” David Suzuki

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/01-9

INITIAL MODELS… IMAGINING MECHANISMS

“…there will be social mechanisms behind management practices based on local ecological knowledge, as evidence of a co-evolutionary relationship between local institutions and the ecosystem in which they are located.” Berkes & Folke 1998

NOT GARDENS …


CRITICAL REALIST NUANCES AMONG “NATURAL” & SOCIAL WORLDS

1. Social structures can’t exist w/o natural world

2. Social products less enduring than natural structures

3. Social structures not independent of

social actors conceptions

4. Social systems more open than physical systems

5. Yet, social actors able to act upon and transform physical

systems

Framing

Personal Ecology

Social Ecology

EnvironmentalEcology

CosmicEcology

Wimberley 2009

Nested Ecologies

Gunderson & Holling 2002

Panarchies

Three points of analysis

Trees

Tree Planting Tree Planters

One Community of Practice

Tree Planting(Practice)

Trees(Domain of Knowledge )

Tree Planters(Community)

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Wenger, E. (1998). "Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System." Systems Thinker , June.Smith, M. K. (2003, 2009) 'Communities of practice', The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm. Daniel, Schwier et al. (2003) “Social Capital in virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice.” Canadian Journal of Learning & Technology 29(3):113-139.

QUANTIFYING TREE PLANTING EFFORTS

How much?


GIS ANALYSIS – CANOPY

How much?


GIS ANALYSIS – SURFACE AREA

How much?


Documents

Grz for tokyo city univ guest lecture