#UESC15 Wrap up

The Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland hosted the Urban Environmental Stewardship Conference (UESC15) on April 17th, 2015 at the University of Maryland. The full day conference was co-sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), and the University of Maryland Department of Sociology, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, and Graduate School. UESC15 included nine speakers from esteemed universities and government agencies in the US as well as Canada, South Africa, and France, in addition to 13 poster presenters. In all, approximately 80 people attended the conference. Participants included faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates from the University of Maryland and other academic institutions, as well as members of local environmental stewardship organizations and representatives of local and federal government agencies.

UESC15 was a great success and we extend our thanks to all who attended, assisted, and provided resources to make this event possible. Special thanks go out to Dean Caramello of the UMD Graduate School and Margaret Palmer, Director of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center for giving opening remarks to start the day. The conference program and PDFs of panel presentations are available on the conference webpage, and the conference was live tweeted using the hashtag #UESC15. Read on after the jump for a recap of panel presentations.

Author: Anya M. Galli

Panel 1: Theoretical Perspectives on Urban Environmental Stewardship

The first panel was designed to  unpack the definition of urban environmental stewardship; the ways in whichthe practice of urban environmental stewardship works across varying social, political, and cultural settings; and the gaps and opportunities in current conceptions of this notion. All three speakers for this panel used case studies to explore these questions.

To begin, Dr. Henrik Ernstson of Stanford University helped the audience to reflect on these themes by providing two theoretical questions about urban environmental stewardship: first, “who gets left out when we think only about ‘green’ groups?” and second, “what if the term ‘stewardship’ is too narrow to capture what is really going on in the city?”

Drawing on his research on organizations in Capetown, South Africa, Ernstson explored how both “green” and “non-green” groups were tied to together within broader networks of collective action in the city. “Why draw the line around ‘environmental stewards,’” he asked, when our interests are much broader? Then, Ernstson illustrated how “nature and ecology are loaded with political content and never neutral” by exploring how the landscape of Capetown has been leveraged and transformed by social hierarchies, political projects, and community life. When people protect their land, he argued, there is something much deeper going on than just stewardship.

Dr. Harvey Molotch of New York University gave remarks on the city of Abu Dhabi as a site in which to think about cities as growth machines and the role of the “hypermodern metropolis” in global environmental change. Molotch described the history and infrastructure of Abu Dhabi as full of environmental and social contradictions. For example, Abu Dhabi hosts a zero emissions city designed by Norman Foster in affiliation with MIT, what Molotch calls one of the “world’s most advanced ecological efficiencies,” in addition to indoor ski parks and outdoor parks that rely on “fanciful use of water” in the face of limited water resources. Molotch encouraged the audience to think about how the contradictions and “logics of inequality” visible in the case of Abu Dhabi can be used to think about the ecological consequences of hypermodern cities.

To conclude the panel, Dr. Dorceta Taylor of the University of Michigan discussed the changing landscape of Detroit and the ways it connects to urban stewardship and sustainability. In her talk, Taylor described how population decline, crumbling infrastructure, vacant land, and unused housing are part of the larger issue of shrinking US cities in the post-recession era. Taylor discussed how “concerns about sustainability are forcing cities to rethink their development strategies,” highlighting new land use priorities and stewardship practices that are pushing back against urban land grabs, commercial farming, and corporate demolition in the urban landscape.

Panel 2: Innovations in Urban Stewardship.

The second panel of UESC15 focused on questions of how environmental stewardship contributes to conceptions of resilience, diffusion of local agriculture, and place attachment in urban areas.

Dr. James Connolly of Northeastern University started off with a discussion of stewardship organizations in New York City after Hurricane Sandy. Using data from the STEWMAP NYC study of civic organizational networks, Connolly explored how socio-ecological resilience was supported by bridge groups that provided resources to smaller groups by connecting with larger funding agencies. Connolly described the temporal quality of disaster response, wherein immediate response was targeted to existing organization networks and longer-term response was aimed at both “ecological restructuring” and expansion of the social infrastructure.

Dr. Debra Davidson of the University of Alberta focused on urban agriculture and its benefits for land use, food security, and ecological sustainability. She described threats to urban agriculture, including land tenure debates, urban development projects, and the tension between institutionalized and non-institutionalized urban agriculture initiatives. 

To conclude the second panel, Dr. Erika Svendsen of the USDA Forest Service highlighted the importance of defining environmental stewardship in a way that casts a wide net, rather than defining the topic and practice narrowly. She focused on how stewardship matters for the personal lives and lived experiences of people in cities and how acts of stewardship have meaning and purpose for practitioners that extend far beyond the environmental. For example, she showed how New York City residents expressed identity and community by participating in tree planting events. She described “nature as a pathway for recovery,” and emphasized the “need for flexible, unplanned space” within which community members can engage with their environments. 

Panel 3: Mapping Urban Environmental Stewardship Across Space and Place

The final panel of the day addressed the variation of environmental stewardship across space, place, and time, focusing on comparative research findings and the evolution of stewardship.

Dr. Dana Fisher of the University of Maryland, and Director of the Program for Society and the Environment, spoke about how “stewardship strengthens the roots of democracy” by using comparative data from surveys of participants in tree planting initiatives in New York City, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. Fisher focused on the role of organizational structure in volunteer mobilization and participation, showing that trees are being planted in a diverse range of urban areas. Fisher’s survey data indicate that volunteer stewards are significantly more civically involved than the general US population, and that excluding voting and religious activities, stewardship precedes the development of democratic citizenship. To conclude, she remarked that “dirt on your hands matters when it comes to strengthening the roots of democracy.”

Dr. Keith Tidball of Cornell University provided the audience with conceptual maps of how to think about civic ecology, exploring how stewardship evolves over time,including: how it emerges in broken/lost places, how participants reclaim these places, and how various social forces and institutions combine in the practice of stewardship. Tidball urged the audience to think about civic ecology as truly socioecological rather than as a dichotomy of people/nature. People are stewarding for many reasons, he argued, and the symbolism of community life is embedded in stewardship practice.

Dr. Nathalie Blanc of the Laboratoire Dynamiques Sociales et Recomposition des Espaces concluded the final panel of the day by discussing the role of sense of place and civil society in environmental engagement. She discussed the social and political history of France and the way that civic activities and participatory policymaking are tied to environmental stewardship in the city. Engagement today, she argued, is characterized by “protective investment” (creating natural reserves, for example), “protester investment” (mobilizing against non-green infrastructure), “recreational investment” (spending time in nature), and “productive investment” (leveraging natural spaces for green production). These types of engagement are illustrated by community garden and environmental governance in France. 

We closed the day with a set of poster presentations from a diverse range of professional and disciplinary backgrounds. PDFs of panel presentations and posters are available on the conference webpage.