CULTIVATING RESILIENCE: URBAN STEWARDSHIP PRACTICES AS INDICATORS OF SOCIAL RESILIENCE AND RECOVERY

Erika S. Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell, Heather L. McMillen & Renae ReynoldsUS Forest Service Northern Research Station New York City Field Station

Partners in Community Forestry ConferenceArbor Day Foundation November 16-17, 2016

“To improve quality of life in urban areas by conducting and supporting

research about social-ecological systems and natural

resource management”

New York City Field Station

Co-creators of the urban forest

Urban environmental stewards conserve, manage, monitor, advocate or educate the public about the local environment

Svendsen and Campbell 2008; Fisher et al 2012

Social resilience: The ability of groups or communities to cope with external stresses and

disturbances as a result of social, political & environmental change (Adger 2000).

Urban environmental stewardship as resilience

The TREES: Growing a Forest at Ground Zero. A film by Scott Elliott.

The Trees premiered on PBS on the 15th Anniversary of 9/11.

Stewards planting trees together in Sterling Forest. Tuxedo, New York

Photo provided by US Forest Service, 2002

September 11th Living Memorials

Svendsen and Campbell, 2006

Greening in the Red ZoneDisaster, Resilience and Community Greening

Tidball and Kransy, eds. (2014)

Bomb crater in 1942 London is transformed into a garden(Photo by Harry Shepherd, provided courtesy of Keith Tidball)

Hurricane Sandy, 2012

The pergola became a focal point for socializing and knowledge exchange at the B41st Garden

Photo by Mary Wyatt, TKF Foundation, 2016 Photo by Giles Ashford, 2016

Four garden signs created by resident gardeners during a design workshop at B41st Garden. Photos by Renae Reynolds, 2016

Residents and volunteers prepare a new bioswale together at B41st Gardens

Photos by Giles Ashford, 2016

Social networking is taking place beyond the B41st site

Front page news on Oct. 30, 1975, after President Gerald Ford said that he would not approve federal help for NYC.

Disinvestment

Photo by Steffi Graham, 1999

Dimas Cepeda of El Batey Boricano Community Garden, Bronx, New York

Community garden coalition members protesting outside the steps of City Hall Photo courtesy of GreenThumb, New York City 1999

(McMillen, Campbell, Svendsen and Reynolds 2016)

What we derive from nature (e.g. ecosystem benefits) is different from what is produced through the co-creation

(e.g. stewardship) of the urban forest

MillionTreesNYC Volunteer Planting

Fisher, Svendsen and Connolly (2015): Planting Trees Strengthens the Roots of Democracy

Civic Engagement

The Millionth Tree, Bronx, NY 2016

Campbell, Lindsay K. City of Trees, City of Farms, forthcoming

Governance and Innovation

New York City Street Tree Map, screen shot

The Baltimore Tree Tribe, 1995

Social Trust

Photo from US Forest Service, Revitalizing Baltimore archive

In Wilderness is the preservation of the world

Henry David Thoreau

We should ask about the ways in which wilderness functions to preserve and expand the life of democracy. We know intuitively, and, on many dimensions

empirically, that in preserving wilderness we are preserving our own humanity.

William R. Burch, Jr. (1974) Democracy and Wilderness