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Greening in the Red Zone: Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions Toward Peace
The document summarizes a presentation given on community-based ecological restoration and its ability to enhance resilience and transitions toward peace. It discusses how restoring nature in the aftermath of conflicts and disasters can help manage social-ecological systems. It provides examples of greening efforts in "red zones," or areas impacted by war, terrorism, or natural disasters. The presentation outlines evidence that greening improves health, identity, and governance. It proposes a process where individuals are drawn to nature, form communities, and undertake larger restoration work, ultimately recovering a sense of place and resilience.
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Greening in the Red Zone: Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions Toward Peace
- 1. Presentation given Nov25, 2012 International Peace Research Association in the General Conference Ecology and Peace Commission Tsu City, Mie Prefecture, Japan Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions Toward Peace Keith G. Tidball, PhD [email protected] www.civicecology.org
- 2. What does this… …haveto do with this ?
- 3. Why do humansturn 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?
- 4. HUMAN VULNERABILITY &SECURITY CONTEXTS …. + + Population growth Climate Change Resource scarcity
- 5. What is ared 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.
- 6. 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.
- 7. Some examples Restoration ofIraq’s wetlands, supported by community-based natural resources management among Iraq’s Marsh Arabs & partnerships with the scientific community 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
- 8. Evidence of theimportance of greening scientific journal articles scholarly books popular press and news media public initiatives websites blogs
- 9. Why should wedo it? • Contributes shared sense of identity / rebuilding identity post-crisis • Leads to improved psychological, cognitive, and social health • Fosters deeper sense of self-worth as an individual contributes to the community’s overall well-being • Serves as basis for framing place meaning and identity, and for empowerment through demonstrable opportunities for community organizing • Restarts ecosystem services producing systems • Because greeners often form partnerships with NGOs, government, and universities, greening contributes additional benefits to polycentric governance approaches
- 10. Systems implications • Crisesopen up opportunities for renewal • Within the context of resilience, greening operates back and forth across boundaries of time and spatial scale • Red zone boundaries are fluid
- 11. Attention to locallyderived solutions • Assets can be identified even in dystopic environments • Small cases may point to larger implications
- 12. How does itwork? Tidball, KG. 2012. Urgent Biophilia: Human-Nature Interactions and Biological Urgent Biophilia Attractions in Disaster Resilience. Ecology and Society, 17(2). PD* Tidball, KG & RC Stedman. Positive Dependency and Virtuous Cycles: From Restorative Topophilia Resource Dependence to Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems. Ecological Economics. Doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.10.004 Memorialization Tidball, KG, ME Krasny, E Svendsen, L Campbell, & K Helphand. 2010. Stewardship, Learning, and Memory in Disaster Resilience. “Resilience in Mechanism 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 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 Symbols and Rituals Greening. Springer publishing. *Positive Dependency complex
- 13. WHAT DOES ITALL 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.
- 14. 1, Individuals gravitatetoward available green assets 2. Use available green assets 3. Clusters form- for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace communities of practice 4. Restore and create new green assets 5. Larger greening movement emerges 7. New sites recruit new individuals; expand cycle 6. Greening activities Social-ecological system recover & restore sense of recovery & resilience processes place
- 15. WHAT DOES ITALL 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 Positive Dependency • Restorative Topophilia • Memorialization • Symbol & Ritualization
- 16. 2. Use availablegreen 1, Individuals gravitate toward available green assets assets; experience 3. Clusters form- for therapeutic benefits- different paths/pace therapeutic benefits communities of practice 4. Restore and create new green assets 5. Larger greening movement emerges Memorialization SES Symbols & Red zone commences Urgent Biophilia mechanism Rituals mechanism mechanism Virtuous Cycle Restorative Topophilia mechanism mechanism Social-ecological system 6. Greening activities recovery & resilience processes recover & restore sense of place
- 17. What is therecipe? Remember Recognize Decide Learn Invest Document Capitalize
- 18. Why is GRZimportant to Peace Research? • Explicit example of critical importance of human interdependence with the rest of nature • Power of acknowledging our innate biophilia, our love of life, as a powerful response to conflict and destruction • Points to the importance of remembering and reconstituting our ecological identity towards achieving balance amongst ourselves and other members of life’s systems • Optimistic potential to mitigate structural violence and replace with peaceful, sustainable coexistence
- 19. IN CONCLUSION… “…emerging consensusthat the changing relationship between human beings and the sustaining capabilities of the global ecosystem is rapidly becoming a significant source of human suffering. . . the concerns of peace research should similarly shift away from weaponry and military conflict to these new sources of conflict and misery found … within the limited capabilities of the global environment.” Dennis Pirages, “The Greening of Peace Research” Perhaps now the concerns of peace research are shifting again, to new sources of resilience, and ecologically based transitions to peace and human security.
- 20. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Northern Research Station New York City Urban Field Station
Editor's Notes
- #3 Today just going to give an overview of the work we are doing in the civic ecology lab at Cornell University on how community based environmental management and ecological restoration can be useful in transitions towards peace after war, terrorist acts, civil unrest, and large scale natural disasters. I hope to simply introduce a few main concepts and recent findings, in order to pique interest in this activity within the realm of ecology and peace engaged scholarship.
- #4 I have spent a good deal of the past ten years, since 9/11, thinking about these two questions.
- #5 There won’t be less of these any time soon.
- #6 Now, getting back to Greening in Red Zones, and the relationships between Greening in Red Zones and human security or environmental justice, Before I go much further, I need to make sure we are clear on some definitions--
- #10 Greening can enable or enhance recovery from conflict and hasten transitions to peace in situations where community members actively participate in greening, which in turn results in measurable benefits for themselves, their community, and the environment.
- #13 Propose mechanisms and positioning (later repositioning)
- #17 5 important mechanisms of the greening in the red zone system
- #18 I want to avoid sounding prescriptive here, and emphasize that this slide represents what we have learned from cases of greening in the red zone. It seems that the “recipe’ for greening in the red zone follows this trajectory. It is initiated by local groups, NGOs, and in some case government entities.
- #19 GRZ is an example of ecological identities “punching through” the fog of industrialization and war… potentially a part of societal breakthrough required for peace research (professor Kodama)
- #20 More than twenty years ago, in an article titled “The Greening of Peace Research” there was this quote…With these ideas in mind, I am hopeful to open dialog among my new friends and colleagues here in the IPRA Ecology & Peace commission about how we might think about more greening focused activities in red zone recovery and rebuilding. In other words, I believe that the injustices that are most acute in post-conflict and post-disaster contexts are often manifested in the inability of residents to express their urgent biophilia, or to act upon the restorative potential of topophilia. These fundamental human and nature connections are often the building blocks for dealing with grief, despair, and helplessness, and can lead to re-starting virtuous cycles of community restoration , optimism, recovery, and lasting peace. Yet people are often blocked, stymied or stalled from planting a community garden, or trees, or worrying about birds or wildlife until after the REAL work is done, the technical infrastructure repairs. This to me is misguided. Hopefully, with your help, ideas like greening in the red zone will gain traction where it matters most, within the entities responsible for stability, security, transition, and reconstruction.