Landscapes of Resilience — Understanding How the Creation and Care of Green Spaces Can

Affect Resilience in Times of Crisis

Session 44

Project funding from:

• Speed Talks– 5 min x 4 presenters (25 mins)

• Speed Dating– Break into three small groups (15 mins)

• Roundtable Wrap-up one ? ea. for Lindsay, Traci, & Keith

Road map for today…

Research and experience suggest that green spaces serve as catalyzing mechanisms that confer resilience within systems across individual, family, community, and social-ecological scales and over time—including immediately post-disturbance, during stages of recovery, and over long term processes of neighborhood and community change.

Today

Real-world cases

-- How might the benefits of these catalytic spaces come from the physical design, the way in which site users interact with green space, and the processes involved in site creation and maintenance?

– How do acts of civic engagement, active stewardship, and collective remembering in post-disaster recovery contexts “fit in” to social-ecological resilience ?

Presentation given May, 2014

RESILIENCE 2014

Montpellier , France

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

Community-based Ecological Restoration to Enhance Resilience and Transitions after Surprise and Crisis

Greening in the

Red Zone

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?

GREENING IN THE RED ZONE

Greening in the Red Zone --

• creation and access to green spaces confers resilience and recovery in systems disrupted by violent conflict or disaster.

• provides evidence for this assertion through cases and examples.

• a variety of research and policy frameworks to explore how creation and access to green spaces in extreme situations might contribute to resistance, recovery, and resilience of social-ecological systems.

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

Why GRZ?• 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

Joplin, MO USA (Tornado 2011) NYC,NY USA (Hurricane Sandy 2012)

Sudden surprise vs. long term degradation (or rigidity) of system?Little vs big? Regional differences? Institutional differences?

Traci

Lindsay

GREEN SPACE AND STEWARDSHIP IN NEW YORK CITY’S POST-SANDY WATERFRONT COMMUNITIES

6 May 2014

Resilience 2014

Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika S. Svendsen, Nancy J. Falxa-Raymond, Gillian Baine

USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station – NYC Urban Field Station

Research questions

• What are the uses, functions, and values of parkland as conveyed through people’s behaviors, descriptions, and narratives?

• How have perceptions of and interactions with parkland been influenced by Hurricane Sandy?

Click icon to add picture

Study area

Source: http://www.nycgovparks.org/

Social Assessment of Park Users

• Spatially explicit:

• Interior zones

• Edge

• Observations of:

• Human activities

• Signs of human use

• Randomized interviews

Civic Stewardship -- Frank Charles Memorial Park

• First responders: informal group of retired friends

• Chronic disturbance: tides and aging

• Acute disturbance: Sandy

• Physical features & material qualities: what’s there

• Park amenities and infrastructure

• Natural features (shade, breeze, views, etc.)

• Proximity

• Activities: what you do

• Sports & rec

• Socializing

• Stewardship, nature rec

• Work

• Benefits: what you get

• Enjoyment

• Refuge (quiet, peace, solace, etc.)

• Place attachment: what is sustained

• Social ties and networks: family and friends

• Historical legacies

Why do you come to this park?

Acknowledgements

USDA Forest ServiceNYC Parks & Recreation

Natural Areas ConservancyThe TKF Foundation

Jamaica Bay Restoration Corps

www.nrs.fs.fed.us/nyc