Community Connections
Engaging Community to Improve Yahara Lakes through Beach Initiatives
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Diana De Pierola
Clean Lakes Alliance (CLA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement and protection of the lakes, streams, and wetlands in the Yahara River watershed, in Dane County, Wisconsin. Through partnerships with diverse stakeholders CLA focus on community support, advocacy, and education to restore and protect our lakes. CLA also engages to build a vision where the lakes are the center of the community. Madison has twenty-five public beaches and the public values and enjoys the recreation and beauty that beaches offer. However, beaches are impacted by many factors, including high phosphorus levels and heavy rain events, which can trigger algal blooms and E. coli outbursts leading to periodic beach closures. Engaging the public raise awareness of these issues are at the center of CLA efforts. In support of CLA Beach Initiatives, and in partial fulfillment of the Environmental Conservation MS Program, I propose to work together with CLA and communities in the Yahara watershed, and in Madison’s lakes, in the following project, I propose to apply my communication and monitoring skills to collect data, analyze trends, and develop a strategy to engage the public and propose solutions that will lead to an improvement in lake’s conditions. Specifically, I will develop a student art contest to communicate effectively to the youth in the area issues of concern related to lakes conditions, considering local people’s values and perspectives and devising ways to foster engagement. Through my placement with CLA, I would like to learn to evaluate the quality of the Madison’s lakes and to measure the impacts of human population on the lakes.
Changes in Social Cohesion and Community Resilience to Food Insecurity Caused by Forest Fires in Peatland Areas: A Case of Forest Fires in Southern Sumatra
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nurmala Katrina Panjaitan, Sofyan Sjaf
Indonesia has been continuously experiencing forest fires with a peak in 2013-2015. Forest fires cause ecosystem damage, impact the health of community, and destroy the supply of food from nature. But, for communities in peatland areas, forest fires are not entirely a disaster because it increases the fertility of the land for planting swamp rice. With the prohibition to cultivate in burnt forest land, the community loses its main food source (rice) while their income is also greatly reduced as a result of forest fires. Social cohesion has become the backbone of the community members to be resilient in facing life's challenges with institutional of mutual help as the basis of collective action to overcome community problems. However, with reduced household incomes there is a change in community social cohesion. This paper will analyze the various impacts of forest fires on community social cohesion and its impact on community resilience in adapting and resolving food insecurity threats. This paper explores a constructive policy to strengthen community resilience in order to survive independently in the face of threats of forest fires in peatland areas.
Urban Food Gardeners and New Food Movements in South Africa: A Case Study of Khayelitsha Township
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Darlene Ruth Miller
In the context of food monopolies and big agri-food domination in South Africa, the "New Food Movements" in SA do not change the structures of land ownership or food production and distribution. This paper argues, however, that the subjectivities of black urban food gardeners – many of whom are young men – evokes a new “African imaginary” and a form of indigenous spirituality through their re-connection with the earth in their food gardens. In an ethnographic case study of one urban township in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape province of South Africa, this paper examines the young men who articulate this anti-capitalist sensibility or “disposition” that gestures at new subjectivities in a poorer urban neighbourhood. A new sense of time and space resides in the “cool gardener” image which negates the conspicuous consumption of fast capitalism while simultaneously producing “cool” urban imaginaries. "Cool gardeners" have a new sense of time and space that espouses “vernacular environmentalism,” distinct from middle class forms of environmentalism.
Mobilizing Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in Narwhal Management through Community Empowerment: A Case Study in Naujaat, Nunavut
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lucia Fanning
This research examines the relationship between government wildlife management and the use of Inuit knowledge or Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) through a case study focusing on narwhal harvesting in the community of Naujaat, Nunavut. Since the introduction of a community quota system in 1977 by the Canadian federal government, the ultimate responsibility for decision-making has shifted to the government rather than hunting communities. This shift corresponds with changes in the use of IQ within the community. Interviews with hunters, elders, and representatives from the Hunters and Trappers Organization in Naujaat provide insight into the nature of these changes, allowing the relationship between government-based management policies and community perspectives to be characterized. Key factors influencing the role of IQ in narwhal management decision making included the imposed quota-based system, the perception of the ongoing role for IQ, communication challenges, modern day drivers of change, and the lack of decision-making authority at the community level.
