C F E R P 09 Presentation

Trees, Rebirth, and Resilience:
A case study of the role of trees and community forestry in recovery and resilience across scales in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Keith G. Tidball
Cornell University
Department of Natural Resources
Jean Fahr
Parkway Partners
New Orleans, LA
Marianne Krasny
Faculty Advisor
Cornell University
Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships Annual Conference:
Penn Center, St. Helena Island, SC
September 2009

GLOBAL HYPOTHESIS
In urban post-disaster and post-conflict contexts, community –based natural resources management, such as “greening” or “urban community forestry,” a.) confers resilience across multiple scales before a catastrophic event, and b.) demonstrates resilience and reactivates recovery feedbacks and virtuous cycles after a catastrophic event.
CASE SPECIFIC HYPOTHESES
1. Trees shaped resilience before and following disaster in New Orleans.
2. The active engagement of citizens with trees played/plays a crucial, yet often unrecognized, role across multiple scales in recovery and resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans.

Community Partner Perspective
Progress of New Orleans recovery to date
Progress of Parkway Partners ReLeaf New Orleans project
Contributions from CFERP research effort
Benefits, challenges, problems and opportunities of having a CFERP fellow in the community

Community Partner Perspective: NOLA Recovery Progress
“With strong partnerships, local leadership, and leveraged assets, New Orleans could emerge as a model of resilience for metro areas recovering from natural catastrophes or major economic shocks, as those triggered by this recession.” Liu & Plyer (2009), New Orleans Four Years After Katrina, The New Orleans Index, https://gnocdc.s3.amazonaws.com/NOLAIndex/NOLAIndex.pdf

Community Partner Perspective:ReLeaf New Orleans Progress
More than 6000 trees planted since Hurricane Katrina by Parkway Partners alone!

Community Partner Perspective: Tree Troopers 2009

Community Partner Perspective:Contributions from CFERP Research

Community Partner Perspective:Benefits, challenges, problems and opportunities
Benefits- Affirmed direction, conviction
Greatest Challenge- Our org still needs money
Opportunities- Stand out in grant writing, further interaction with academic groups
Problems- Who will do what he does when he moves on?

Actionable Research Question
RESEARCH
How have trees shaped resilience before and following disaster in New Orleans?
What role does the active engagement of citizens with trees play in recovery and resilience in the Post-Katrina New Orleans Social Ecological System?
ACTION
To work with community to address lack of prioritization of investment in natural capital restoration by intervention institutions, which hinders recovery of social capital and broader recovery efforts.

The Research:
Big “pushes” or “hallmarks”
Urban Forestry Community of Practice
Explicit participatory mixed methods … (triangulation– Bliss)
Linking research to social ecological system resilience framework (coupled systems)
Identify and describe social mechanisms that confer SES resilience
Emphasis on usable products resulting from collaborative research
The framework
Reality Check: I AM NOWHERE NEAR “DONE”

The Framework
Trees
As ecosystem service provision (to humans)
Symbols, cultural meaning, cultural resilience
Tree Planting
community forestry COP
Act of Tree planting
Civic ecology practices
Tree Planters
community forestry COP
Act of Tree planting
Civic ecology practices
Resilience of the NOLA SES
SES Resilience Framework
Symbolism
P.A.R.
Feedback
C.O.P.
Systems theory

Community of Practice
A community of practice defines itself along three dimensions.
What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members.
How it functions - mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity.
What capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources that members have developed over time.

Communities of practice can be seen as self-organizing systems and have many of the benefits and characteristics of associational life such as the generation of what Robert Putnam and others have discussed as social capital.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). "Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System." Systems Thinker , June.
Smith, M. K. (2003, 2009) 'Communities of practice', The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm.
Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

So What?Preliminary results suggest…
Natural capital, in this case trees, does appear to play a significant role in post-crisis recovery, but is underappreciated and under supported ,or often ignored, by agencies.
Natural capital restoration, linked to social capital and sense of place, should be accounted for and budgeted for by institutions responding to disaster or conflict.
To understand multiple capitals, especially natural capital, institutions should utilize participatory planning and other stake-holder based approaches.
Stake-holder approaches, and the results they yield, are implicated in many important ways in managing for social-ecological system resilience…
Feedbacks
Identification of key symbols and catalysts
Re-starting virtuous cycles that produce environmental services
Guardingagainst re-starting vicious cycles

Content Analysis

Population by race/ethnicity (2000-2007)
Source: Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (www.gnocdc.org) analysis of US Census Bureau data from Census 2000 and American Community Survey 2007

Virtuous v Vicious Cycles

Nested Scales
of Resilience
Ecological
Society
(Cultural)
Community (Cultural)
Family
Individual
Psychological

For More…
www.resilientgreen.org

Thank you CFERP and NOLA Partners
Thanks also to my PhD committee: Marianne Krasny, Mark Bain, Max Pfeffer, and Richard Stedman

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C F E R P 09 Presentation

by Keith Tidball on Sep 13, 2009

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