Chicago Wilderness: A New Force in Urban Conservation

Moskovits, Debra K.; Fialkowski, Carol; Mueller, Gregory M.; Sullivan, T. E.

doi:10.2307/3298560

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Successful conservation in a rapidly urbanizing region requires not only contribution from scientists, but also high level of cooperation with policy-makers, land managers, and the general public (Miller 2005). An excellent example of biodiversity conservation in a metropolitan area through the efforts of such a coalition is the Chicago Wilderness (Moskovits et al 2004). Hence, we should take more humansocial systems into account when caring for urban biodiversity issues.…”

Section: Recommendations For Biodiversity Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity conservation in a fast-growing metropolitan area in China: a case study of plant diversity in Beijing

et al. 2007

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As the capital of China, Beijing has experienced extensive urbanization in the past two decades. To explore the effect of urbanization on plant diversity, we investigated the vascular plant diversity of the whole Beijing Municipality in three different functional (urban, suburban and exurban) regions. For its geo-diversity, Beijing has a rather abundant vascular plant diversity (2,276 species), including 207 species of conservation concern such as endemic, threatened and protected species. The exurban region had not only the highest species diversity (1,998 species), but also the most species of conservation concern (194 species). Urban region possessed the maximum alien species in terms of both absolute number and proportional representation, while the suburban region had the least species diversity (1,026 species). Some problems, such as wetland shrink and biological invasions, were common in the whole Beijing Municipality. However, primary threats to biodiversity differed in the three functional regions. The urban and suburban regions mainly suffered from habitat loss and fragmentation due to urban sprawl, while the exurban region faced serious ecosystem degradation from increasing disturbance from both local and urban people. Based on our investigation, we put forward conservation strategies for the three regions: improving the structure and ecological function of green spaces in urban region, preserving as much remnant natural habitats in the suburban region, and restricting the rural tourism and establishing a biosphere reserve in the exurban region. In addition,

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Section: Recommendations For Biodiversity Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity conservation in a fast-growing metropolitan area in China: a case study of plant diversity in Beijing

et al. 2007

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“…Other instances of social learning are focused more on resource management rather than advocacy, and include an adaptive learning component (Armitage et al 2008a). For example, volunteer efforts to restore degraded prairie and savannah habitats in Chicago provide a case study of how, through a series of informal planting and land management experiments (e.g., controlled burns to suppress invasive species), lay people and scientists were able to continually improve upon means of managing their social and biophysical environment (Stevens 1995;Jordan 2003;Moskovits et al 2004). …”

Section: Learning Theory Supporting Community Gardening Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Gardens as Contexts for Science, Stewardship, and Civic Action Learning

Krasny¹,

Tidball²

2009

CATE

149

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“…We informed our model by combining literature on collective decision making and existing stylized models of consensus building with richer ethnographic observations of, and semistructured interviews with, regional restoration decision makers of organizations restoring oak woodland in Chicago Wilderness. The Chicago Wilderness is a consortium of over 260 organizations whose primary goal is the conservation, restoration, and management of biodiversity on over 150,000 ha of open space in the greater Chicago metropolitan area (Moskovits 2004). The stylized model we present here is one component of a larger, interdisciplinary project seeking to reveal the institutional arrangements (norms, rules, and strategies) that guide collective decision-making processes and explain how different arrangements may lead to different biodiversity outcomes in 10 organizations within Chicago Wilderness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Mechanisms of Collective Decision Making in Ecological Restoration: An Agent-Based Model of Actors and Organizations

Watkins¹,

Massey²,

Brooks³

et al. 2013

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Ecological restoration, particularly in urban contexts, is a complex collective decision-making process that involves a diversity of stakeholders and experts, each with their own perceptions and preferences about what landscapes should and can look like, how to get them to the desired state, and on what timeline. We investigate how structural and behavioral factors may influence collective decision making in the context of ecological restoration, with the purpose of establishing general relationships between management styles (defined by structural and behavioral factors of the organization) and decision outcomes. Informed by existing literature on collective decision making and by empirical data from the Chicago Wilderness region, we present a stylized agent-based model that maps out and simulates the processes by which individuals within restoration organizations communicate, discuss, and ultimately make a decision. Our study examines how structural and behavioral characteristicsincluding: (a) the number of actors and groups involved in decision making, (b) the frequency and type of interactions among actors, (c) the initial setup of positions and respect, (d) outside information, and (e) entrenchment and cost of dissent-lead to or prohibit group convergence in terms of collective position, variation in position across actors, and final decision strategies. We found that formal meetings and group leaders are important facilitators of convergence, especially when multiple groups are present, new information is introduced in the process, and participants are polarized around an issue. Also, intergroup interactions are particularly important for overall convergence. Position entrenchment slows the convergence process and increases the need for decision strategies involving outside intervention. Cost of dissent can reinforce these effects. Our study formalizes collective decision-making processes within the context of ecological restoration, establishes generalizable relationships between these processes and decision outcomes, and provides a foundation for further empirical and modeling research.

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Chicago Wilderness: A New Force in Urban Conservation

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

Biodiversity conservation in a fast-growing metropolitan area in China: a case study of plant diversity in Beijing

Biodiversity conservation in a fast-growing metropolitan area in China: a case study of plant diversity in Beijing

Community Gardens as Contexts for Science, Stewardship, and Civic Action Learning

Understanding the Mechanisms of Collective Decision Making in Ecological Restoration: An Agent-Based Model of Actors and Organizations

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