Urban ecological stewardship: understanding the structure, function and network of community-based urban land management

Svendsen, Erika S.; Campbell, Lindsay K.

doi:10.15365/cate.1142008

Cited by 128 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Stewardship is the act of caring for the environment to enhance the quality of life for the greater public good [1] "with the underlying assumption that doing so will improve the social-ecological functioning of specific urban areas" [2] (p. 76). We define environmental stewards as civic groups that conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for, and educate about a wide range of quality of life issues in urban areas [3,4]. While stewardship occurs within interactive and overlapping networks of civic, government, and private actors, here we focus on community-based UES.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden

et al. 2016

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Abstract:Resilience theory has received increased attention from researchers across a range of disciplines who have developed frameworks and articulated categories of indicators; however, there has been less discussion of how to recognize, and therefore support, social resilience at the community level, especially in urban areas. The value of urban environmental stewardship for supporting social-ecological functioning and improving quality of life in cities has been documented, but recognizing it as a strategy for strengthening social resilience to respond to future disturbances has not been fully explored. Here we address the question: How can social resilience indicators be operationalized as stewardship practices in an urban context? Using a deductive coding approach drawing upon existing resilience frameworks we analyze qualitative data from community managed-open spaces in the New York City area that have responded to various chronic presses and acute disturbances including a hurricane and a terrorist attack. In each case we identify and characterize the type of grounded, empirically observable stewardship practices that demonstrate the following indicators of social resilience at the community level: place attachment, social cohesion, social networks, and knowledge exchange and diversification. The process of operationalizing abstract indicators of social resilience has important implications for managers to support social (and ecological) resilience in the specific areas where stewardship takes place, as well as potentially having greater effects that bridge beyond the spatial and temporal boundaries of the site. We conclude by suggesting how researchers and practitioners might learn from our examples so they can recognize resilience in other sites in order to both inform research frameworks and strengthen practice and programming, while keeping larger institutional structures and context in mind.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden

et al. 2016

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“…Stewardship actions are carried out by stewards-which can be individuals, groups, or networks of actors (Svendsen and Campbell 2008;Wolf et al 2011;Bodin 2017). Individual stewardship actions, for example, might include daily decisions made by individual resource users regarding maintenance or restoration of soil, the management of vegetation, removal of invasive species, the quantity of marine resources extracted, the type of extraction practice used and its related environmental impact, or where harvest occurs depending on sensitivity or vulnerability of habitat.…”

Section: Actors: Individuals Groups or Network Of Stewardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Stewardship: A Conceptual Review and Analytical Framework

Bennett¹,

Whitty²,

Finkbeiner³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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There has been increasing attention to and investment in local environmental stewardship in conservation and environmental management policies and programs globally. Yet environmental stewardship has not received adequate conceptual attention. Establishing a clear definition and comprehensive analytical framework could strengthen our ability to understand the factors that lead to the success or failure of environmental stewardship in different contexts and how to most effectively support and enable local efforts. Here we propose such a definition and framework. First, we define local environmental stewardship as the actions taken by individuals, groups or networks of actors, with various motivations and levels of capacity, to protect, care for or responsibly use the environment in pursuit of environmental and/or social outcomes in diverse social–ecological contexts. Next, drawing from a review of the environmental stewardship, management and governance literatures, we unpack the elements of this definition to develop an analytical framework that can facilitate research on local environmental stewardship. Finally, we discuss potential interventions and leverage points for promoting or supporting local stewardship and future applications of the framework to guide descriptive, evaluative, prescriptive or systematic analysis of environmental stewardship. Further application of this framework in diverse environmental and social contexts is recommended to refine the elements and develop insights that will guide and improve the outcomes of environmental stewardship initiatives and investments. Ultimately, our aim is to raise the profile of environmental stewardship as a valuable and holistic concept for guiding productive and sustained relationships with the environment.

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“…Lacking a database that inventoried EE programs after the hurricane, we initially identified study organizations through selective sampling of 796 stewardship organizations in the U.S. Forest Service STEW-MAP database (Svendsen and Campbell n.d.), the majority of which engage in some form of EE (Svendsen & Campbell, 2008), which were likely to have seen physical damage from Sandy or whose participants would have been impacted by the storm (e.g., lower Manhattan residents were more impacted than Bronx residents). We also attempted to sample the large environmental organizations in NYC, such as The Nature Conservancy, along with the most networked organizations that were identified through STEW-MAP (Campbell, 2014) such as GreenThumb.…”

Section: Study Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educating with resilience in mind: Addressing climate change in post-Sandy New York City

DuBois

Krasny

2016

The Journal of Environmental Education

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How educators adapt their programs following a climate related disturbance can provide insights into potential climate education practices. Therefore, we used semi-structured interviews to explore changes in environmental education practice in NYC following Hurricane Sandy. Educators adopted new language to reflect funding opportunities and incorporated new practices and collaborations, including those focused on resilience. Educators' resilience practices reflected the psychological, community, ecological, and socialecological systems resilience academic literature. Overall practice changes appeared to be adaptive, although some educators reflected more deeply about transforming their practice. Our findings point to the need for further exchange among practitioners facing climate-related disturbance, and between practitioners and researchers, to facilitate co-production of EE practice innovations that address climate change.

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Urban ecological stewardship: understanding the structure, function and network of community-based urban land management

Cited by 128 publications

References 39 publications

Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden

Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden

Environmental Stewardship: A Conceptual Review and Analytical Framework

Educating with resilience in mind: Addressing climate change in post-Sandy New York City

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