The role of the volunteer is not to be underestimated, and in the case of the Tanana Valley Watershed Association and other similar partnerships in Alaska, where I am focusing my research as part of my graduate studies in environmental policy, volunteers are an integral piece of a healthy watershed. Watershed partnerships are informal governing networks comprised of multiple stakeholders within an ecosystem basin.  Often these stakeholders have competing interests, but work as a body to make consensus-based decisions on things like which scientific research needs should be pursued or a plan for restoring a watershed or which issues require greater regulatory oversight. Participation in watershed partnerships is not mandatory.  The theoretical incentive is the desire to maintain a healthy ecosystem, one that can continue to provide jobs, services, clean water and a high quality of life for all.

Okay.  Tweed-wearing, pipe-smoking academic definitions aside, this seems a relevant topic as last week we were all called to serve by our new president. (more…)

This is what we’re up against:

In part 1 of this article series, I wrote in general terms about an alternative paradigm for conceptualizing the relationship between economics and ecosystems, between the sustainability of human livelihoods and landscapes. It is not a new paradigm, by any means, but one that we seem set on relegating to a less-civilized past. Indeed the march of civilization has systematically rooted-out (or is still in the process of doing so) every example of self-reliance that it has encountered. Nevertheless, it stands as the only paradigm in history that has successfully mediated a concomitant relationship between people and ecosystems. I followed this up with some anecdotes of how capitalist ideals have come to take precedent over our democratic cultural and political ideals. To paraphrase E.F. Schumacher, the modern perception of prestige tends to vary in inverse proportion to one’s closeness to actual production; so pervasive is this notion that we sadly forsake the hard-won principles of solidarity and self-determination that we built this nation, on in the name of “looking out for number one.” Inevitably, this ego-centricity and preoccupation with the accumulation of wealth has spelled disaster for our communities and ecosystems. (more…)

Read part 1 first here

Once upon a time there was a modest, unsuspecting Canadian corn farmer who had the great misfortune of happenstance having conspired with a strong gust of wind. Unbeknownst to the farmer, corn seed containing patented genetic material blew from a passing truck into his fields. Now, the gentle farmer had been saving his own seed for many seasons, perfecting his own special, local variety of maize, continuing one of the oldest North American traditions. However, clever agents of the company who owned these patented seeds serendipitously materialized one morning in their dark suits and dark glasses on the gentleman farmer’s land, to test his crop for evidence he had stolen their trade secret. Just as they suspected, their precious genetically-modified germplasm had indeed infiltrated the farmer’s bounty – or booty – as the man was clearly not an honest farmer but a thieving pirate! He was surreptitiously growing the company’s secret species without ever having paid for their seed. “No no,” pleaded the farmer, “it is their seed that has contaminated mine!” But the wisest and most powerful courts of the land saw through his humble guile, and the farmer was found guilty and ordered to pay reparations for his heinous crime. (more…)