LC ENVS Blogs

The Blue Green Alliance Hosts the Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference

2011-04-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

In early February, the Blue Green Alliance sponsored the Good Jobs Green Jobs national conference in Washington DC. Through some stroke of luck, the Sierra Club ended up giving me a full scholarship to attend the event. On February 9, I flew to DC along with two other students, Tom Lang and Caitlin Piserchia, to take part in two days of workshops and speakers and a day of lobbying ot our representatives on Capital Hill. After figuring out how to get to our hotel on the Metro, we arrived at the Marriot Wardman, which was probably as big as the entirety of the Lewis and Clark College.

A contradiction immediately came to mind as I spent more time at the hotel, going to workshops and being treated to served dinners and glass elevators. The conference seemed to exemplify consumerism at its best. The Hotel was expensive, the food was meaty, and just about everyone had to fly to reach the conference. Is this modern day environmentalism? Do environmentalists get to discuss options and express grievances while simultaneously participating in the system of consumerism that is the root of so many problems? I couldn’t help but feel hypocritical. I definitely was not in Portland anymore. Where were the composting and local food options? Where was the simplicity of Tryon Life Farm?

I realized that the kind of environmentalism that I was experiencing was born of brutal political engagement. One speaker who was representing the EPA referred to the political battle over coal currently waging in West Virginia as a “war with the enemies.” I realized that in circumstances when people’s livelihoods and values clash with forces like the coal industry, the kind of inclusive environmentalism practiced at Tryon Life Farm or even Portland at large is not possible. The Blue Green Alliance (http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/) is a branch of the Sierra Club that has a partnership with Steel Worker Unions to fight for environmental justice and safe conditions in the workplace. I met a woman from South Carolina who had been diagnosed with brain cancer after being exposed to a chlorine gas repeatedly in the workplace. She was at the conference to fight for her right to work in a healthy and safe environment; she was there because in a way, she had to be, unlike myself.

I used to have the vague opinion that the Sierra Club was just the coffee table book of environmentalism, or that all they did was host their fancy conferences and never address the heart of environmental issues. I have realized that just because they don’t focus as much on the local issues, they are the ones funding and pushing for political policies that will make environmentalism effective on a national and ultimately global scale. However, finding a balance between National Environmental Conferences at the Marriot Wardman Hotel and isolated community action on a local scale is the key to making any lasting environmental impacts.

Stay Involved

2011-01-21T18:57:00.000-08:00

Stay involved. If you want to go back to school or find a job in your field of interest you have to stay involved. For me, the greatest contrast between college and the outside world is the level of passion and engagement. At Lewis and Clark I felt almost effortlessly connected to environmental issues; Proctor or Podobnik would raise concerns about the latest environmental legislation and friends in the library would debate land use and conservation strategies. Whether through these avenues or through my own research, this comprehensive knowledge allowed me to speak confidently to colleagues, employers, and friends. Once you graduate, it is well worth the extra effort in order to stay engaged with what you love.

As I unfortunately came to realize, my perfect, ideal job is hard to get. Whether secretary or barista, the opportunity for a lively debate over name-your-environmental-issue-of-choice quickly diminishes once you leave the Lewis and Clark campus. I feel fortunate to have a few friends with whom I can ramble away about the environmental world; we exchange newspaper articles, nonprofit job openings, and graduate school research ideas. But on a day-to-day basis I find it difficult to remain connected to the field I care so much about. Engagement in the environmental community is no longer a given.

Staying involved became my life-link to keeping my mind astute and my future opportunities open. It’s fine if your job isn’t in your desired field, but work to stay engaged with what you are passionate about. Over the course of a year I interned for two environmental nonprofits. In the first, I worked on local land-use policy, and while policy work is not my favorite, I felt joined to something bigger. The second internship, a local collaborative conservation effort, threw me into meetings with key local players. Taking meeting notes was less than glamorous, but I got to listen in on the big ideas. Both of these internships were only a couple days a week, but it was enough to make the difference. I made connections, expanded my network, got my name out there, but most importantly, I kept my mind sharp.

Liberal arts education, and the environmental studies major in particular, teach you the importance of connecting interdisciplinary ideas. The ecological questions you might ask with Dr. B. [Dr. Bierzychudek] are contextualized by the framework built in environmental sociology, economics, or the core ENVS classes. Even once the details are forgotten, what remains is the value of multiple perspectives, that various drivers, pressures, states, impacts, and responses exist and should be examined.

From summer positions, internships, and a graduate class I have gained the confidence and context to discuss current environmental issues with future employers and potential graduate school advisors. Because I understand a diverse array of environmental issues, I am able to apply to more positions at more organizations. During interviews, I stress that I have a skill set that allows me to handle the immediate job opening, but also act as a team player within the organization and with outside agencies. When I spoke to potential forest ecology advisors in the University of Washington’s graduate program I was passionate, up to date on local issues, and able to convey my diverse knowledge base. Lewis and Clark’s excellent biology program provided the concrete skills I needed, the ENVS program built my foundation of broad knowledge, but my outside involvement demonstrated my passion for and commitment to the field. Or so I hope.

So You Want A Job?...The Value of Unpaid Work

2010-12-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

For the past three and a half years I have spent buckets of money to work for free. This full time job I like to call “college” demands long hours and countless odd tasks, yet I willingly and gladly show up to class every day because I know it matters. Everyone is told go to school, get good grades, and a job will come. But somewhere between the economic downturn and the influx of brilliant kids graduating from college, the “getting the job” part of that process has fallen by the wayside for many graduates. As a second semester senior I have yet to experience a post-graduation job search, but after seeing enough friends go through the process I feel as though I have learned a thing or two. The best piece of advice I was given by a 2010 alumna was: get an internship, and get it now.

Doing well in school and achieving respectable grades are certainly crucial, yet as any LC graduate can tell you it’s not about the letters you receive but rather the skills you gain from your college education (see this blog post by Andrew Coggiola ’09). While international relations theories and rock climbing 101 have taught me a great deal, it is a bit of a stretch to connect the skills I gained from those courses to a job in food policy and programs (my dream career). I have, however, participated in two internships this past year and they have been wonderful ways to incorporate my career interests into my college education.

My first internship was with Oregon State Representative Jules Kopel Bailey, a Lewis & Clark alumnus whom I met at a Student Alumni Association Majors Meeting. When I first asked about a position in March he wasn’t in need of an intern, but with enough persistence I was able to secure a summer internship. During my time in the representative’s office I responded to constituent e-mails on animal cruelty, answered concerned phone calls about state budget cuts, and investigated the status of pending bills on pollution in Oregon coastal waters. In addition, one week in September I had the chance to fill in for the Representative’s senior policy advisor to take care of the Capitol office for a few days. I learned a great a deal about state legislation and the inner workings of local politics.

Since my time in Jules’ office, I have taken on a second internship working with the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability Food Policy and Programs. I have done everything from recording minutes at the monthly Urban Food Production and Distribution meetings to revising a grant application for hunger free communities to surveying the Portland community-supported agriculture economy. And believe it or not, I got school credit for it!

These positions have opened many doors for me. I have gained a fuller understanding of the careers I want to pursue, I have networked with countless individuals and organizations, and most importantly I have gained experience in the workforce before my job search has even begun. The unpaid job of an intern is certainly nothing glamorous, but when graduation rolls around and everyone else is looking for ways to enter the business, I can rest assured my foot is already in the door. So go to college, get good grades (and an internship), and then hopefully a job will come!

An Independent Study In Peru: Examining The Controversy Concerning Genetically Engineered Corn

2010-12-16T17:34:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick little story about my independent research project during my semester aboard. Last spring, I lived and studied in Peru for three and half months. The majority of my time was spent in Cusco, the city that was once the center of the Incan Empire. I also had the opportunity to travel beyond the Andes, down into the Amazon rainforest, and to the coast as well. In each of these three regions I found myself astounded by the different agricultural practices. I was fascinated by the traditional technologies, the diversity of varieties and species, and the abundance that these systems were capable of yielding. Despite my interest in the more traditional agrarian structures I found myself studying Peru’s most industrialized and commodified models of agricultural production. As a part of the study abroad program, students construct an independent research project that is situated in the area where their topic is taking place. I chose to study corn; more specifically the current legal, political, and ecological concerns surrounding the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) hard yellow corn. In turn I found myself in one of South America’s largest cities, Lima. I stayed in Lima for three weeks and spent most of my time hopping buses and running all around the sprawling city to conduct interviews and speak with individuals involved in the current debate regarding the use and illegal presence of agricultural biotechnology.

Cheers from my friends at the Chicharia.

Chicha is a favorite and ancient beverage of the Andean region, which is made by fermenting yellow corn.

Currently it is illegal to cultivate biotechnology in Peru; however, in 2009 a biologist by the name of Dr. Gutiérrez-Rosati discovered the presence of genetically engineered alleles in hard yellow corn growing in the Northern coastal region. This means that Peruvian varieties of conventional hard yellow corn cross-pollinated and exchanged genetic information with a GE variety of hard yellow corn. Yellow corn is grown primarily to feed pigs and chickens, while it is also used to make oils and flours. One thing I noticed quickly upon arriving to Peru is that Peruvians love to eat chicken. This food protein preference creates a large demand for yellow corn to fatten the chickens. The current levels of production cannot meet the high need and therefore Peru imports corn from two countries: Argentina and the United States. These two countries are the world’s leaders in corn production as well as the leaders in the use of agricultural biotechnology. The presence of transgenes in Peru’s hard yellow corn has been attributed to the importation of GE varieties. The most likely scenario is that farmers are sowing the imported corn instead of using it as feed. When I arrived in Lima I was curious to understand what greater implications would ensue as a result of these GE corn varieties in the coastal region.

My goal was to listen to the differing opinions and perspectives regarding the presence of GE corn in the northern coastal region, and to contextualize this in the greater debate regarding the future use of agricultural biotechnology in Peru’s food system. I spoke with many individuals who are involved in the subject matter in varying ways; biologists, environmental lawyers, the owner of a Peruvian biotechnology firm, government employees of agricultural organizations (equivalent to the USDA), and with activists and agricultural commodity traders. Each conversation offered a new lens from which to view genetically engineered yellow corn and biotechnology in general. I was able to see how this crop has a long and complicated series of relationships and particularly its economic significance. I left Lima with a much greater understanding of the GE corn feud however this was only a minute component of the biotechnology debate. Furthermore, the discussion around GE corn in Peru has changed dramatically since I left Peru.

This image is from Dr. Gutiérrez's report on the presence of transgenes.

This is a visual representation of the specific transgenes that she found in Peruvian hard yellow corn.

Upon returning to Lewis and Clark College, I discovered that Dr. Gutiérrez’s claim that transgenes are present in Peru’s corn has been negated. The Peruvian governmental organization INIA, the institution in charge of agricultural investigation and experimentation, declared Peru to be free of transgenic crops. They claimed to have found no evidence of genetically engineered DNA in the corn samples, which they allegedly took from the same region where Dr. Gutiérrez collected her samples. INIA requested for Dr. Gutiérrez that she provide them with her samples with the transgenes and the locations in which she found them. Interestingly, Dr. Gutiérrez refused to provide INIA with the samples and the locations.

This new development leaves us without an ending and provokes a whole new series of questions. My biggest question is simply why Dr. Gutiérrez is withholding the information and evidence needed to resolve the situation. My guess would be that she is attempting to protect the farmers whose fields produced the transgenic corn, in order to prevent legal issues that may include patent violations as well as infringement of national law. Though it is rather curious that she has refused to provide the desired information to INIA, from the conversations I have had with her I would like to believe she is a genuine and honest person, invested in the well being and health of her national food system as well as its biodiversity. If I am correct and these are her objectives then she must come forward and provide the necessary information to INIA. If Gutiérrez fails to provide the samples and the locations where she found them, Peru and it's corn diversity may be a risk.

A Few of Peru's native Corn Varieties

The Proverbial Light at the End of the Tunnel

2010-11-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

A cell phone rings loudly in front of me, its owner scrambling frantically to silence the silly ringtone as quickly as possible to avoid further embarrassment. A couple of guys at a desk to my right try to subdue their laughter as they watch a video on YouTube, their efforts as futile as mine as I attempt to tune out the pained, awkward flirting I hear in the background. For a second I wonder if the past year and a half has been a dream, am I still in college? But then reality comes crashing down on me as always. I’ve left the world of academia behind me for now, and I actually have a job, like a real one with money and everything. Maybe working as a writer on contract with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration isn’t all that different from college? There are still assignments, lots of reading, I’m learning new things, and I still feel like the dumbest person in the room. Maybe college did prepare me for the real world.

“Well, good for you,” you might sneer sarcastically, “I’m glad you have a job, but I don’t have one and certainly won’t get one with a liberal arts education and a degree in environmental studies, not with this economy!” And you’d be right of course, at least partially. You most likely won’t find a good job that you like right out of college, I didn’t. If you do please feel free to contact me and rub your success in my face. I won’t be jealous, I’ll be happy for you. What I found, and what you can find too are unpaid internships. Yes, the “unpaid” part of that doesn’t sound too appealing, but we’ll get to that later. The “internship” part sounds good though, and everyone will tell you that you’re “getting your foot in the door” and “building your resume” and “gaining valuable job experience,” etc. And they’re right of course, at least partially. Unpaid internships can be valuable tools with the potential to set you off on a course to bigger and better things, but you’re going to have to work for it. If you work hard you’ll start to stand out and presumably someone will notice you and presumably this person knows people who know people who would like you to do more work but can’t pay you yet. This process may continue for some time, but if you make yourself indispensible enough someone in a position of authority may one day break this cycle and start paying you. That’s the plan anyway…

“Fine,” you say, “that sounds like a good plan, and it worked for you, but I don’t have any job skills. I have a liberal arts education and a degree in environmental studies, remember?” Wrong, you do have job skills; you just don’t know it. Can you write well, communicate effectively, work in groups, and use Microsoft office? Are you familiar with the concept of time management? Have you honed your critical thinking skills to a razor-sharp edge and do have a firm grasp of the social, political, and environmental issues affecting your community, your country, and your world? If you answered yes to all of those questions (and let’s be honest, if you’re a senior about to write your thesis then you better have) then congratulations, you have job skills!

“Ok,” you say, “so I have enough job skills to maybe get an unpaid internship that might start paying me eventually. In the meantime, I would like to eat and sleep under a roof but I can’t do that because I don’t have any money because I can’t find a job.” Wrong again, you can find a job; you just can’t find one that you want to do. Notice that I said “job” not “career” or “successful, well-paid dream job,” I just said “job.” They’re out there. I worked at a pizzeria for a year before NOAA started paying me enough that I could quit, and I have friends who did all kinds of stuff before getting a good job or going to grad school. Would you like to wait tables, bag groceries, babysit, or do weird landscaping work that you found on craigslist? No? Shocking, neither did my friends and I, but we did it anyway because we had to pay for ramen and PBR somehow. Plus, these jobs are rarely full time, so you can spend your free hours looking for better (un)paid internships!

I don’t say any of this to discourage you, but rather to assure you that everything is going to be ok. I’m not saying that the unpaid internship combined with crappy, menial job formula is guaranteed to work for everyone, but don’t get discouraged before at least giving it a shot. All joking aside, unpaid internships are actually incredibly valuable. The experience you gain and the connections you make will someday be worth more than you could ever imagine.

So enjoy the rest of college. Work hard but not too hard, and most importantly don’t worry too much. You’ll be just fine.

Written by Andrew Coggiola, '09

Thoughts on a conservation internship

2010-09-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

I spent last summer interning for the conservation department at the Oregon Zoo. It was an amazing experience, overall. I was given opportunities to see firsthand how conservation projects are implemented, funded, and overseen. I even spent part of the summer doing fieldwork for the Zoo’s well-publicized western pond turtle conservation project. I am passionate about wildlife conservation, and I was excited by the work that the Oregon Zoo is doing to make a positive impact on biodiversity both here in Oregon and all over the world.

Most of the conservation department, however, is staffed by conservation educators. These are wonderful, caring people who love animals and spend their days creating activities and programs for children, teaching them everything from native Oregon bird calls to details about the life cycle of a cheetah in far away Africa. This is all well and good. It is inspiring and difficult work. But somewhere, there is a disconnect. Nearly all of these people drive to work on a daily basis. I can’t say that I was shocked to discover this, but it has unsettled me enough to reexamine how I have been thinking about conservation. I found myself wondering on certain days during my internship, is this really the best we can do? We can teach kids about a carbon footprint, but it is wasted energy if no one connects the dots between the plight of polar bears in Alaska and driving two miles to school everyday. It is all too ironic to me that even as educators finish up a lesson on the impending impact of climate change on polar bears, they gather up their things and get into their SUVs to go home.

Surely there are dozens of such disconnects between thought and action in our everyday lives. In some ways our society has constructed this disconnect in its very organization: we live in a culture where academia, critical thinking, and great questions are compartmentalized into classrooms. It would not be hard, for example, to find someone extolling the virtues of organic food on our campus, but found a few days later purchasing the cheaper, conventionally grown produce in the supermarket. Conservation certainly necessitates passionate people like the conservation educators at the Oregon Zoo, working every day to spread awareness, but it also needs action from ordinary citizens. It is possible to imagine a world where consideration for the conservation of our natural resources is an integrated part of American life.

The historical view of conservation as a far away forest where no humans go is just that: historical. It cannot be our contemporary view of what it means to protect the biodiversity that is so important to our health and the health of the planet. In the end, we all need to be conservationists in order for any real conservation to succeed. Each of us is responsible for connecting the dots between thought and action in our everyday lives.

Challenges of Labeling

2010-09-08T16:20:00.001-07:00

As an ENVS major focusing on food systems and social justice, connecting the food on my plate to broader processes of production and distribution has become a frequent dinner conversation in my life. One conversation in particular stands out. My companions included a few passionate vegans who were able to list off from memory dozens of unpronounceable ingredients containing animal products and a student involved in the Portland-based Non-GMO project who was able to perform a similar trick with products including genetically modified ingredients. A friend of mine and I rounded out the discussion, attempting holism but clearly most passionate about issues surrounding farm-worker justice and international agricultural imperialism.

This conversation really made me appreciate Real Food Challenge, which is a national student organization committed to leveraging their power as students to demand that the four billion dollars colleges in the United States spend on food each year goes toward food that nourishes consumers, producers, and the planet. I recently returned from a national organizer training with Real Food Challenge that pushed me to look at food issues more broadly than I otherwise would.

Purists won’t be pleased by RFC. “Real Food” is considered fair, local, humane, and ecologically sound, but the standards for many of the categories are not as stringent as single-issue foodies might prefer. Legitimate criticisms have been leveled at the organic, fair trade, and humane certifications that the Real Food Calculator is based on. As a member of the 2010ENVS Symposium Planning Committee, I’m trying to ensure that each of these labels is considered with a critical eye.

Just because something is labeled fair or organic or real doesn’t make it nature’s perfect food. I know that. Knowing this has left me even more motivated to work with Real Food Challenge. An example is in order: For my ENVS 330 final, I researched fair trade coffee commodity chains. (Check out Brewing Justice author Daniel Jaffee at Symposium!) Producing coffee is hard work, and the people on the ground have a hard time making ends meet. As it turns out, this is often true even when the coffee carries a fair trade label. Research for my ENVS thesis will likely involve researching the complexities of the fair trade label, including the complexities in negotiating with large organizations, the cost of certification, and the fact that farmers still receive a fraction of the end price.

In contrast, my work with RFC surrounding fair trade will mostly involve educating others about the difficulties in conventional coffee production and trying to mobilize students to increase consumer demand for fair and direct trade. I understand that fair trade coffee isn’t perfect, but I also understand that it is better, and that convincing corporations to switch from conventional coffee to individual, direct, and equal relationships with each producer is perhaps out of the range of immediate possibility.

As imperfect as labeling practices are, they are certainly better than the most common alternative, which is no consideration at all. For example, though it is possible to buy coffee from Central America where the producers have a guaranteed minimum price, strawberries purchased from a grocery store carry no such guarantee. When I buy strawberries or broccoli at the grocery store, I have no way whatsoever of finding out whether the workers were allowed to unionize, what their living conditions were like, or even how much they made. This is true even if the produce is certified organic and was grown within 100 miles of my house. The only thing more confusing than labels, it appears, is not having them at all.

I would love to see a food system where all connections between producers and consumers were direct and fair, as well as a food system based on connections to the land that could be sustained for centuries to come. This is what I’m working for, but I recognize that it can’t be achieved overnight.

The philosophy of Real Food Challenge is about not letting our desire to make the food system perfect get in the way of our ability to make it better. The role of academia and critical thinking in all of this is about not ignoring the devilish details (how much more do fair-trade producers make, exactly?) in the name of progress. I think that both approaches are irrelevant without the other, so I’d like to figure out a way to make activists and academics more directly accountable to one another.

With respect to our upcoming ENVS Symposium, this will mean pushing speakers who have dedicated their lives toward promoting change to reflect on how they could be doing better. It will also mean pushing speakers who specialize in deconstructing imperfect solutions to be as specific about their visions for change as they are about the flaws in the action plans of others. It will mean challenging all involved to recognize that there are no easy answers, but that it is this very fact that makes responding both intellectually and actively to the challenges in our modern food system so important.

[Written by Tara Brown]

A Response to PSU's Eating Animals Roundtable [Discussion?]

2010-03-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

We, the Lewis & Clark College Environmental Symposium lead chairs, thought it would be worthwhile to attend Portland State University's Eating Animals Roundtable Discussion so as to research related school sponsored discussions regarding food and to gain insight for the content and tone we want to set for our upcoming symposium "Following the Food Chain." We left the event jarred by the discussion and discourse that transpired which has led to the following charged response. We recognize that this is a strongly opinionated article and we hope that in taking such a critically firm stance we will light the fire of controversial debate for our own symposium.

The Eating Animals Roundtable Discussion was intended to be a, "lively discussion of what is increasingly being recognized as one of the most vexing set of issues of our time" (Portland Center for Public Humanities). It was meant to be a forum in which panelists and audience members could discuss and contemplate the nature of eating animals and our role as animals that eat. Unfortunately, this event was anything BUT a roundtable discussion. Discussion is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as, “[the] consideration of a question in open and usually informal debate.” Eating Animals was certainly informal yet seriously lacked the diversity of debate characteristic of an intellectual panel. Speakers Camas Davis, Kathy Hessler, and Ramona Ilea represented a variety of perspectives. Camas the ethical butcher, Kathy the animal lawyer, and Ramona the foodie philosopher should have all butted heads throughout the two hour long roundtable, and still the event felt more like a kumbaya, hand-holding, vegan indoctrination presentation. Where was the controversy, the scrutiny, the questioning? Well, let us back up a moment, there were questions…there was a whole hour dedicated to audience questions…but the questions did not probe, pry or press with substance or style suited for the setting.

This PSU event had groundbreaking potential to hit on ideas we commonly accept and take for granted. Why do we eat meat? Are we a part of the Darwinian food chain and if so, is eating meat merely a nutritious necessity? As carnivores, do we stand above and removed from the rest of the animal kingdom to be deemed an exceptional breed? How do morality, justice, and ethics apply to our dinner plate? When considering these ideals, can the solution be found along the grocery aisle or must the solution go beyond the consumer to grander and greater decisions. THESE are the questions we wish we had heard. We did not need to hear about Joe Schmoe from the back row's life saga as a vegan. We did not want to hear about how it makes Cindy Lou in the front row cry at night to think about the beakless baby chickens. These were supposed to be debate-oriented questions, not emotional appeals for vegetarianism. There is nothing constructive or effective in approaching these issues in that manner. To be honest, we all blew it. We brought together three fascinating panelists with wonderfully different specialties. We had over an hour in which we could have picked their brains, gained perspective, and formulated knowledgeable opinions yet we spent that time blabbing and pointing fingers. In particular, the arguments of Camas Davis were simply ignored and discredited by some of the most outspoken members of the vegetarian audience. Little meaningful discussion was raised since those who asked questions came forth with pre-conceptions and self-praise that defined the event in a one-sided fashion.

Despite how disappointed we were with the ineffectiveness of the roundtable, we did gain a lot of valuable insight as to qualities and practices we want to replicate (or steer clear of) when producing the 13th Annual Symposium on Environmental Affairs “Following the Food Chain." Most importantly, we have vowed (for the sake of both panelists and audience members alike) to ensure that questions raised actually end in question marks. In addition, the event allowed us to get in contact with some of the panelists involved; Kathy Hessler has already been helpful in providing provocative ideas worth debating in our panels. Lastly, we believe Camas Davis’ Portland Meat Collective is a great example of an alternative food movement in the Portland area that is trying to change the way our food system operates. In an attempt to remove meat consumers from the snare of the American meat industry, she proposes a local “relational” economy in which meat eaters have an emotional relationship with the animals that produce their meat and dairy. It is just a shame that people, even in Portland, cannot look past their own engrained beliefs and recognize that such an attempt to go against the status quo is valuable, even if it means meat is still part of the daily diet.

We encourage any comments or questions so please feel free to contact us (Claire Cummings and Ben Mitzner) at clairec.lclark@gmail.com and bmitzner@gmail.com

Abroad in India: Reflections from My Fall Semester

2010-01-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

Almost two years ago in Environmental Studies 160, my good friend Rosanne Wielemaker and I chose to do a small research project on the Navdanya Farm in Dehradun, India. Little did I know at the time that my interest in this organic farm would lead to a second situated research proposal in India, an application for the Lewis & Clark study abroad program in India and an independent field study on third world environmentalism. This fall, I was able put my two years of theoretical research on India into a real cultural experience by spending three and a half months traveling and studying the country with twenty-four of my fellow classmates. While I was there, I had the opportunity to learn about India’s history and culture from two brilliant university professors—Sunil and Nita Kumar—as well as a host of other native lecturers and local townspeople. In addition, Rosie and I were able to conduct an independent study on waste management and environmentalism in India.

From September 1st to December 14th, I lived in about five of India’s major metropolises and dozens of other small and rural areas. We began the program in Delhi where—under the guidance of Sunil Kumar—we studied medieval and modern India through field trips to monuments, mosques, shrines and temples as well as through projects that forced us to navigate the city on our own. From there, we went to Dehradun, Rishikesh and Haridwar before finally settling in Varanasi for the month of October. I was fortunate enough to be in Varanasi during the major Hindu festival of Diwali, which meant plenty of sweets, firecrackers and parades. Unlike a developing economic and political capital such as Delhi, Varanasi is a city in which India’s social and ecological problems are more apparent. The city’s significance in Hinduism, old infrastructure and large handicraft industry make Varanasi an incredibly unique place to study environmental issues such as waste management, pollution and urbanization. Consequently, Varanasi was where I situated my independent study.

In the spring of 2009, Rosanne and I decided to collaborate on an independent study regarding waste management practices in India. After a semester of intensive research and planning, we submitted our project proposal to the ENVS steering committee and waited anxiously for the fall to begin furthering our investigation. However, research projects do not always go as planned, especially in new and foreign countries. Despite the many drawbacks that we faced in attempting to follow our original proposal, we were able to create and accomplish a new project, using the data and contacts that we had already established through another, separate assignment in Varanasi.

With help from the Nirman School, I spent nearly two weeks learning about Hindu philosophy on humans and nonhuman nature from Dr. Veer Bhadra Mishra and his colleague R.K. Mishra of the Sankat Mochan Foundation. As the high priest of Varanasi and a former professor of Civil Engineering at Benaras Hindu University, Dr. Mishra—more commonly known as Mahantji—combined his faith and knowledge of science to form the Sankat Mochan Foundation, an organization that works to raise awareness of pollution in the holy Ganga river. While it is considered the Mother Goddess in Hinduism, the Ganga River is incredibly polluted and many Hindu residents in Varanasi refuse to accept this objective fact. In Varanasi, I listened to these local Hindus talk about their love for Gangaji and then watched them throw plastic bottles into their beloved river. During these two and half weeks, my main objective was to look at the significance of religion to an individual’s actions towards the biophysical world. In finishing my assignment in Varanasi, I was able to gather a tremendous amount of data for my independent study, which I will continue to analyze this spring.

From Varanasi, we headed south to Bangalore, Mysore, Penukonda, BR Hills and Nagarhole to learn about other issues of environment and development in India. My visit to the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK) organization in BR Hills was one of the most eye-opening and humbling experiences that I had throughout my stay in India. VGKK is an organization formed by Dr. Sudarshan that aims to protect the culture and livelihood of tribal peoples in the state of Karnataka from the effects of technological development and wildlife conservation. VGKK provides these tribes with health facilities as well as education in both academic studies and organic agriculture. In BR Hills, I was able to witness the benefits of this program: the preservation of biodiversity and local knowledge.

After spending three and a half months in a third world country, I have had a rough time transitioning back into my previous lifestyle knowing that the same issues that I saw and people that I met still exist 8000 miles away. At the end of the day, I am grateful for choosing India two years ago as my situated research site in ENVS 160. Because of that small choice, I am now returning to my studies at Lewis & Clark having gained a tremendous amount of inspiration and knowledge from my experiences and travels in India.

Posted by Emily Nguyen '11

The Images and Politics That Resurface

2009-11-23T17:23:00.000-08:00

A year and a half ago, I wrote in the conclusion to my senior thesis: “In an increasingly stateless and transient world, place still matters. Place and place-attachment is neither static nor nostalgic. The contextual processes of how refugees form attachments to place can inform not only the dominant stereotypes of refugees, but also how environmentalism reveres a localized and singular place attachment.” A lot has happened in the time since I wrote that—I graduated in the Spring of 2008 and wanted nothing to do with academia, so I got my EMT (Emergency Medical Technician), and a job as a ski patroller. When the snow melted, I realized (amazingly enough!) that I had enough funds for a trip overseas. So I spent the past three months traveling: first to Sweden where I met two friends from LC for three weeks of rock climbing and mountaineering in Northern Sweden and on the Lofoten Islands off the Northwest coast of Norway.

From Scandinavia, I headed to India, where I spent three weeks studying Tibetan Buddhism and climbing in the high Himalayan plateau of Ladakh. From there I traveled south to the northern plains and visited the more touristy sites of Jaipur in the Rajasthani desert, Agra to see the truly magnificent Taj Mahal, and Varanasi to see the Hindu holy city. I also went to Dharamsala, the home in exile for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Government, and a large population of Tibetan refugees who have recently escaped from Tibet. I have been interested in the political situation in Tibet for a long time, but it always seemed as something that was handed to me, rather than something I sought out on my own. In middle school, my best friend’s mother would host monks and rimpoches who came to give teachings in the town hall, in small town Vermont. I fell into Tibetan culture by cooking momos (dumplings filled with vegetables or mutton) and tingmo (a steamed bread) for the teachers and being told we had to go give khatas (ceremonial scarves and a sign of respect) to the lamas. But in Ladakh, in the high Himalayas, it became my own. I was traveling to 1000 year old temples tucked into the barren hillsides offering khatas again to 25 foot tall carved wooden Buddhas, or going to festivals in ancient monasteries where dancers retold traditional Buddhist folklore.

Similarly, Dharamsala stirred my academic work and interests that I had moved away from. I fell quickly into teaching English to Tibetan refugees and began asking questions about the dynamics of displacement for the students that I was tutoring. I decided that while I enjoyed ski patrol, this was where I wanted to focus when I returned to the states. So when my hulking, heaving plane touched down, the only job that was remotely interesting was working as a Paraeducator in an ELL (English Language Learning) classroom in Burlington, Vermont. I love it. The students are amazing. They are endlessly optimistic, engaged, and hilarious. They are also challenging, with the gamut of English proficiency, learning differences, family situations, trauma, etc. They are predominately Somali Bantu, but also Nepalese who are being evicted from Bhutan, some from Burma, China, and a smattering of other African countries.

In my spare time, I continue to study Hindi and Tibetan languages. I also try to process and explore my experiences, with the hope of returning in the next two years. My memories of India are complicated: it is an intense country, which has really shaken the foundation of my thoughts in Environmental Studies. The images that linger behind my eyes are of the people, negotiating an overwhelming population, poverty, and the rapid push for modernization. It seems as though industrialization has happened in thirty years, and the infrastructure for its debris is still non-existent. In Varanasi, the holy Ganges River flows through the city, parts of it black from where the sewage flows straight into the river. Nearby, young boys are fishing... in many ways, India was incredibly disheartening. The job seems even more overwhelming, even more unattainable, in a place where the vast majority of people are struggling to meet basic needs. Yet, at the same time, there is a momentum in that: that if people depend on the river intimately for their sustenance, its vulnerability is almost more compelling. I try to sift through my frustrations and find pockets of optimism.

I find that I am more oriented toward social considerations as a result of my job—I go home and research the conflicts that have given rise to the displaced populations I am working with, I read mostly about racism in school environments, and sociology books about modern India. But Environmental Studies has given me the framework to think about human migration in a wider context than the social dynamics. My thinking continues to be situated in a conversation about place-attachment and what influences that, whether environmental or social.

If you have questions or thoughts, I am always interested in what current students are working on, as well as the reflections of other alumni. alexa.m.schmidt(at)gmail.com

My Experience as a 2006 ENVS Graduate

2009-11-10T20:26:00.000-08:00

I graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Lewis & Clark College in 2006, and was fortunate to have a summer job lined up after graduation working as a Crew Leader with the Youth Conservation Corps in Yellowstone National Park. I had been a student in the program for two summers in high school. The program was challenging for me, but it felt good to be sharing the outdoors with 30 high school students and drawing on a lot of things I had learned in college in our daily environmental education sessions.

I knew that I was going to take at least a year off before applying to grad school because I wanted to get more work experience, so I returned to Portland in August where I spent the winter of 2006 bouncing around a few jobs. My first job was working for a photo lab, which was at best motivation to find a better job. After 6 weeks, I quit and started working for REI (part time) and an Intellectual Property law firm (full time). I was probably working too many hours, but in January my hours went down at REI, so I started looking for a part-time internship because I wanted to do something more closely related to my degree and my interests. I wound up interning at a Portland-based climate change consultancy that I learned about from a lunchtime talk given by its founder at Lewis and Clark in 2005. In March, I decided to return to Yellowstone in Summer 2007 by way of a five-week hiking trip across Spain.

While I was in Yellowstone, I was offered a Research Assistant position with the consulting firm and started on Labor Day 2007. I know that I probably would not have gotten that job had I not interned 10 hours a week earlier in the year. This job was a great opportunity for me because I was able to provide research support and gained a lot of experience conducting greenhouse gas inventories, drafting reports, and helping to develop a few Excel based models. I also helped author a short paper on carbon market opportunities for public transportation organizations with a colleague. In October 2008, I started the GRE and application process because I wanted to start a graduate program that would combine my climate change experience with my other interests in public land management.

Which I guess brings us to the present. I am in my first semester of a 2 year MS in Resource Conservation program at the University of Montana. Ultimately, I am glad that I waited to apply to grad school. I have a better idea of what I need to study, and I think that I also gained a lot from my work experiences. One other thing, if anyone wants to contact me, my e-mail is crankypants374@hotmail.com. Just kidding, it is matt.ehrman (at) gmail.com. If you have one, ditch the stupid handle. I have seen people arbitrarily toss out resumes for that and stupid fonts.

An L&C Alum's Experience

2009-09-16T04:50:00.000-07:00

It seems like only yesterday, but I graduated from L&C all the way back in 2007. I have been asked to share my experiences since graduation, so here goes:

At L&C I doubled majored in Political Science and Environmental Studies. After graduating, I lived and worked in Portland for a year while I applied to law school. During this year I lived in SW Portland and I worked for Portland General Electric as a clerk, for L&C as a debate coach, and for Powerscore as an LSAT instructor.

In 2008, I moved to New York City to begin law school at Columbia University School of Law. New York is a lot different than Portland. It has some downsides like the crowds, trash, and how expensive everything is; but it is also a lot of fun! I’ve really enjoyed exploring the city and going to the great concerts, museums, events and speakers.

I spent my first year taking the traditional curriculum taught to all law students across the country: Constitutional Law, Torts, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Contracts and Property. During my first year I also did a lot of extracurriculars related to environmental law. I served on the board of the environmental law society and I coordinated Columbia's participation in the Focus the Nation events last semester. I also participated in the Environmental Law Moot Court.

After finishing my first year, I spent summer 2009 back in Portland, working for the Portland Metropolitan Public Defender. Working for a public defender definitely gives you a different perspective than reading about criminal law in a case book. I found helping represent those who cannot afford lawyers to be both a challenging and rewarding job and I recommend it to anyone interested in the law.

I am now starting my second year of law school. I get to pick my classes this year, which is a big improvement from last year; I am taking Evidence, Tax, Environmental Law, and Protection of Natural Resources. I have been elected president of the environmental law society and will serve as a staff editor of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law.

Well, that’s about all I’ve done since graduating from L&C. I am looking forward to taking more interesting classes and beginning my career in the law!

It's a Big Sea Out There!

2009-09-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

It all started the summer after freshman year when I got a salmon cannery job on Bristol Bay. Actually, it all started with my 10^th grade history teacher, Mrs. Monahan. She was a powerhouse at my high school: brilliant, young, funny, and a great storyteller. She regaled us with tales of her 1980’s jaunt to the Northern slime-lines. Crazies making Jell-o out of seawater and guts, impossible work, incognito gangsters, and the ping-pong table that shared the break-room with a murdered corpse for 3 weeks, all set at the end of the world. She spawned the goldfish of an idea in my fishbowl head to one day test my mettle where the tundra meets the sea. I went, and hated it. I actually loved it, but what I loved I also hated. We compared the cannery to an abusive relationship; you couldn’t escape and always came back. I was hooked on the absurdities, the awesome open landscape, the fish gore, the beautiful souls I met, and the frantic cocktail of pace and sleep deprivation. Regardless, it was great for my photography and I returned for two more seasons to work in the plant and then aboard a tender.

This first summer proved to give a strong current to my ENVS career. I was a member of the first class to have complete freedom over the design of our concentrations, and I decided to pursue art. I was greatly encouraged in the alternative photo classes I took from Jacinda Russell. With her help I created mixed media, alternative, and installation pieces inspired by the theories, issues, and concerns brought up in my ENVS classes. At the same time, “my issue” topic for ENVS projects gravitated to marine fisheries.

Having successfully snagged a Mellon Situated Research Grant in my junior year, I traveled and lived abroad in Primorskii krai, in the Russian Far East. For 6 months I interviewed people involved in most aspects of fisheries (NGOs, Government Industrial and Scientific fishery orgs, Academia, Commercial fishing companies, etc.) conducting research for a thesis verbosely titled “Fractured Visuals. How Russian Images of Far Eastern Fisheries Encourage Predicated Ways of Seeing? An Adaptation of Center-Periphery Relations.” This was a departure from art, a sociological study of images as products that have been produced with inherent cultural values, meanings, and orientations.

With this background it seems too perfect that I stumbled into the “Project/Outreach Coordinator” Americorps position with the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association, a non-profit established to create a forum, sense of unity, and represent the interests of the roughly 40 subsistence/commercial fishing villages along the Yukon River. It is the only river-wide, representational group open to all citizens. I will be organizing volunteer service and environmental education programs for high school youth based around salmon conservation and community development. The YRDFA's goal is to enable newer generations to become active community members and retain their local, cultural traditions. The happy byproduct is that I get to travel to remote and rural parts of Alaska that would otherwise be inaccessible.

As they say, it is a big sea out there. One full of fish, a lot of garbage, and some spectacular opportunities for those willing to risk it. You can’t stop swimming!

Evan Blankenship, ENVS 2009 alumnus

Stand on the Shoulders of Giants: Building a Web 2.0 Community

2009-08-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

This summer, Lewis & Clark set out to implement a long-overdue redesign of its website. With the redesign came new opportunities to expand the ENVS program’s online presence toward a more interactive, web-based approach. Our goal, to put it simply, was to create a process by which students can build off of those who have come before them, and interact with each other in ways that allow us, the students, to collaborate and produce better scholarship. This shift towards collaborative learning mirrors trends that have been sweeping the online world for years. Facebook, Twitter, and other types of social networking are far ahead of the scholarly sphere in creating communities where information is shared, debated, and users engage with each other. This is called Web 2.0, a departure from the one-sided, informational website.

The biggest, most obvious change is that there will be no more ENVS emails from our administrative coordinator Pete about poster celebrations and pizza meetings. They will still take place, of course, but now we will find out about them via MyLC, an RSS reader that is our new go-to source of information. Above and beyond some required ENVS feeds, students get to pick and choose those that appear in their MyLC, which can include anything from new ENVS internships to the latest New York Times headlines.

Students at LC should not have to reinvent the wheel with every new research project. Engaging with existing resources and building off of them is what Web 2.0 is all about. We recreated and expanded sample research themes for all of our ten local and overseas research sites. They are now ready for students and instructors to use as a jumping off point for situated research. Research site pages are now conveniently located in the Resources section of the new website. This section is our toolkit for ENVS projects, with support from the newly redesigned Help Wiki collection for when we get stuck.

Another key feature of our community-building effort is the segregation of Delicious —a Web 2.0 site where we share online research resources—into three “Delicii,” as we call them. There is a general, free-for-all database called lcenvs where you can add any interesting, environmentally related content such as Grist articles or news stories that you want to share with other ENVS students. As always, Delicious resources can be commented on by anyone in lcenvs. The two other ”Delicii” are lcenvsres and lcenvsgis, which separates research site-related resources (all newly tagged and organized for easy searchability) and GIS metadata used for mapping and spatial analysis.

Finally, the updated scholarship database provides us with tons of ideas and past examples of ENVS student work to inspire our concentration or research project. Together we hope these new and more easily accessible resources via the beautifully designed new website provides a better way of doing environmental studies that doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel.

Sarah Bobertz and Dick Fink,
ENVS Research Assistants

Reflections on Let Live Animal Rights Conference

2009-07-02T10:01:00.001-07:00

Matt Rossell of In Defense of Animals

“How to Deal with Environmentalists” was the title of a session that took place at Portland State University in June during the Let Live’s NW Animal Rights Conference. Animal rights activists and environmentalists have a longstanding ethical disagreement over the intrinsic value of ecosystems, species and individual animals. Animal rights activists focus on individual animals, while environmentalists are generally more holistic, concentrating on the good of entire ecosystems. The fact that animal rights vs. environmentalism is still an ongoing debate is a good reason for an environmental studies student to enter into the discourse, especially with such mainstream attention to rising carbon emissions, species extinction and the increasingly industrialized food culture.

To provide a better context on my interest in the Let Live Conference, I should probably talk a little bit about my summer research. I am currently a Mellon Research Initiative researcher for Professor Deborah Heath and Professor Daena Goldsmith’s project,“Local/Global Networks: Wine & Foie Gras.” Foie gras and wine are both produits de terroir, meaning that they are influenced by geological, climatic, and cultural factors in specific regions where they are produced. As both a practical and theoretical concept, terroir may bridge the gap between consumers and producers in the homogenized industrial world. However, foie gras is also a heated animal rights issue because of its unique production methods, viewed by animal rights activists as animal cruelty. Therefore, I was sent to this conference to observe and document the ethical claims made by these animal rights activists regarding foie gras production.

After having spent seven weeks examining claims made by scientists, French foie gras producers, US foie gras producers, and animal rights activists, I went into this conference with a fairly broad understanding of the arguments made by both sides of the foie gras debate (for more information on the debate or on INRA's research on foie gras, please read Sarah DiGregorio's article here or Dr. Guémené's report here). At the “Regional Issues in Animal Activism” panel, speaker Tim Hitchens referred to the foie gras debate as a cultural battle against Portland’s “new pop culture” for eating cruel meat. He claims that this trend has been heightened due to the influence of local chefs such as Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon, who even sports “I [Heart] Foie Gras” t-shirts. I asked Tim how he would address the cultural battle if French chefs argued that foie gras was traditional rather than hip, and he pointed out that Portland chefs aren’t cooking foie gras in traditional dishes and even if they were, their tradition is causing suffering.

This is a video of an anti-foie gras protest held on June 27, 2009
in front of Sel Gris restaurant on SW Hawthorne.

The second talk that I went to dealt mainly with the anti-foie gras movement and polarization of angry chefs in Chicago. According to speakers Nathan Runkle and J. Johnson, the weak spot in the Chicago foie gras ban was that it was too heavily focused on foie gras and not the issue of animal cruelty itself: “It is about more than foie gras.“ Many in favor of foie gras could not agree more. For animal rights activists, the divide that the issue created in Chicago was between foie gras and animal rights; for chefs and producers, it is between foie gras and their traditions/freedom of choice.

In addition to dealing to “How to Deal With Environmentalists,” I wish that there had been a session on “How to Stump Environmentalists” because, to me, the animal rights vs. environmentalist debate is not as easy as the general “veganism has a smaller carbon footprint” argument that I heard several times this weekend. I find it hard to believe that veganism is the only plausible step towards an alternative food system that environmentalists would agree with. In attending the Let Live NW Animal Rights Conference this weekend, I was not able to see any solid reconciliation between the two positions, but I was able to better understand the basis of animal rights arguments and to find some peace in my admiration for their efforts.

Lessons from New Zealand: A Conservation Primer (Part 3 of 3)

2009-06-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

Maungatautari Volcano

It also must be considered that new species colonize, and have colonized, regions or landmasses all the time, often leading to the demise of the previously dominant species. That is simply a fact of nature. In this case, we are the ones that facilitated this transport of new biota, so it is considered unnatural. This is to say that we are somehow distinct from the natural world, and most or all of our actions are not natural, which is a whole other debate altogether. Yet another consideration is that we are deciding how to restore these ecosystems and habitats into something more “natural” (define this term as you well). Once again this requires value judgments that are inevitably linked to human interest, simply because we are the ones making the decisions. Money pours in to save the oh-so-charming kiwi and the ever-intriguing tuatara, but what about those critters less likely to capture the public’s hearts, and dollars. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that we are doing the best thing for nature, that we know what is right. But are we not just chasing our tails? Will we not have to, ten years hence, treat these conservation practices, too, as blemishes on the well-intentioned conservation track record? All these questions, among countless others, were confronted and debated between us on our long bus rides, and it would be foolish to say that we came anywhere close to agreement. Yet, these are the questions conservation scientists and policy-makers grapple with every day.

Over the course of three months, we were able to witness the incredible success stories of conservation that have served as models for others throughout the world, but also those shocking blunders of conservation that seem all too ridiculous and avoidable in hindsight. As a case study, New Zealand provides perhaps the most extreme of examples due to its unique natural history. But the root of these debates is the same no matter how and where you approach them. We must take risks in order to act fast. Valued species and resources are not considered equal, ever. Priorities must be established, and sacrifices made. Just like the human interference in the past, and very much the present, that injured the natural balance and health of ecosystems, conservation in practice is just another form of manipulation. Yet, it is fueled by the intentions of restoring and protecting, with enough knowledge that things will truly be helped, and not further harmed. As with all endeavors, the money must come from somewhere, hopefully not undermining the cause.

All of our thoughts and questions found no conclusions or answers, probably because they would only result in yet another opinion or value judgment. And that is the basic principle of conservation. We often must react before it is too late. We would only hope that we would have a complete grasp on an issue, knowing the full effects of each potential course of action. But this is never so. This is not to say that we should do nothing and completely give up. However, all this must be considered. Perhaps we can someday rid conservation of the need to consider profits and other solely human-based regulating factors, so as to throw our full attention on nature itself. But in the end we are only humans, just one piece, one force of nature. As nature is certainly not static, we cannot truly know how things should be, and therefore find some perfect solution to the issue at hand.

I do not want it to seem as if we left completely jaded regarding conservation and environmental issues, returning broken-spirited and without hope for the future. This was simply a wake-up call, allowing us to realize the complexities of this art. Conservation is about much more than the small microcosm that is being considered. This dialogue must be continued no matter where we are and what is at stake. We also came out with a greater understanding of why things live where they do, and why this is important in understanding the past, present, and future biology of a place. I don’t think we could have learned the things we learned in any other place in the world. The most rewarding part being that this was not the end of our studies on conservation and biology, but clearly just the beginning as many of us continue our studies in these fields.

Posted by Kat Fiedler '11

Lessons from New Zealand: A Conservation Primer (Part 2 of 3)

2009-06-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

A bait station.

The introduced mammals have thrived in their new habitats, as the rest of the biota simply had not evolved to have any defenses against these new creatures. As a result native bird and plant species are severely threatened, while introduced mammal populations and invasive plants are increasing exponentially. Flightless, and ignorant, birds have no chance in defending their nests or themselves. Native habitat is being taken over by the much more successful plants and, in terms of the logging industry, much more profitable introduced trees.

What came as a shock to us Northern hemisphere biology students was how much of New Zealand’s conservation practices involved directly killing the guilty species. Much of the country is covered with trap lines and bait stations full of poison pellets. Poison, manufactured under the name of 1080, is aerially distributed with the intent of killing the introduced mammals. This was a hard pill for me to swallow. It must be remembered that conservation is a reactionary science, in that we are constantly cleaning up some environmental problem, often of human origin.

Sometimes it may be deemed necessary to act before all the pieces of the puzzle are fully assessed. While the Department of Conservation (DOC) claims to have already investigated many of the affects of 1080 on native species and the soil it could leach into, they also admit that much of this research is ongoing and very much not complete. We were able to meet with many representatives from DOC, yet each time I was left not entirely convinced with their arguments. Much of these efforts were focused on the mainland where it is impossible to completely control an environment simply due to the fact that it is not isolated. Animals, and seeds, are free to disperse throughout these areas as they please. This process of population control is never-ending, in time and in funding requirements. Other efforts have been carried out on many of New Zealand’s surrounding islands where virtually all of the introduced species have been eliminated. This has allowed DOC and other conservation scientists to facilitate the recovery of native flora and reintroduce or transplant threatened species, such as the tuatara, the South Island robin, or the kiwi. DOC is certainly not void of success stories, but still has their hands full, if not overflowing.

The great internal debate concerning this form of conservation begins when one realizes the enormity of the introduced species problem. Even those scientists and conservation managers who have invested their life’s work in these problems admit that there is no end in sight. It is perhaps impossible to ever eliminate the threat of these species, let alone entire populations. So who are we, then, to go about killing these creatures that we introduced to somehow artificially sustain native populations? How long will this go on, or will we be able to even afford these methods? Furthermore, what damage is being done to the health of these ecosystems, as new chemicals and compounds leach into the soil, and are do the benefits outweigh the costs? Is any legitimate research even being done regarding these questions?

Posted by Kat Fiedler '11

Lessons from New Zealand: A Conservation Primer (Part 1 of 3)

2009-05-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

It seems all too easy to throw your heart, soul, and energy behind conservation. In theory, at least. Sure, we talk about the value judgments conservation is inevitably entrenched in. But I think it is safe to say that it was not until this past semester in New Zealand that all twenty-two of us who participated in this study abroad program truly realized the complexities of the (perhaps) blindly praised art of conservation. These moral dilemmas certainly were not resolved upon the conclusion of our studies, each of us emerging with some sort of internal conflict concerning the issue.

Our program was biology-focused, with courses on the biogeography, conservation, and cultural heritage of New Zealand, and life in extreme places (namely, Antarctica or geothermal sites). Most of our learning was on the road as we circled the entirety of not only the North Island and South Island by bus, but also a few Subantarctic islands via Russian icebreaker. We were never without a well-informed brain to pick, as countless professors from Victoria University in Wellington followed along giving lectures on roadside stops or post-dinner pajama lectures in the hostels. From the moment we stepped off the plane, issues of conservation were readily apparent. As we all passed through biosecurity, most of us had to have our well-used hiking boots scrubbed to remove any caked-on mud that could hold seeds of plants yet to be introduced to NZ. This is when I realized that they take this sort of thing pretty seriously around here.

The land of Aotearoa was, in essence, the perfect place for the core of conservation to be confronted. A few basics about the country must be established first. New Zealand has known a long history of isolation and lack of human settlement. Having been fully separated from the rest of Gondwana (that is, Australia, Antarctica, Africa, and South America) for a good 60 million years due to the development of the Tasman Sea, mammals simply missed the boat. This allowed for the biota of the landmass to evolve without the usually dominant mammals. Furthermore, New Zealand’s isolation as an island also allows it to maintain much of its unique flora.

It is pretty easy to see the enormous gaps that are left in the biosphere, and the fauna of New Zealand also took note. It is often said that New Zealand is a case study of what would happen if birds ruled the world. You will find dozens of flightless species, many of which could not be considered “street-smart” in any way. They are often ignorant of the threat any mammal, human or non-human, could pose. Another important factor in New Zealand’s story is that it was the last major landmass to be settled by humans. It was not until around 800 years ago that the Maori people, quickly followed by Europeans, came onto the scene. And with them, of course, came all sorts of mammals (rats, livestock, possums, stoats, cats, dogs, etc.), and a full menu of eager plants, whether intentionally or not. It is not hard to see how New Zealand’s quirky natural history primes it to be a fantastic case study for conservation.

One of New Zealand's quirky and well-adored birds, the kiwi.

(http://www.nationalgeographic.com/)

Life in the Real World: An ENVS Alumnus' Experience

2009-05-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

After graduating from Lewis & Clark, things were a little bumpy. I worked as a research assistant (RA) for the Environmental Studies program and helped out with the Mellon Foundation-sponsored faculty workshop in southern Oregon. The job was pretty great – I biked to campus two or three days a week, did some research, worked on a bunch of online stuff, and got a mini-vacation down to Canyonville’s Seven Feathers casino. After my RA position ended, I worked at a tamale stand at various farmers markets around Portland. I enjoyed myself, and got to eat plenty of fresh food for free, which helped out with expenses. This job also ended, and I started to feel a little desperate about paying the bills, as well as finding a job in my field. I had been applying to environmental education positions with every non-profit I could find, and hadn’t gotten a single response. I was on idealist.org and Craigslist every day, and the job postings were starting to dwindle. It struck me that I had graduated college at a very bad time.

In desperation, I finally landed a job as a receptionist at a high-end day spa in downtown Portland. It was awful. I had to wear all black, talk in a soothing whisper, and I wasn’t allowed to wear shoes. It basically felt like a cult. After two of my paychecks bounced, they decided that they had to downsize, and I was laid off. And that is how I became an unemployed college graduate.

Feeling totally defeated and ashamed of my perceived failures, I moved back to San Francisco to live with my parents. At first, I had a hard time with the fact that I couldn’t "hack it” in Portland. However, I began reconnecting with my old friends, and realized that there were a lot of things I wanted to be doing. I worked part time doing construction with my father, and spent my free time riding my bike around, taking a ceramics class, doing yoga, and singing karaoke. I have to admit: living rent-free can have its perks!

I eventually found an internship with an environmental non-profit in Berkeley called the David Brower Center. I basically just started showing up once a week and doing whatever job they needed someone to perform. I figured that it would look good on a resume, and maybe by a stroke of luck I would be able to make enough connections that I would be recommended to another organization six months down the line. Instead, the Brower Center decided that they needed another staff member, and created a position for me. I am officially the “visitor and tenant services coordinator.” Kind of a long title for what is basically a really busy receptionist position. This time, however, I’m a receptionist at a place that I love.

I am happy to say that I am now, finally, working in my field. It ended up being a great idea to move back home, and although I miss Portland, it just wasn’t working out for me. I know I’ll always be able to come back to visit, and now the Environmental Studies program has one more alumni in the Bay Area. If anyone is interested in contacting me, I would be glad to help out with any internship or job recommendations that come my way. Email me at krogala415@gmail.com.

Posted by Kelly Rogala, ENVS '08

Ecotopia/Ecopocalypse Spring 2009

2009-05-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

This spring semester, I had the opportunity to take a fascinating Environmental Studies Topics course taught by post doctorate fellow, Dr. Evan Berry, called Ecotopia/Ecopocalypse. While I had originally enrolled in this class with the prospect of expanding my knowledge of green utopias and sustainable communities, I have instead gained the ability to synthesize my Environmental Studies coursework within the structure of literary utopian and dystopian societies, an ability that has greatly contributed to the development of my concentration and possible thesis topic. Before I officially declared as an Environmental Studies major in mid-March, I would often describe my concentration as either "Sociology/Anthropology" or "Sustainable Communities," but could never fully develop a coherent topic or justification. Fortunately, this semester, I also took Jay Odenbaugh's "Philosophy and the Environment" and Jim's "Situating Environmental Problems and Solutions" coincendently with Ecotopia Ecopocalypse. In Jay's class, I took a particular interest in deontological ethics and Mark Sagoff's consumer vs. citizen argument, while I was drawn to the Eco-socialism, Ecological Citizenship and Grid Group theories in Jim's Environmental Studies core class. However, the combination of latter interests did not have much substance until I began drafting my final project for Ecotopia/Ecopocalpyse. Throughout the semester, Evan has assigned us over 8 utopian novels, which we discuss extensively in class with regards to utopian authoritative structure, military, family, gender, among many other topics. Within these analyses, I primarily focused upon utopian social structures and personal obligations, where elements of my interest in sustainable communities, environmental ethics and radical theories finally began to unify into a intelligible academic topic.

In March, I proposed my Environmental Studies concentration, entitled "Community, Individuals and the Connected Environment," where I was able to situate the topics of social structures, social psychology, environmental attitudes and community obligations within (1) a focused study and possible thesis topic as well as (2) the cross-cultural examination of ecovillages and cohousing neighborhoods. Although I am frequently reminded of the impracticality and complexity of ecovillages as a tool to foster responsible environmental attitudes and actions, I am convinced that only through a thorough study will these arguments be verified. Ecotopia/Ecocalypse has shown me that the utopian vision of a tightly-knit community has been in the minds of scholars and authors for centuries, and thus the foundational ideals of ecovillages may provide some insight and inspiration to environmentalists as we try to overcome our environmental crises and reformulate a more ecologically responsible society.

Within the various novels that we analyzed in Ecotopia/Ecopocalypse, I found that there are particular social structures associated with the author's formulation of dystopias and utopias. Using Grid Group Cultural theory and deontological ethics, I was able to analyze these different social structures with focus on the different forms of personal obligations that entailed of each society. I did a similar study in Jim's Situtating Environmental Problems and Solutions class, using Grid Group Cultural theory to theorize the environmental attitudes developed within the tight group bonds of egalitarian communities, such as ecovillages. In both the Ecotopia/Ecopocalypse project as well as the Situating Environmental Problems and Solutions synthesis, I have tried to find connections between strong interpersonal bonds and ethical commitments to community and ecological health. These studies have helped me to develop a theory about egalitarian communities and their associated personal obligations and environmental attitudes that I hope will serve as a foundation for my concentration and future research on ecovillages. Given the focus topic of my major and interests in intentional communities, I am tremendously fortunate to have had the opportunity to take Evan's class. In addition to giving substance to my Environmental studies interests, Ecotopia/Ecopocalypse has also provided me with the ability to see the religious undertones of current environmental problems and solutions.

Evan Berry will be leaving us next year to teach at American University in Washington, D.C. Although my peers and I are sad to be parting with Evan after such a short time together in Ecotopia/Ecopocalypse, we are all grateful for his incredible insight and provisions on our studies of environmental discourse and wish him the best of luck on his future endeavors.

Regional Innovation Forum

2009-04-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sarah Bobertz and I attended the Regional Innovation Forum at the end of March in Portland, Oregon, which sought to bring together “engaged citizens and community leaders from every sector to explore the systemic challenges facing our region that require coordinated effort between individuals, communities, organizations, and local, regional and national policymakers” (Blue Ocean Event Inc., 2009).

We both chose to follow the Social Innovation track, which emphasized the importance of communities working together on similar interests, enabling its members to solve challenges collectively through hard work, collaboration and taking risks. A social entrepreneur is someone who assumes the risk, recognizing injustice and its embedded support structure and sees it as malleable. This entrepreneur then takes the opportunity to disrupt the equilibrium at a deep level and stabilize a new and more just equilibrium. Current social entrepreneurs are already busy at confronting these challenges and are creating models.

What this forum really stressed was the need for social change within the community and a need to change our methods of communication. To emphasize this point, the social innovation track was designed to allow for more engagement between the individuals sitting in the audience and to lessen the impersonal speaker vs. audience relationship. To mimic a community model and better our communication, we were asked by Jolene Estimos from the Warm Springs Reservation to introduce ourselves through a story telling method. We were then asked to define our place, our role, our gift, what we were concerned with and what questions we had. This method of introduction helped us understand our physical, social, relational obligations to our community and recognize that we each bring something unique to the table, which we should use to benefit the community. We need to learn how to use our gifts to bring about real change and become entrepreneurs.

Amy Pearl, founder of Springboard, a social innovation organization in Portland, facilitated the discussion on social innovation. One thing she said that really resonated with me was, “The answer to hunger is not food.” We need to bring about real substantial social change that addresses the root causes of social and environmental challenges, not just shallow solutions.

This forum was inspirational as well as confronting. I realize that there are a lot of changes that need to be made, most of which are not easy to establish because they are unpalatible. Social change is going to be necessary although difficult to spread. Through the improvement of communication and community models as well as the daring initiative of individuals and groups in the community, change will slowly occur across local and global scales.

Written by Rosanne Wielemaker

Sharing Information in a Socially Networked World: ENVS is Delicious!

2009-04-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

With the cross-disciplinary nature of the Environmental Studies (ENVS) Program and the nature of the Web, students are at risk of drowning in a sea of resources: scholarly articles, NGO websites, government documents, spatial data, archival images. The average Google search will return a vast amount of information; how can our students successfully navigate this ocean? How can they build and comment on a common database of useful resources?

Since ENVS tries to stay on the bleeding edge of instructional technology, we sought to adopt a more distributed, “Web 2.0” approach to situated research that would allow students to a) pool resources together into an easily accessible repository and b) decentralize the process of adding, browsing, and commenting. After experimenting with a number of different frameworks, ENVS eventually settled on Delicious: a free application that employs tagged bookmarks to organize information.

A Delicious bookmark is much like the ones you’d find on your own browser: a web address (URL) that points to some resource found on the Web. The key advantage of Delicious is that the bookmarks reside outside any one particular computer (i.e., they’re stored on Delicious’ server); essentially, ENVS has created its own “virtual database” of resources viewable by anybody, anytime. A tag is merely a keyword assigned to and associated with a specific bookmark that describes some of its attributes. When a student finds an interesting resource on the Web, she can add it into the ENVS pool of common information by bookmarking and tagging it in our Delicious account, making it available to other students who might be interested in the same topic. She can also add brief notes about the resource as a help to others.

Let’s say that while performing some research on Ecuador – one of ENVS’ situated research sites – I come across a really cool website examining the phenomenon of ecotourism in the city of Cuenca that I’d like share with others as a resource. By bookmarking its URL in the ENVS Delicious account, adding the tags “Ecuador,” “economy,” “landuse,” and “policy,” and creating a short note describing the resource, I can add this website into ENVS’ common pool of information. Later, a subsequent student doing research on same topic can go to the ENVS Delicious account and run a query using the keywords “Ecuador” and “policy.” My website will come up as a relevant resource; knowledge has been shared!

After checking out this particular website, let's then say that our hypothetical student decides it’s not as germane to her own research project as she originally thought; she could then choose to enter a short comment into the Delicious record noting that the resource focuses exclusively on, say, theoretical arguments and lacks any discussion on indigenous responses to ecotourism, her specific topic of interest. Now let's say that the following semester, a third student finds this particular resource on Delicious and notes the comments others have left. Voilà: information has been shared and annotated by numerous students over multiple semesters. Students no longer need to individually “reinvent the wheel” and start from scratch when doing research, but rather are able to stand on the shoulders of their peers. Knowledge has become social!

Rethinking environmentalism...

2009-04-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I attended the Regional Innovation Forum, a two-day conference on environmental issues in Portland sponsored in part by Focus the Nation, Lewis & Clark, and several regional environmental organizations. The Forum focused specifically on addressing smart energy solutions, social innovation, sustainability in schools and climate change. The Forum’s primary objective, and primary accomplishment in my view, was to bring together leaders and advocates in the environmental community who would not otherwise cross paths to coordinate and share ideas for increasing sustainability in the region.

The conference was broken down into three groups, or “tracks,” to focus on energy solutions, social innovation, or sustainability in schools. I chose the social innovation track, which focused on innovative projects and examples of “social entrepreneurship” in the region. A presentation about the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus resonated with me because – as phrased by a documentary on his work on microcredit in Bangladesh – he was not “turning things upside down; he was turning them rightside up.” This is a perfect turn of phrase for what so many environmentalists perceive their role in the world to be, myself included. We have radical ideas about how to change the world, but we aren’t trying to turn the world on its head.

By now, nearly everyone is familiar with an environmental footprint: the negative impact that our everyday actions have on the planet. In contrast, the Forum introduced to me the idea of an environmental handprint: the positive impact one makes on the environment, and the good one does to reverse environmental inequality. In a field that has a tragic tendency to wax negatively about global crises, destruction, and our imminent demise, the environmental handprint is refreshingly inspiring. We should be thinking about what we can do, not what we can’t do. Sitting in the Expo Center surrounded by environmental advocates, I was touched by how many people were focusing not only on reducing their footprint, but increasing their handprint. Instead of collapsing under the weight of our environmental problems (as I am often tempted to do), there are people all across the country and the world who have taken a tiny piece of the environmental puzzle and embraced the challenge of trying to put it back together.

In fact, there was no mention of the buzzwords that usually follow environmentalists; no one talked about limits, destruction, regulation, or crisis. The social entrepreneurs who presented projects were overwhelmingly optimistic about solving our environmental problems. They are working on increasing their environmental handprints, rather than panicking about our ecological footprint. I think there is a terrible shortage of optimism in current environmental thinking. Everyone has something to contribute to the world. Things so simple as pet rescue projects, community gardens, and projects like The ReBuilding Center (http://www.rebuildingcenter.org/) have positive impacts on the world, and contribute to the kind of positive, innovative environmental change we need.

Are We US Canteen green?

2009-03-05T08:56:00.001-08:00

What is the color most people think of when they imagine what we do in Environmental Studies? That's an easy one: green. And yes, the ENVS Program at Lewis & Clark works with students toward greening their campuses, their communities, and their world. But the real question is: what kind of green? Scholars have long differentiated green philosophies and movements into light and dark varietals, and more recently scholars have advocated what could be called "rainbow environmentalism," situating traditional environmental concerns in a broader rubric that includes social, political, economic, and other dimensions of well-being—i.e., more colors than just green.

Perhaps there's no better reason for environmental scholars to ask "What kind of green?" than when we see examples of greenwashing, which I define broadly as using green to sell something. My most humorous example appeared recently as an ad in the New York Times. Check out US Canteen: run, don't walk to their website, where you can spend on the order of $150 for something you put water in that used to sell in Army Surplus stores for about $1.50. Oh yes, you are investing "in a greener Earth" when you do so.

So tell me, what kind of green? Lewis & Clark's Environmental Studies Program realizes that we need to do far more than teach students how to be green—a term that has arguably lost any scholarly credibility in today's world of greenwashing. This is one thing that makes our ENVS Program distinctive, and we encourage you to check us out.

Welcome to our LC Environmental Studies blog!

2009-02-20T15:51:00.001-08:00

A quick hello from me, the director of Lewis & Clark's Environmental Studies Program, as we inaugurate our blog. We hope to feature our great ENVS majors, other students, and our faculty and staff in near future, so stay tuned.

I'll start with a quick story from Ecuador, one of Lewis & Clark's overseas programs for its students which I visited in January as part of our Mellon Foundation-sponsored environmental studies initiative. That photo you see there on the right is of our students posing at, well, the equator. But actually, there was a bit of dispute over where the equator really is: just across a ravine from where the students are posing is the official Ecuadorian site called Mitad del Mundo, whereas this site, part of the Museo de Sitio Inti-ñan, claims to be on the actual equator. So, who is right?

Well, one thing we do in the Environmental Studies Program is what we call "situated research": for a fuller description, see here. An important technology we often apply toward situated research is GIS (geographic information systems), and the first step lies in knowing where you are. So, geek that I am, I brought a GPS on the trip, and we decided we should check these claims as to where the real equator is. The Museo de Sitio Inti-ñan folks were right: the real equator is not at Mitad del Mundo. But, at least according to our GPS readings (and Google Earth as well), it's not exactly at the Museo site either. Turns out the quickest way to the equator was to walk about a hundred meters from Museo to the middle of a busy road—not the best place to put a commercial establishment!

So, how does this all connect to environmental studies at Lewis & Clark? First, we offer some great opportunities to study environmental problems and solutions all around the world, in places like Ecuador. Second, and perhaps more significantly, environmental studies at Lewis & Clark adopts the same sort of attitude toward environmental issues as I and our students did toward claims as to the "true" equator: we prefer to figure things out for ourselves whenever possible instead of just believe what we are told. And what we discover all the time are fresh insights on environmental issues, not what we hear time and again but new ideas.

Student here amaze me every day with their fresh ideas. They may end up a bit controversial, and they may end up challenging the establishment view of things—such as where the real equator is. At the end of that day in Ecuador, though, we rode back to Quito satisfied that we had figured something out for ourselves. That active, critical, engaged approach to learning is what we do here. In future posts you'll get to meet some of our students, faculty, and staff, and see the world of environmental issues through their eyes.