Tag: Nature

Planners as Pollinators

February 26, 2021 / odrozd

By Pierce Holloway

Picture yourself in a forest. You are surrounded by trees, shrubs, flowers, birds, and deer. A creek. Insects.
All around you is a cacophony of living organisms and beings large and small,
each playing a crucial role in the overall health of the environment.
Hold this image in your mind.
Piece by piece, visualize the creek being replaced with a sidewalk, the trees with buildings, the insects with cars, the deer with people, the flowers with street performers, and the shrubs with manicured landscaping.
Before you know it, you have teleported from the Pisgah National Forest to downtown Asheville, NC.

This thought exercise introduces you to the many parallels that exist between ecological ecosystems and the human made forest of urban environments. In an urban playground of steel, concrete, and street vendors, an intricate ecosystem exists that can be observed, studied, and learned from- just like the nearby forest. Within the concrete ecosystem, city planners can and should act as pollinators. A planner acting as pollinator facilitates and encourages societal growth through the cross pollination of ideas between residents, social organizations, governments, and academics.

The idea of modeling our systems after the natural world is not new, but is of the utmost importance. Parallels between the natural world and human design have a long history of intellectual thought and self reflection. Plato (428-328 BC) stated, “The natural world we perceive through our senses (see, hear, touch etc.) reveals only a fallen, shadow, incomplete versions of this Ideal Truth.” The ideology of nature informed design has evolved time and time again, cropping up more recently in Urbanism through the minds of Ian McHarg and his seminal 1969 book Design with Nature or Timothy Beatley and the Biophilic Cities movement. The blog The Nature of Cities dedicates itself to the core elements of these concepts.

The metaphor of a planner as pollinator builds on the complicated relationship that pollinators have with plants in their natural biome. Pollinating is not a one size fits all profession. General pollinators like Bees and Butterflies transport pollen between countless flora species. Specialized pollinators such as the Yucca moth (Tegeticulla yuccasella) have evolved to pollinate only one plant, the soapweed yucca (Yucca glauca), whose seeds provide the food for the Yucca Moths larvae. The Yucca moth exemplifies the idea that pollinators are in a symbiotic, interdependent, and mutually beneficial relationship with their environment. The pollinator benefits the flower, and the plant provides critical nourishment for the pollinator.

*A Yucca Moth Pollinating Soapweed Yucca. Photo Credit: NCSU*.

This symbiotic relationship is at the heart of my connection between planners and pollinators. Planners can be generalists or specialists, both of which benefit from interacting with and listening to individuals across the spectrum of municipal services and city ecosystems at large. Planners are not only pollinators, but can act as cross-pollinators and should seek a variety of experiences outside of the blinders that planning school offers. Planners are bestowed with a wealth of tools and power as municipal servants or private consultants. This position consequently gives planners a responsibility to expand their interdisciplinary thinking as a way to offer the best services possible. It behooves the profession of planning for individuals to seek out experiences from people outside the planning hive mind.

Perhaps Maya Angelou said it best,

“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”

Planners can expand their horizons and their toolboxes through exposure to new ideas in their ecosystems, which helps create a sum total that is rich with nuance and considerate of the complicated needs present in city ecology.

Pollinators, while an integral part of the ecosystem, are just one part. Planners perform a similar function, as processors that are one of many important revolving parts of an ecosystem. If you are a planner, an urban enthusiast, or otherwise, I encourage you to see the parallels between planning and a forest ecosystem. Begin to notice the other aspects of your ecosystem / your city that help you create a more comprehensive and interconnected understanding of your world. What ecosystem are you a part of, and how can you build new symbiotic relationships within it?

Pierce Holloway is a first-year master’s student at the Department of City and Regional Planning with a focus on Climate Change Adaptation. Before coming to Chapel Hill he worked as a geospatial analyst for Urban3, working on visualizing economic productivity of communities and states. Through his coursework he hopes to explore the nexus between adaptation for climate change and community equitability. In his free time, he enjoys long bike rides, trail running, and any excuse to play outside.

Piece edited by Ruby Brinkerhoff

Featured Image: Combination of https://best-wallpaper.net/ & https://www.cbf.org/issues/forest-loss/, Photoshop by w. Pierce Holloway

Yucca Moth Image: https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/course/ent425/images/pollinators_gallery/pages/06_yucca_moth_jpg.htm

Bears in the Sunbelt: An Overlooked Planning Issue?

March 20, 2020 / odrozd

*A Typical Bear Range Map. Source: https://geology.com/stories/13/bear-areas/*

When people consider the rapidly expanding suburban sprawl around cities like Atlanta and Raleigh, the typical thoughts are of traffic and lost countryside. People concerned about the environment rightly lament lost rural areas and increased emissions. One issue that I think people fail to consider in planning is how increased contact with nature can be immediately dangerous to people. In the piedmont south, farmland is losing ground not just to suburbs, but to forest. And in the next ten years this region will almost certainly be facing a new negative consequence of reckless land use—bear encounters.

I miss the forests of New England whenever I travel south. There are forests here in the piedmont, but they are either young, patchy, and shrub-like or small and isolated. And compared to the ever-widening northern woods, the southern Appalachians provide only a narrow corridor of forest with seas of farmland on either side. This lack of proper wilderness has generally led me to the assumption that the bear population of eastern North America is like a funnel with Canada as its bowl and the southern blue ridge its narrow spout. The cartographers who made the above map seem to have the same idea. There are isolated populations in eastern North Carolina and Florida, but how can they be significant if they are cut off from Canada? How can these populations exist? As it happens, they are probably not cut off at all.

I was surprised to learn recently that every single town in Connecticut has reported bear sightings this year, even the cities. I had always been taught that bears were only to be found in the state’s northwest corner by the Appalachian Trail. However, my hometown, in the eastern part of the state, had no less than 28 sightings last year. As Connecticut is almost all dense forest maybe this should not be surprising, but if this part of the map, as well as what I’ve generally been taught, is wrong, then how much of the rest of the map is also incorrect? Black bear populations have been rising rapidly in the last 15 years, so the present-day population extent may not yet be adequately understood. While this map was accurate 20 years ago, it may be wildly inaccurate today. Still, this map is fun to look at and it is often posted online. If you read people’s comments, however, almost everything people have to say about it is in the form of personal anecdotes about how there are in fact bears where there should be none. People from the piedmont, lowland south, and Midwest all chimed in when this map went up—agricultural areas that I would never have imagined supporting anything bigger than deer. Someone in an eastern suburb of Charlotte shared a news video of a bear, someone south of Atlanta testified to seeing them all the time, another in central North Carolina, several people in supposedly bear-free parts of Ohio and Illinois, even someone from Maryland, probably the least forested area east of the Appalachians, insisted there were bears.

I went looking for a map that more accurately reflected the state of things, and I was disappointed. At least on the national level, maps barely move beyond the outdated consensus in the first one shown, with the same curious respect for the Virginia-North Carolina border. The most comprehensive work on the contemporary black bear range was the same except for one interesting aspect: it also reported sightings outside the supposed range. The distribution of these sightings clearly shows how the range borders are inaccurate in some places and even arbitrary in others if you look at the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. And what is going on with Connecticut? Not one sighting outside the traditional range where there are, in fact, hundreds.

*Map Showing “Sightings” as Different from Range. Source: Scheick, B. & Mccown, J. (2014).*

Clearly some of this range data was cobbled together from states with different ideas of what constitutes a range versus isolated sightings. Maybe Connecticut merely has extremely high standards for acknowledging any degree of presence (so much that 150 sightings in one town might not merit even one dot) and maybe Virginia will treat one rumor of a bear as establishing range. Where I found the most subtle consideration of black bear distribution was for North Carolina. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has a detailed map showing the gradual expansion of black bear territory east from the mountains and west from the coastal swamps over the past 50 years. The most recent documentation is 2010 with the proper range spilling down from the mountains and from the coast to almost the foot of the piedmont. It also acknowledges some sightings outside this range and contact between the western and eastern bear populations. However, it seems to make a proper distinction between sightings and range. If only this level of observation could be replicated with the same standards for the whole eastern US—there are plenty of more accurate species distribution maps, why not one for black bears?

*NC Wildlife Resources Commission Black Bear Range Map. Source: Crystal Cockman.*

I have never seen more young forest than in the piedmont in Virginia and North Carolina. Particularly on I-85 between Richmond and Durham it almost looks like a giant Christmas tree farm. What must have been farmland when I was born is now covered with shrub-height loblolly pines. In 50 years, this will be perfect bear habitat, almost like New England or northern Michigan. The problem here is that there is more suburban sprawl in the south—more urban area that was not originally built in a forest—and more being built. Bears have proven themselves quite adaptive to human environments, especially when they are quiet. Given how much of a nuisance bear encounters have become in Connecticut, in a declining region, we can only imagine how it might be in the booming, reforesting, heavily suburbanized sunbelt in the coming decades.

*Forest Density in the Mid-Atlantic and Upper South. Source: USDA Forest Service*.

When a region’s economy modernizes, it tends to lose farmland and gain forest—being able to afford more unproductive land. This is true in most of the world aside from especially valuable farmland like the California central valley or the Midwest. This brings about the odd consequence of re-wilding, and, in a country like the United States, concurrent suburban expansion bringing humans into maximum contact with nature for better or worse. The south is in the midst of this process. There are almost certainly bears in the Triangle already, it is only a matter of time before most of us see one.

Like many other issues, this is a planning challenge somewhat unique to the United States. Bears are coming! What will we do when tech workers are getting in their cars to drive two hours to work, from their newly built distant suburbs in areas as wild and densely forested as the Smokies? Will people need to pull into their garages and close the door before getting out of their cars? Will people need trashcans that wheel themselves? I would like to think we can do better than this. I mean to say let us grow our cities responsibly; I do not mean to inspire someone to invent a smart trashcan. But invent one if you like.

Feature Image: Bear is Residential Area. Source: LA Times.

About the Author: Evan King is a first year masters student in city and regional planning. His interests include transportation policy in the developing world, light rail, and freight movement on inland waterways. He can found in his free time trying to kayak long distances and making hand-drawn maps. Evan hails from central Connecticut and completed an undergraduate degree in Maryland.

One Month on the AT

June 22, 2019 / odrozd

This May, after wrapping up exams and coursework, I set off on an epic new adventure – a three-week solo backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail (AT). I felt drawn to nature, to clean air and wildlife, to green trees, and to the Appalachian mountains that feel so much like home. As John Muir put it, “The mountains are calling, and I must go.”

Appalachian Trail history

The AT is a 2,190-mile footpath from Georgia to Maine, originally dreamed up by regional planner Benton MacKaye in October 1921. At the first Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC) MacKaye explained that “Its ultimate purpose is to conserve, use, and enjoy the mountain hinterland.”

In March 1925, retired judge Arthur Perkins took charge of the ATC and initiated trailblazing in Virginia and West Virginia. Soon after, Myron H. Avery took leadership of the organization and started the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC), which provided further support in developing the trail. After years of work and the development of many other trail clubs, the footpath was completed in August 1937.

The AT just south of the NC/GA border. Years of advocacy and volunteer effort helped make the dream of the nation’s first formal long-distance hiking trail a reality, and, today, the ATC still relies on volunteers to maintain the trail. Photo by Olivia Corriere

When President Johnson signed the National Trails Systems Act in 1968, the AT became the first National Scenic Trail under the National Park Service. In 1978, ATC leaders began the long and complicated process of land acquisition along the length of the trail corridor, a process that was only recently completed in 2014. Today, the ATC is known as the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and remains the primary entity responsible for the management and preservation of one of America’s most famous trails.

The value of the Appalachian Trail

But why is a trail like the AT important? Beyond the ecological services that the land provides, it can be difficult to quantify the value of a long, strenuous footpath that can take 5-7 months to complete.

The simple existence of the AT as a natural destination inspires people to get outside. Just being in a natural environment is enough to reduce stress, boost your mood, and inspire creativity. These are the same qualities of “natural” features that planners use in promoting more green urban landscapes. Quite plainly, people need nature in their lives!

Hiking is also a great form of exercise. I see backpacking as the ultimate endurance sport because you are moving so slowly for so long. For some context, I hiked at approximately two miles per hour for 14-20 miles per day (check out the record of my hike at the end of this article).

The AT is a highly supported Scenic Trail; during my hike, I passed through small towns about every four days. Even so, you have to get creative with meals that can sustain heavy physical exertion but still taste good at the end of a long day! Photo by Olivia Corriere

The AT is also the mecca of the East Coast backpacking community. When I got on the trail near Hiawassee, Georgia, I was incredibly nervous as a young, female solo hiker. Stranger danger was already ingrained in my daily life, so I was on especially high alert heading into the woods. To my surprise, I found myself camping with 5-10 other people every single night. People always introduced themselves, asked about pacing and plans for the next day, and ended the evening by sharing food and stories. I felt as safe on the trail as I do walking around Chapel Hill in the daytime.

In my experience, it seems there is a good assortment of ages, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds in the trail community. However, as with many outdoor recreation activities, there is a noticeable lack of racial diversity on the AT. This gap in the trail community reflects the impact of larger societal problems like the racial wage gap (backpacking gear is insanely expensive and long trips require taking off time from work), a problem that has only recently begun to be addressed by outdoor retailers and environmental organizations hoping to serve low-income hikers. Fortunately, diversity has become a central discussion topic in the outdoor media and recreation community in recent years.

Hiking the AT can be a highly social experience. I found myself hiking and camping with new friends almost every day. From right to left: Kelly “Indie” from Pennsylvania, Wyatt “Giggles” from Green Bay, Nicole “Oats” from Maine, Kayla “Google” from Florida, and myself. Photo by Eric “Cold Soak” Fitch

Planning for the AT

There is so much to be said about backpacking gear and planning for a trip like this. If you want to plan your own adventure, there are many resources like Outside Magazine, REI backpacking articles and videos, or the classic Awol AT guidebook. However, the best place to start is simply talking with people at your local adventure outfitter. In Chapel Hill, check out Townsend Bertram & Company and Great Outdoor Provision Co!

Check out the record of my hike here:

Date	Daily mileage	Starting mile marker	Ending mile marker
May 15	11.8mi	69.0 Dicks Creek Gap	80.8 Muskrat Creek Shelter
May 16	16.2mi	80.8	97.0 Betty Creek Gap Campsite
May 17	16.4mi	97.0	113.4 Siler Bald Shelter
May 18	17.4mi	113.4	130.8 Wesser Bald Shelter
May 19	5.9mi	130.8	136.7 Nantahala Outdoor Center
May 20	16.0mi	136.7	152.7 Brown Fork Gap Shelter
May 21	12.8mi	152.7	165.5 Fontana Dam Shelter
May 22	14.9mi	165.5	180.4 Russell Field Shelter
May 23	14.7mi	180.4	195.1 Siler Bald Shelter
May 24	12.2mi	195.1	207.3 Newfound Gap (Gatlinburg, TN)
May 25	15.7mi	207.3	223.0 Tri-Corner Knob Shelter
May 26	14.8mi	223.0	237.8 Davenport Gap Shelter
May 27	18.8mi	237.8	Tentsite ~.25mi past Max Patch Summit
May 28	14.7mi	256.6	271.3 Laughing Heart Hostel (Hot Springs, NC)
May 29	14.2mi	271.3	285.5 Spring Mountain Shelter
May 30	15.9mi	285.5	301.4 Jerry Cabin Shelter
May 31	15.5mi	301.4	316.9 Hogback Ridge Shelter
June 1	20.7mi	316.9	337.6 No Business Knob Shelter
June 2	4.4mi	316.9	342 Uncle Johnny’s Hostel (Erwin, TN)

For more information on the trail, check out: http://www.appalachiantrail.org/home/about-us/history

Featured Image: The author at Big Bald near Erwin, Tennessee. Photo by Eric Fitch.

About the author: Olivia Corriere is an undergraduate student from Ann Arbor, Michigan, majoring in Environmental Studies (Sustainability Track) and minoring in Geography. She is particularly interested in the implementation of sustainable practices of all kinds in the daily lives of the public. During Summer 2017, she interned with the Huron Waterloo Pathways Initiative with the Karen’s Trail campaign. In her free time, she enjoys running, creating music playlists, and spending time in coffee shops with friends.

Building with Big Cats in Mind

November 13, 2018 / odrozd

Most of us like animals. Maybe not spiders or rats (those poor guys get a bad rap), but adorable bobcats or soaring eagles? Something in these creatures captivates us in an often-unconscious way. This intrigue comes from our biophilia, or ‘love of life,’ which refers to the innate tendency of humans to be drawn to other life forms. Not only do we feel an affinity toward other species, but because we evolved in tandem with nature, we need them for our physical and mental well-being. In fact, studies show that greenspace can improve mental health, particularly through stress reduction, stimulating physical activity and facilitating social cohesion.¹

Despite its positive effects, we rarely plan nature into our urban lives. In fact, as human societies build and develop, we seem to plan other creatures out, sometimes pushing them to the very edge of extinction. During a recent stint on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, I witnessed how human land consumption suffocates Sumatran tigers. Plantations producing palm oil, which is used in everything from shampoo to ice cream, have exploded across the island. This burning of tiger habitat, along with unorganized expansion of human populations and poaching of wild animals, has left us with less than 400 Sumatran tigers total. As top predators, these tigers uphold delicate ecosystems that provide people with many life necessities. Plus, as my friend from West Sumatra explained, tigers represent an important grandmother-like figure for certain Sumatran cultures. Losing Sumatran tigers is not just bad for tigers; it is bad for people, too.

Land devastation in Sumatra. Photo Credit: Lucrecia Aguilar.

We see the negative impacts of pushing predators out of our lives in the United States as well. Pumas (also known as mountain lions or cougars) used to roam across the Eastern US, happily munching on deer and maintaining balanced ecosystems. However, as we developed most of the land in this half of the country, pumas were forced to retreat to a few strongholds in the west. Naturally, deer populations went berserk with their newfound independence and started breeding like rabbits. This imbalance not only created hordes of angry gardeners, but the increase in deer numbers also costs human lives. The heartbreaking damages caused by deer-vehicle collisions now make deer the most dangerous large mammal in North America. If we brought pumas back, they could eat enough of these ungulates to prevent about 155 human deaths and $2.13 billion in costs every 30 years.²

Singapore’s Supertrees. Photo Credit: Lucrecia Aguilar.

We can change how we develop to integrate nature. In fact, as we face a rapidly changing climate and the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event, we will have to. Examples of biophilic development and planning already exist. In Singapore, steel Supertrees create vertical gardens covered by over 162,900 plants and include canopies filled with environmentally sustainable functions (such as solar cells).³ Spotted hyenas and people coexist in the Ethiopian city of Harar, where hyenas actually help keep the city clean by eating meat waste. The Living Building Challenge, a sustainability certification program and design framework for our built environment, urges planners to create places that imitate nature’s clean and beautiful functioning. It even includes a biophilic environment imperative to “nurture the innate human/nature connection.”⁴

As we continue to build our cities and develop our societies, let us remember to plan for the well-being of humans and all other beings. We often think there exists some hard line between humanity and nature, and that each must fit into its own box for sophistication’s sake. But humans are animals; we are part of nature. Let us make it our duty to plan healthy and functional living spaces for all living things . It is not just the logical thing to do; it is the moral thing to do.

About the Author: Lucrecia Kaye Aguilar is a wildlife conservationist studying big cats and human-wildlife coexistence. Passionate about wildlife since childhood, Lucrecia completed her Bachelor of Science in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Rice University before receiving the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to explore big cat conservation around the world. She works to help prevent the extinction of big cat species and the detrimental effects of wildlife declines on people. Currently, Lucrecia is with cheetahs, leopards, and lions in southern Africa. You can find here on Instagram, Twitter, and on her blog.

Featured Image: A male lion with his cubs in Botswana. Photo Credit: Lucrecia Aguilar.

1. Vries, S. D., Dillen, S. M., Groenewegen, P. P., & Spreeuwenberg, P. (2013). Streetscape greenery and health: Stress, social cohesion and physical activity as mediators. Social Science & Medicine, 94, 26-33. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.06.030

2. Gilbert, S. L., Sivy, K. J., Pozzanghera, C. B., Dubour, A., Overduijn, K., Smith, M. M., . . . Prugh, L. R. (2016). Socioeconomic Benefits of Large Carnivore Recolonization Through Reduced Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions. Conservation Letters, 10(4), 431-439. doi:10.1111/conl.12280

3. Supertree Grove: Facts & figures. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2018, from http://www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/en/attractions/supertree-grove/facts-and-figures.html

4. Health & Happiness Petal Intent: Living Building Challenge. (2018, April 20). Retrieved November 13, 2018, from https://living-future.org/lbc/health-happiness-petal/

Land Use Planning and the Contest for the Meaning of Nature

June 4, 2018 / odrozd

At the heart of land use planning, an unspoken battle has been being waged over the very meaning of nature. And for most of its history, land use planners have unwittingly taken sides and acquiesced around a particular anthropocentric conception of nature that has determined the ways that land gets used. The continued consequences of climate change and ecological erosion, as well as economic inequality and cultural deterioration, require land use planners in particular to examine their fundamental approach and open up to new conceptions of our natural world. A growing global movement for the rights of nature has opened new ground on which how we understand the idea of nature is being challenged, and creates new potential for how land use planning can happen.

Land use planners are in a unique position of mediating representations of nature through making land use decisions.[1] Each decision made actuates the particular conception of nature, as it is realized in space. Inversely, how nature is conceptualized informs how land use decisions are made. At its core, land use planning itself assumes a dichotomous relationship between nature, as land, and society, as use. This is true for the traditional liberal approach to land use planning, which emphasizes property rights and a utilitarian approach to nature. Left un-interrogated is the fact that these conceptions are socially constructed, created to fit the needs of the land owners from the beginning days of this country. Through mediating the contested representation of nature, land use planners are situated in a particular position of power.

When the representations and corresponding discourses are identified, as urban planning professor Jean Hillier does, it becomes clear how they might guide land use decisions. For example, a scientific narrative presents as neutral, and is legitimized through the authority of data and experts. However, the scientific narrative is readily manipulated by political actors in order to support a particular agenda. In opposition to those is an Aboriginal narrative, which suggests that humans live in harmony with the land. When land use planners make decisions based on a particular narrative, that narrative is manifested and determines the outcomes. Understanding this phenomenon creates space for land use planners to be open to new narratives that will inform an environmentally ethical land use.

As an example, consider water governance. In a recent journal article, Julian Yates, Leila Harris and Nicole Wilson ask what the implications are for water governance if multiple conceptions of water were made possible, as opposed to the assumed utilitarian approach.[2] They advocate for an embrace of a plurality of water conceptions, what are described as ontologies, to guide water governance, allowing ontological space for diverse understandings of what water is. In examining alternative water conceptions in British Columbia, they suggest that conflict in water governance is often not solely about disagreements in water management approaches or assertion of rights within a legal framework, but rather rooted in a deeper disjuncture over the very essence of water. When the state, which typically approaches water management from the technical perspective of water as a resource for human consumption, doesn’t acknowledge alternative water ontologies, it can lead to ecological degradation and the neglect of social, cultural and spiritual needs of peoples with differing water ontologies, particularly indigenous peoples. In the case of British Columbia, many First Nations that the research examined consider water as lifeblood, seeing water as a living part of the natural world. From this conception, water is interconnected, boundless and exists in all its forms and functions. This understanding of water is so deep that it requires us to “(re)configure ourselves as bodies of water in order to understand how an uneven hydro-politics affects different bodies in variable ways.” [3] In this way, the separation between humans and nature is dissolved, and the rights of nature and that of humans become one and the same.

Nowhere has the contestation of the meaning of nature progressed with such fervor as in the global movement for the rights of nature. The idea of rights of nature is a legal framework, as well as a cultural shift, which re-conceptualizes nature as a legal subject. As a legal framework, it provides recourse to defend natural places where otherwise environmental protections are insufficient. As a cultural shift, where perhaps it has a more transformational potential, rights of nature challenges popularly held understandings of nature. The rights of nature calls for understanding nature as having intrinsic value, rather than just being valued for its utilization by humans, while also complicating the dichotomy between nature and humans.

Senegal’s abandoned Supreme Court, Dakar, Senegal. Photo Credit: Jeff Attaway/Creative Commons

The rights of nature have been established or exercised to varying extents in New Zealand, Bolivia, India and in some municipalities across the United States. However, it has been most comprehensively incorporated, as well as scrutinized, in Ecuador. In 2008, through a popular referendum, Ecuador adopted a new constitution, which incorporated the concept of sumak kawsay, a Quechua indigenous cosmology of living in harmony with nature. In the constitution, sumak kawsay is portrayed as a tool to guide sustainable development in opposition to the dominance of a neoliberal agenda. While its incorporation has been celebrated by the global movement for the rights of nature, its implementation has been fraught with contradictions and subject to critique. After all, the very idea of “sustainable development” presents inherent contradictions which are challenged by the sumak kawsay way of understanding.

What has possibly been the most consequential implications for the adoption of sumak kawsay is how it has compelled a country to rethink its understanding and relationship to nature. Due to the lack of further legislation to interpret how to apply the rights of nature, its implementation has become contested space, with new meanings and norms being vied for through court cases, cultural shifts, political campaigns and governmental action. Despite large scale, state-sanctioned, extractivist mining projects having been carried out under the banner of sumak kawsay, other sites where natural and indigenous rights have been exercised successfully have begun to develop new national paradigms for the interpretation of sumak kawsay. Land use planners can take inspiration from these new discursive spaces to reimagine nature beyond the tired and destructive liberal conceptions and open up to new possibilities for what nature, and in turn land use, can be.

[1] Hillier, Jean. 1998. “Paradise Proclaimed? Towards a Theoretical Understanding of Representations of Nature in Land Use Planning Decision‐making.” Philosophy & Geography 1 (1):77–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668799808573633.

[2] Yates, Julian S, Leila M Harris, and Nicole J Wilson. 2017. “Multiple Ontologies of Water: Politics, Conflict and Implications for Governance.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35 (5):797–815. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775817700395.

[3] Ibid.

Featured Image: Morenci Mine, Arizona, USA. Photo Credit: Tom Blackwell/Creative Commons

About the Author: Andrew Meeker is a rising second year Master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning specializing in Land Use and Environmental Planning at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. As a planner, Andrew is interested in learning lessons from trees, decomposers, and water and applying them to the economy. In his free time, he likes to think about crimes he’ll likely never commit.