Linking Water, Food, and ENergy via Regenerative Systems
Our research tells stories about people and their relationships with the environment. How do the land and sea unite people, and and how are people working to make their food, water, and energy systems more regenerative and just? Our lab is united by a shared desire to answer questions that are meaningful to the people with whom we work. The challenge is finding ways to answer applied, problems-oriented questions like, "what are the barriers that people face when trying to build more healthful approaches to stewardship and development" while also managing to pose and test scientific hypotheses about the nature of things.
In a nutshell, our research engages in answering three high-level questions:
What are the relationships between human well-being, ecosystem health, and sustainability, specifically with a focus on food and water systems?
What are the social and political drivers and determinants of how people respond to change and innovate in the face of risks?
How can people achieve win-win scenarios, where people's well-being and the health of the environment, thrive together?
Anti-Colonial Research
In all of our work we seek to advance actions against colonialism and the oppression of the settler-state, seeing these as prerequisites to a future that is sustainable, equitable, and just. Our understanding of anti-colonial research involves four main criteria:
Accountability
Our work takes place on stolen lands. It is critical in our work that we seek to be accountable for the implications of our research, and that it does not serve to reinforce oppression or disposession, whether materially or epistemologicallyReflexivity
We work hard to situate ourselves and our biases, not to eliminate them but undersand and work through them, espcially in dialogue with the work and contributions of others.Disruption
Anti-colonial research actively seeks to disrupt oppressive sytems of power and create space for Indigenous resurgence.Humility
We don’t purport to be perfect or to fully understand what will be necessary to achieve reconciliation and peaceful coexistence with Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island, but we are committed to learning and acting toward that as a goal.
The Projects
Below are some brief excerpts from research I led as faculty at the University of Guelph. Stay tuned for updates as I develop a team and portfolio of work at The Nature Conservancy!
Deconstructing Wetlands
Wetlands are heavily contested features of the landscape; they provide numerous critical ecosystem services but are also among the first natural features of the landscape to disappear as a result of agricultural and urban development. Too, people rarely agree on how to define wetlands, and whether they are an asset, or a nuisance. This project is exploring the varied landscape of cultural perceptions and social constructions of wetlands, with a focus on how culture-, policy-, and science-based framings create or occlude possibilities for management and stewardship.
Much of my work to date on wetlands focuses on the Canadian Prairies, which are hugely important to Canadian agriculture, and also tremendously important to waterfowl and other wildlife, because of the immense network of wetlands that canvas the region. Drainage, the practice of draining wetlands to increase arable land, is a long-standing but controversial practice in the prairies. My work with Global Water Futures seeks to understand how we can better foster collaboration over drainage conflict, support sustainable livelihoods for farmers and ranchers, while addressing wildlife and water quality and flow concerns, and deal with a changing climate that includes more extreme swings in water availability.
As a part of this work, my team produced a short film: “Wetland / Waste Land”, which won honourable mention at the Lets Talk Water International Film Festival.
Regenerative & Resilient Food Systems
My team is working with people working in local and regional food systems, including agrifood and seafood networks, to explore how to make practices and supply chains more resilient and regenerative in light of climate change and other emerging challenges such as the ongoing disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some ongoing topics of research include:
Identifying the social determinants of soil health, including the barriers and opportunities for farmers to adopt regenerative farming practices
Understanding the ethical landscape of regenerative and resilient food systems practices
Identifying and strengthening social-ecological feedbacks to achive regenerative outcomes
Building more resilient local and alternative supply networks through innovations such as direct marketing and community supported agriculture and fisheries
Coastal Routes: Bouncing Forward in the Face of Change
Communities of Coastal across Canada are innovating to strengthen food systems and security, while also protecting and enhancing local and regional biodiversity. Yet, challenges such as oil and natural gas pipelines on the land, and ocean acidification and pollution in the sea, create numerous risks for these initiatives. In this project we will work with community partners to learn how they think about these risks, and how this informs their innovative strategies for reducing risk, building resilience, and promoting sustainable livelihoods.
This project has two streams: the first involves a collection of case-studies of community innovation around food security and climate change on all four of Canada’s coasts (yes, four! Don’t forget the Great Lakes!) We are interested in how people are innovating to address conservation and sustainability challenges as they relate to community food security and environmental stewardship In what ways are people creating resistance to challenges such as climate change and development? What programs are being successful and to what extent do they explicitly engage both biodiversity conservation and food/community security?
The second stream is about storytelling. We’re mobilizing a large partnership of researchers and storytellers to help coastal communities around Canada (and with some international partners) tell stories about their challenges and successes. We’re working with film, photography, story maps, and any format we can, really, to create stories that resonate and raise awareness of coastal issues. To find out more, visit the Coastal Routes website. You can also check out our Soundcloud for podcasts and other audio