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"Recognizing Resilience: Understanding community based responses to acute and chronic disturbance"

Wednesday, November 6, 2013 | 10:30 am
Erika Svendsen, US Forest Service Erika Svendsen, US Forest Service
Northern Research Station; Unit: People and Their Environments: Social Science Supporting Natural Resource Management and Policy
NYC Urban Field Station

In order to fill critical gaps in our understanding of social and environmental change, this presentation will explore how community-based environmental stewardship plays a role in the resilience cycle.  Understanding stewardship as part of a larger social-ecological system aids in our collective ability to exchange information, innovate, respond and leverage resources critical to improving conditions in a changing climate.  This presentation will draw from research and methods from a number of study areas including acts of terrorism, severe storms and economic downturns. 

Erika Svendsen is a Research Social Scientist with the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, within the unit, "People and their environments: Social science supporting natural resource management and policy".  Her research interests involve all aspects of urban environmental stewardship and how systems of stewardship shape new forms of governance, collective resilience, sacred space and human well-being. She studies these systems from the perspective of individuals and organizations.