University of Arizona
School of Geography and Development
This article traces the development of Chile's emblematic Patagonia Sin Represas (Patagonia Without Dams) movement, known for its nearly decade-long, and ultimately successful, resistance to the controversial HidroAysén dam project. We... more
This article traces the development of Chile's emblematic Patagonia Sin Represas (Patagonia Without Dams) movement, known for its nearly decade-long, and ultimately successful, resistance to the controversial HidroAysén dam project. We draw on political process theory and frame analysis to examine how the movement grew from a small community struggle in an isolated part of Patagonia into the country's largest environmental social movement. We argue that movement actors achieved widespread support for Patagonia Without Dams by strategically reframing the issue in response to key political opportunities, shifting from a primarily environmental and anti-dam frame to a master frame of social justice and democracy. By framing the controversial hydroelectric project as an issue of historical and structural injustice within Chile's neoliberal economic governance structures, movement actors were able to resonate with broader audiences and build a robust alliance structure. Ultimately, the master frame of democracy allowed for frame bridging with key allies and actors in the mass protests of 2011 and in contemporary movements for constitutional reform.
Water conflicts are increasingly spilling into the streets in Chile, as communities struggle to make their voices heard in formal decision-making forums. However, these growing social movements are doing much more than just marching.... more
Water conflicts are increasingly spilling into the streets in Chile, as communities struggle to make their voices heard in formal decision-making forums. However, these growing social movements are doing much more than just marching. Combining insights from political ecology and legal geography, this article approaches water governance as a complex field of struggle in which social movement resistance plays a crucial role. In the case of the Alto Maipo hydropower conflict in central Chile, social movement actors have taken on a wide range of roles that they feel should correspond to the state: monitoring the hydropower company, documenting citizen concerns, and demanding accountability from government agencies. Attention to the legal dimensions of this struggle reveals how this work of “subsidizing the state” was built into the new institutional order ushered in during the Pinochet dictatorship, and how the capacity of social movement actors to mold this space to their advantage has been restricted by the legal framework for water governance. While there has been considerable attention to the role of resistance from water user associations in reshaping neoliberal water reforms in other parts of Latin America, the Chilean case highlights the need to also consider social movement actors from outside of the conventional water sector who struggle to defend in-stream uses not recognized under the law. Faced with limited legal recourse in the courts and little legitimacy in decision-making forums, Chilean activists have pursued alternative strategies that have expanded the scope of their resistance and built broader political pressure for change.
The historical trajectory of the Maipo River basin offers critical insights into current and future challenges in Chile’s internationally famous model of water management. We highlight the legal dimensions of the trajectory, looking... more
The historical trajectory of the Maipo River basin offers critical insights into current and future challenges in Chile’s internationally famous model of water management. We highlight the legal dimensions of the trajectory, looking beyond the 1981 Water Code and water market debates to some of the underlying principles of Chilean water law that shape river management. In particular, we focus on a legal-administrative rule that splits rivers into multiple, independently managed ‘sections’ - a policy that has received little attention despite posing a prima facie contradiction to the goal of integrated water resources management. We demonstrate that, despite government officials’ insistence that this policy is merely an ‘artificial’ administrative tool, river sectioning has significant material, discursive, and socio-political consequences for water governance. We highlight three emerging issues: (1) tensions over section boundaries, (2) the institutionalisation of a ‘right to leave the river dry’, and (3) ongoing struggles to establish formal vigilance committees in the lower sections. Far from functioning as a legal simplification, river sectioning is complicated and contentious and demands more attention in policy and research. We conclude by considering possible solutions aligned with efforts to move toward more coordinated and equitable water management in this crucial basin.
In 2016, the National Park Service will turn 100 years old. In preparation for this centennial, Chiricahua National Monument and Coronado National Memorial are planning new visitor center exhibits. The Arizona State Museum (ASM) was... more
In 2016, the National Park Service will turn 100 years old. In preparation for this centennial, Chiricahua National Monument and Coronado National Memorial are planning new visitor center exhibits. The Arizona State Museum (ASM) was engaged through the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) agreement between the University of Arizona and the National Park Service to provide planning support for developing those exhibits.
Chiricahua National Monument was established in 1924 by President Calvin Coolidge to preserve and protect this “wonderland of rocks” for the enjoyment and education of the
American people. Coronado National Memorial was established in 1952 to commemorate Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s 16th century expedition into what is now the United States.
The unusual geological formations at Chiricahua and the unique Madrean Archipelago flora and fauna of the sky islands that make up the both Chiricahua and Coronado will be subjects for interpretive display in the Visitor Centers at both parks. To assist the selected exhibit design service in developing appropriate interpretive displays, the Arizona State Museum will provide an overview of current research and scientific understanding of the geology and biology of the
two parks.
To accomplish this goal, ASM engaged graduate students Erin Elizabeth Posthumus from the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, Jesse Minor from the School of Geography and Development, and Adam M. Hudson from the Department of Geosciences as graduate research assistants to prepare background materials for use of NPS staff and exhibit designers.
The topics to be developed were defined in discussion with NPS personnel from Chiricahua National Monument and Coronado National Memorial.
The goals include:
Preparation of background research to summarize current thinking on major topics that will be interpretive subjects for the Chiricahua and Coronado visitor centers.
An annotated bibliography for each of the topics.
The topics include:
The geology and geologic processes that shaped the sky islands.
The biological landscape—including flora and fauna and the forces that shape them, including the sky islands themselves, fire regimes and climatological history and
potential climate change effects.
Adam Hudson’s overview of geologic information includes a review of the geologic time scale and major time periods and turning points in geologic time, an overview of plate tectonics and the geologic history of southeast Arizona, as well as more detailed information related to the specific geologic history of Chiricahua and Coronado. After this overview, he provides some detail on the life history of the super volcano that created the unusual formations at Chiricahua
and on cave formation processes that explicate the life history of Coronado Cave at Coronado.
Erin Posthumus’s and Jesse Minor’s stories of the sky islands review the ways in which “island” as metaphor for the local biology parallels and differs from oceanic islands, the fire history of the sky islands, patterns of plant and animal diversity in sky islands, the climatological history of the
sky islands and potential effects of climate change on vegetation and wildlife. They also include stories of particular relevance to Coronado, including migration and the responses of wildlife to natural and artificial barriers and the effect of recent activities in the area, including forest fires and construction of an international boundary on the migration and, indeed, survival of the lesser long nosed bat.
For each topic an annotated list of key references, as well as a fuller bibliography of recent references is included. The materials should provide interpretive developers and NPS staff, with the most current information on each topic. This is not intended to serve as exhibit text but as information guides for exhibit developers to draw on for interpreting each topic.
Chiricahua National Monument was established in 1924 by President Calvin Coolidge to preserve and protect this “wonderland of rocks” for the enjoyment and education of the
American people. Coronado National Memorial was established in 1952 to commemorate Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s 16th century expedition into what is now the United States.
The unusual geological formations at Chiricahua and the unique Madrean Archipelago flora and fauna of the sky islands that make up the both Chiricahua and Coronado will be subjects for interpretive display in the Visitor Centers at both parks. To assist the selected exhibit design service in developing appropriate interpretive displays, the Arizona State Museum will provide an overview of current research and scientific understanding of the geology and biology of the
two parks.
To accomplish this goal, ASM engaged graduate students Erin Elizabeth Posthumus from the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, Jesse Minor from the School of Geography and Development, and Adam M. Hudson from the Department of Geosciences as graduate research assistants to prepare background materials for use of NPS staff and exhibit designers.
The topics to be developed were defined in discussion with NPS personnel from Chiricahua National Monument and Coronado National Memorial.
The goals include:
Preparation of background research to summarize current thinking on major topics that will be interpretive subjects for the Chiricahua and Coronado visitor centers.
An annotated bibliography for each of the topics.
The topics include:
The geology and geologic processes that shaped the sky islands.
The biological landscape—including flora and fauna and the forces that shape them, including the sky islands themselves, fire regimes and climatological history and
potential climate change effects.
Adam Hudson’s overview of geologic information includes a review of the geologic time scale and major time periods and turning points in geologic time, an overview of plate tectonics and the geologic history of southeast Arizona, as well as more detailed information related to the specific geologic history of Chiricahua and Coronado. After this overview, he provides some detail on the life history of the super volcano that created the unusual formations at Chiricahua
and on cave formation processes that explicate the life history of Coronado Cave at Coronado.
Erin Posthumus’s and Jesse Minor’s stories of the sky islands review the ways in which “island” as metaphor for the local biology parallels and differs from oceanic islands, the fire history of the sky islands, patterns of plant and animal diversity in sky islands, the climatological history of the
sky islands and potential effects of climate change on vegetation and wildlife. They also include stories of particular relevance to Coronado, including migration and the responses of wildlife to natural and artificial barriers and the effect of recent activities in the area, including forest fires and construction of an international boundary on the migration and, indeed, survival of the lesser long nosed bat.
For each topic an annotated list of key references, as well as a fuller bibliography of recent references is included. The materials should provide interpretive developers and NPS staff, with the most current information on each topic. This is not intended to serve as exhibit text but as information guides for exhibit developers to draw on for interpreting each topic.
Arizona’s Five Cs (copper, cattle, citrus, cotton, and climate) represent a suite of economic practices, which have very material effects on Arizona’s water resources. These Five Cs have long dominated the development of Arizona’s water... more
Arizona’s Five Cs (copper, cattle, citrus, cotton, and climate) represent a suite of economic practices, which have very material effects on Arizona’s water resources. These Five Cs have long dominated the development of Arizona’s water policy and law while disregarding the natural limitations of the state’s hydrologic resources. Perhaps more than any other western state, Arizona has undergone rapid and striking demographic changes across the course of the 20th and 21st centuries.
This paper:
• Provides a grounding in the paleoecological and historical records of past drought in the Southwest, as well as in predictions for the climate change that Arizona will experience in the future.
• Explores changes in Arizona water law over time, especially with regards to shifts in the types of water which are actively managed, and the institutions charged with managing Arizona’s overallocated water resources.
• Documents how the changing economic needs of powerful Five C actors has driven changes in water law over Arizona history.
• Addresses the role of science in creating policy to plan for drought and climate change.
Finally, this paper provides a realistic look at Arizona’s priorities and policies regarding water, with an emphasis on a new set of Five Cs which place heightened importance on sustainable agriculture and water-conscious urban planning.
This paper:
• Provides a grounding in the paleoecological and historical records of past drought in the Southwest, as well as in predictions for the climate change that Arizona will experience in the future.
• Explores changes in Arizona water law over time, especially with regards to shifts in the types of water which are actively managed, and the institutions charged with managing Arizona’s overallocated water resources.
• Documents how the changing economic needs of powerful Five C actors has driven changes in water law over Arizona history.
• Addresses the role of science in creating policy to plan for drought and climate change.
Finally, this paper provides a realistic look at Arizona’s priorities and policies regarding water, with an emphasis on a new set of Five Cs which place heightened importance on sustainable agriculture and water-conscious urban planning.
About 25,000 acres of Chiricahua Mountains burned in the 1994 Rattlesnake fire. The 2011 Horseshoe II fire re-burned these acres, and much more – virtually the entire range. A year earlier, 2010, a vegetation mapping project... more
About 25,000 acres of Chiricahua Mountains burned in the 1994 Rattlesnake fire. The 2011 Horseshoe II fire re-burned these acres, and much more – virtually the entire range. A year earlier, 2010, a vegetation mapping project photo-documented a variety of vegetation types, but for this poster we focus on the Madrean Pine-Oak Woodland. Subsequent photo matches were taken in 2012, 2014, and 2016. A parallel study of post-fire vegetation recovery following multiple mixed-severity fire events is used to characterize the woody plant community assemblages documented at the photo points. Using repeat photography and plot-based surveys of tree basal area, woody shrub cover, and tree regeneration, we illustrate the various recovery trajectories of re-burned areas in several important vegetation types and across a wide range of elevational settings.
- by Jim Malusa and +1
- •
Critical Zone Science (CZS) offers analytical techniques and research tools for understanding life and its environment on and near Earth’s surface. CZS research often integrates historically distinct disciplines into multidisciplinary... more
Critical Zone Science (CZS) offers analytical techniques and research tools for understanding life and its environment on and near Earth’s surface. CZS research often integrates historically distinct disciplines into multidisciplinary studies of CZ subsystems (e.g., vadose zone, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, and subsurface hydrology).
Despite CZS’s ability to characterize rate-dependent processes, it has not historically attempted to capture the effects of ecological disturbance and anthropogenic influences on CZ processes.
As human-induced ecosystem effects accelerate in the Anthropocene, the deep temporal and broad spatial scales of biogeography can be productively combined with the quantifiable processes of energy and mass transfer of CZS to answer pressing questions about climate change impacts, post-disturbance recovery, hydrology, and ecology.
Despite CZS’s ability to characterize rate-dependent processes, it has not historically attempted to capture the effects of ecological disturbance and anthropogenic influences on CZ processes.
As human-induced ecosystem effects accelerate in the Anthropocene, the deep temporal and broad spatial scales of biogeography can be productively combined with the quantifiable processes of energy and mass transfer of CZS to answer pressing questions about climate change impacts, post-disturbance recovery, hydrology, and ecology.
- by Jesse Minor and +3
- •
Climate change is increasing the frequency and extent of high-severity disturbance, with potential to alter vegetation community composition and structure in environments sensitive to tipping points between alternative states. Shrub... more
Climate change is increasing the frequency and extent of high-severity disturbance, with potential to alter vegetation community composition and structure in environments sensitive to tipping points between alternative states. Shrub species display a range of characteristics that promote resistance and resilience to disturbance, and which yield differential post-disturbance outcomes. We investigated differences in shrub patch size and stem density in response to variations in fire severity, vegetation community, and post-disturbance reproductive strategies in Sky Island forested ecosystems in the southwestern United States. Patterns in shrub structure reflect the effects of fire severity as well as differences among species with alternate post-fire reproductive strategies. Increased fire severity correlates with larger patch sizes and greater stem densities; these patterns are observed across multiple fire events, indicating that disturbance legacies can persist for decades. High severity fire produces the largest shrub patches, and variance in shrub patch size increases with severity. High severity fire is likely to promote expansion of shrub species on the landscape, with implications for future community structure. Resprouting species have the greatest variability in patch structure, while seeding species show a strong response to disturbance: resprouting species dominate at low disturbance severities, and obligate seeders dominate high severity areas. Differential post-fire reproductive strategies are likely to generate distinct patterns of vegetation distribution following disturbance, with implications for community composition at various scales. Shrub species demonstrate flexible responses to wildfire disturbance severity that are reflected in shrub patch dynamics at small and intermediate scales.
HIGHLIGHTS • The U.S. state uses advertisement as a biopolitical instrument oriented toward simultaneously managing people and forests. • Smokey Bear symbolically and materially territorializes U.S. state power, linking citizenship, fire... more
HIGHLIGHTS
• The U.S. state uses advertisement as a biopolitical instrument oriented toward simultaneously managing people and forests.
• Smokey Bear symbolically and materially territorializes U.S. state power, linking citizenship, fire practices, and ecology.
• Smokey's message is flexible in the face of social, economic and environmental change.
• Ecological consequences of fire prevention create an environmental feedback loop requiring ongoing U.S. state intervention.
ABSTRACT
Wildfire prevention advertisements featuring Smokey Bear represent the longest-standing and most successful government advertising and branding campaign in U.S. history. As the public face of U.S. fire control policy, Smokey Bear uses mass media to influence the attitudes and behavior of U.S. citizenry in order to accomplish particular outcomes related to wildfire prevention and suppression, forest protection, and resource management. Smokey Bear can therefore be viewed as a governmental instrument that simultaneously targets the behavior of the U.S. public and the biophysical materiality of combustible forests. Examining the evolution of Smokey Bear and related wildfire prevention media, we explore connections between state management of people, territory, and flammable landscapes. Borrowing from Nigel Clark (2011), we use the term pyropolitics to describe the resulting more-than-human assemblage of citizenship, fire suppression and forest ecology. Importantly, this pyropolitical assemblage has substantive and recursive impacts on state practice. Through aggressive wildfire prevention and suppression that include and extend beyond Smokey Bear, the U.S. state has transformed fuel loads, species compositions, and ecosystem dynamics across North America. One result is a heightened propensity toward catastrophic wildfire, requiring additional and sustained state intervention to maintain an imposed and unstable equilibrium. Thus even as the economic, social and cultural realities of U.S. civic life have changed over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries – and even as knowledge of the ecological benefits of fire to ecosystem health has developed over time – the message of Smokey Bear has remained remarkably consistent, communicating an official imperative to prevent anthropogenic ignition.
• The U.S. state uses advertisement as a biopolitical instrument oriented toward simultaneously managing people and forests.
• Smokey Bear symbolically and materially territorializes U.S. state power, linking citizenship, fire practices, and ecology.
• Smokey's message is flexible in the face of social, economic and environmental change.
• Ecological consequences of fire prevention create an environmental feedback loop requiring ongoing U.S. state intervention.
ABSTRACT
Wildfire prevention advertisements featuring Smokey Bear represent the longest-standing and most successful government advertising and branding campaign in U.S. history. As the public face of U.S. fire control policy, Smokey Bear uses mass media to influence the attitudes and behavior of U.S. citizenry in order to accomplish particular outcomes related to wildfire prevention and suppression, forest protection, and resource management. Smokey Bear can therefore be viewed as a governmental instrument that simultaneously targets the behavior of the U.S. public and the biophysical materiality of combustible forests. Examining the evolution of Smokey Bear and related wildfire prevention media, we explore connections between state management of people, territory, and flammable landscapes. Borrowing from Nigel Clark (2011), we use the term pyropolitics to describe the resulting more-than-human assemblage of citizenship, fire suppression and forest ecology. Importantly, this pyropolitical assemblage has substantive and recursive impacts on state practice. Through aggressive wildfire prevention and suppression that include and extend beyond Smokey Bear, the U.S. state has transformed fuel loads, species compositions, and ecosystem dynamics across North America. One result is a heightened propensity toward catastrophic wildfire, requiring additional and sustained state intervention to maintain an imposed and unstable equilibrium. Thus even as the economic, social and cultural realities of U.S. civic life have changed over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries – and even as knowledge of the ecological benefits of fire to ecosystem health has developed over time – the message of Smokey Bear has remained remarkably consistent, communicating an official imperative to prevent anthropogenic ignition.
Wildfire prevention advertisements featuring Smokey Bear represent the longest-standing and most successful government advertising and branding campaign in U.S. history. As the public face of U.S. fire control policy, Smokey Bear uses... more
Wildfire prevention advertisements featuring Smokey Bear represent the longest-standing and most successful government advertising and branding campaign in U.S. history. As the public face of U.S. fire control policy, Smokey Bear uses mass media to influence the attitudes and behavior of U.S. citizenry in order to accomplish particular outcomes related to wildfire prevention and suppression, forest protection , and resource management. Smokey Bear can therefore be viewed as a governmental instrument that simultaneously targets the behavior of the U.S. public and the biophysical materiality of combustible forests. Examining the evolution of Smokey Bear and related wildfire prevention media, we explore connections between state management of people, territory, and flammable landscapes. Borrowing from Nigel Clark (2011), we use the term pyropolitics to describe the resulting more-than-human assemblage of citizenship, fire suppression and forest ecology. Importantly, this pyropolitical assemblage has substantive and recursive impacts on state practice. Through aggressive wildfire prevention and suppression that include and extend beyond Smokey Bear, the U.S. state has transformed fuel loads, species compositions , and ecosystem dynamics across North America. One result is a heightened propensity toward catastrophic wildfire, requiring additional and sustained state intervention to maintain an imposed and unstable equilibrium. Thus even as the economic, social and cultural realities of U.S. civic life have changed over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries e and even as knowledge of the ecological benefits of fire to ecosystem health has developed over time e the message of Smokey Bear has remained remarkably consistent, communicating an official imperative to prevent anthropogenic ignition.
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