This document summarizes a case study on the role of trees and community forestry in recovery and resilience in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. It presents hypotheses that trees shaped resilience before and after the disaster, and that citizen engagement with trees played a crucial role in recovery across multiple scales. It then provides perspectives from a community partner on recovery progress, the progress of their tree planting project, contributions from research, and benefits/challenges of the research partnership. Finally, it presents preliminary results suggesting natural capital and restoration are underappreciated but important for post-disaster recovery and resilience.

1. Trees, Rebirth, and Resilience: A case study of the role of trees and community forestry in recovery and resilience across scales in Post-Katrina New Orleans Keith G. Tidball Cornell University Department of Natural Resources Jean Fahr Parkway Partners New Orleans, LA Marianne Krasny Faculty Advisor Cornell University Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships Annual Conference: Penn Center, St. Helena Island, SC September 2009

2. GLOBAL HYPOTHESIS In urban post-disaster and post-conflict contexts, community –based natural resources management, such as “greening” or “urban community forestry,” a.) confers resilience across multiple scales before a catastrophic event, and b.) demonstrates resilience and reactivates recovery feedbacks and virtuous cycles after a catastrophic event. CASE SPECIFIC HYPOTHESES 1. Trees shaped resilience before and following disaster in New Orleans. 2. The active engagement of citizens with trees played/plays a crucial, yet often unrecognized, role across multiple scales in recovery and resilience in Post-Katrina New Orleans.

4. Progress of Parkway Partners ReLeaf New Orleans project

5. Contributions from CFERP research effort

7. Community Partner Perspective:ReLeaf New Orleans Progress More than 6000 trees planted since Hurricane Katrina by Parkway Partners alone!

8. Community Partner Perspective: Tree Troopers 2009

9. Community Partner Perspective:Contributions from CFERP Research

10. Community Partner Perspective:Benefits, challenges, problems and opportunities Benefits- Affirmed direction, conviction Greatest Challenge- Our org still needs money Opportunities- Stand out in grant writing, further interaction with academic groups Problems- Who will do what he does when he moves on?

11. Actionable Research Question RESEARCH How have trees shaped resilience before and following disaster in New Orleans? What role does the active engagement of citizens with trees play in recovery and resilience in the Post-Katrina New Orleans Social Ecological System? ACTION To work with community to address lack of prioritization of investment in natural capital restoration by intervention institutions, which hinders recovery of social capital and broader recovery efforts.

12. The Research: Big “pushes” or “hallmarks” Urban Forestry Community of Practice Explicit participatory mixed methods … (triangulation– Bliss) Linking research to social ecological system resilience framework (coupled systems) Identify and describe social mechanisms that confer SES resilience Emphasis on usable products resulting from collaborative research The framework Reality Check: I AM NOWHERE NEAR “DONE”

13. The Framework Trees As ecosystem service provision (to humans) Symbols, cultural meaning, cultural resilience Tree Planting community forestry COP Act of Tree planting Civic ecology practices Tree Planters community forestry COP Act of Tree planting Civic ecology practices Resilience of the NOLA SES SES Resilience Framework Symbolism P.A.R. Feedback C.O.P. Systems theory

14. Community of Practice A community of practice defines itself along three dimensions. What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members. How it functions - mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity. What capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources that members have developed over time. Communities of practice can be seen as self-organizing systems and have many of the benefits and characteristics of associational life such as the generation of what Robert Putnam and others have discussed as social capital. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (1998). "Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System." Systems Thinker , June. Smith, M. K. (2003, 2009) 'Communities of practice', The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm. Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

15. So What?Preliminary results suggest… Natural capital, in this case trees, does appear to play a significant role in post-crisis recovery, but is underappreciated and under supported ,or often ignored, by agencies. Natural capital restoration, linked to social capital and sense of place, should be accounted for and budgeted for by institutions responding to disaster or conflict. To understand multiple capitals, especially natural capital, institutions should utilize participatory planning and other stake-holder based approaches. Stake-holder approaches, and the results they yield, are implicated in many important ways in managing for social-ecological system resilience… Feedbacks Identification of key symbols and catalysts Re-starting virtuous cycles that produce environmental services Guardingagainst re-starting vicious cycles

16. Content Analysis

17. Population by race/ethnicity (2000-2007) Source: Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (www.gnocdc.org) analysis of US Census Bureau data from Census 2000 and American Community Survey 2007

18. Virtuous v Vicious Cycles

19. Nested Scales of Resilience Ecological Society (Cultural) Community (Cultural) Family Individual Psychological

20. For More… www.resilientgreen.org

21. Thank you CFERP and NOLA Partners Thanks also to my PhD committee: Marianne Krasny, Mark Bain, Max Pfeffer, and Richard Stedman