Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Forest ethnography: An approach to study the environmental history and political ecology of urban forests

Submission to “The Structure-Function Continuum: Understanding urban transformation through socio-ecological flows,” a special issue of Urban Ecosystems

  • Published:
Urban Ecosystems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A landscape succession paradigm has shaped much of our understanding about the processes of forest emergence and transformation in the United States. Drawing heavily from theory and method in environmental history, this paradigm has focused attention on the role of landscape-scale shifts in land use and land cover in the production of forests. The geography of cities is patchy, dynamic and heterogeneous, with change and differences occurring at much smaller scales (e.g. Jacobs 1961; Clay 1973) compared to coarse scale of stand replacing successions affecting rural forests (Grove et al. Ecosyst Health and Sustain 2(9):e01239, 2016; Pickett et al. Urban Ecosyst 20(1):1–14, 2017). Therefore, trying to understand how urban forests came to be, as well as what they are, requires a research approach that is specific to the land use dynamics of cities and attentive to the social life of urban forests. In response to this methodological gap, this paper describes a research approach called “forest ethnography,” which we are piloting in Baltimore, Maryland as part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), one of the National Science Foundation’s urban Long-term Ecological Research Programs (LTER). As we describe, we propose that an urban forest ethnography approach can contribute to our understanding of both forest environmental history and urban political ecology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Matthew Baker, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, led the forest patch analyses for (Avins 2013), which was supported by the City of Baltimore’s Office of Sustainability.

References

  • Agar M (1980) The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. Academic Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Angelo H, Wachsmuth D (2015) Urbanizing urban political ecology: A critique of methodological cityism. Inter J Urban Reg Research 39(1):16–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avins M (2013) Baltimore’s forest patches: Emerald assets for ecosystem services, Baltimore Green Space. http:baltimoregreenspace.org/downloads/ForestPatchesWeb.pdf. Accessed 30 May 2017

  • Baltimore City, Department of Planning (1992) Baltimore City supplement to the state forest conservation manual. http://planning.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/RStateForestConservationManual_0.pdf. Accessed 30 May 2017

  • Baltimore City Open GIS Data: Real Property (2017) http://gis-baltimore.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/b41551f53345445fa05b554cd77b3732_0. Accessed 5/4/2017

  • Baltimore City Open GIS Data (2015) URL: https://gis.baltimorecity.gov/egis/rest/services/opengisdata/treecanopy/MapServer. Accessed 5/4/2017

  • Bankoff G (2013) “Deep forestry”: Shapers of the Philippine forests. Environ Hist 18(3):523–556. https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emt037

  • Baviskar A (2003a) Between violence and desire: space, power, and identity in the making of metropolitan Dehli. Inter Social Science J 55(175):89–98. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2451.5501009

  • Baviskar A (2003b) For a cultural politics of natural resources. Econ Polit Wkly 28:5051–5055

    Google Scholar 

  • Bromley DW (1992) The commons, common property, and environmental policy. Environ Resour Econ 2(1):1–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boone CG, Buckley GL, Grove JM, Sister C (2009) Parks and People: An Environmental Justice Inquiry in Baltimore, Maryland. Ann Assoc of Am Geogr 99(4):767–787

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boone CG, Cadenasso ML, Grove JM, Schwartz K, Buckley GL (2010) Landscape, vegetation characteristics, and group identity in an urban and suburban watershed: why the 60s matter. Urban Ecosyst 13(3):255–271

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boone CG, Fragkias M, Buckley GL, Grove JM (2014) A long view of polluting industry and environmental justice in Baltimore. Cities 36:41–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bond W, Keeley J (2005) Fire as a global “herbivore”: the ecology and evolution of flammable ecosystems. Trends in Ecol Evol 20:387–394

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braun B (2002) The Intemperate Rainforest: Nature, Culture, and Power on Canada’s West Coast. Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

    Google Scholar 

  • Chowdhury RR, Larson K, Grove M, Polsky C, Cook E, Onsted J, Ogden L (2011) A Multi-Scalar Approach to Theorizing Socio-Ecological Dynamics at Urban Residential Landscapes. Cities and the Environment 4(1):article 6

  • Chuang W-C, Boone CG, Locke DH, Grove JM, Buckley GL, Whitmer A, Zhang S (2018) Tree canopy change and neighborhood stability: A comparative analysis of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD. Urban For Urban Greening

  • Clay G (1973) Close-Up: How to read the American city. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell JH, Slatyer RO (1977) Mechanisms of succession in natural communities and their role in community stability and organization. Amer Nat 111:1119–1144

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connell JH (1978) Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs. Science 199:1302–1310

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cronon W (1983) Changes in the land: Indian, colonists and the ecology of New England. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York

  • Crooks JB (1968) Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progressivism in Baltimore, 1895–1921. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge

    Google Scholar 

  • Cronon W (1992) Nature’s metropolis: Chicago and the great west. W. W. Norton & Company, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Bois WEB, Eaton I (1996) The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Univ. of Penn Press, Philadelphia

    Google Scholar 

  • Escobar A (2008) Territories of difference: place, movements, life, redes. Duke University Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Emery MR, Hurley PT (2016) Ethnobiology in the city: Embracing the urban ecological moment. J Ethnobiol 36(4):807–819

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Euchner CC (1991) The Politics of Urban Expansion: Baltimore and the Sewerage Question, 1859–1905. Maryland Historical Magazine 86:3 (1991): 270–91

  • Feeny D, Berkes F, McCay BJ, Acheson JM (1990) The tragedy of the commons: Twenty-two years later. Hum Ecol 18(1):1–19

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Foster D (1992) Land-use history (1730-1990) and vegetation dynamics in central New England, USA. J Ecol 80(4):753–771

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster D, Swanson F, Aber J, Burke I, Brokaw N, Tilman D, Knapp A (2003) The importance of land-use legacies to ecology and conservation. Bioscience 53(1):77–88

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster D, Motzkin G, O’Keefe J, Boose E, Orwig D, Fuller J, Hall B (2004) The environmental and human history of New England. In: Forests in time: the environmental consequences of 1,000 years of change in New England. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp 43–100

    Google Scholar 

  • Girão LC, Lopes AV, Tabarelli M, Bruna EM (2007) Changes in tree reproduction traits reduce functional diversity in a fragmented atlantic forest landscape. PLoS One 2:e908. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000908

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Grabbatin B, Hurley PT, Halfacre A (2011) “I Still Have the Old Tradition”: The co-production of sweetgrass basketry and coastal development. Geoforum 42(6):638–649

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grimm NB, Grove JM, Pickett STA, Redman CL (2000) Integrated approaches to long-term studies of urban ecological systems. Bioscience 50(7):571–584

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Groffman PM, Pouyat RV, Cadenasso ML et al (2006) Land use context and natural soil controls on plant community composition and soil nitrogen and carbon dynamics in urban and rural forests. For Ecol Manag 236:177–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2006.09.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Groffman PM, Cavender-Bares J, Bettez ND, Grove JM, Hall SJ, Heffernan JB, Hobbie SE, Larson KL, Morse JL, Neill C, Nelson K, O'Neil-Dunne J, Ogden L, Pataki DE, Polsky C, Chowdhury RR, Steele MK (2014) Ecological homogenization of urban USA. Front Ecol Environ 12:74–81. https://doi.org/10.1890/120374

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grove JM (1996) The Relationship between patterns and processes of social stratification and vegetation of an urban - rural watershed. Dissertation, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

  • Grove JM, Locke DH, O’Neil-Dunne JPM (2014) An Ecology of Prestige in New York City: Examining the Relationships Among Population Density, Socio-economic Status, Group Identity, and Residential Canopy Cover. Environ Manag 54(3):402–419. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0310-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grove JM, Pickett STA, Burch WRJ, Machlis G (2015) The Baltimore School of Urban Ecology: Space, Scale, and Time for the Study of Cities. Yale Univ Press, New Haven

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grove JM, Childers DL, Galvin M, Hines S, Muñoz-Erickson T, Svendsen ES (2016) Linking science and decision making to promote an ecology for the city: practices and opportunities. Ecosyst Health and Sustain 2(9):e01239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grove JM, Ogden LA, Pickett STA, Boone CG, Buckley GL, Locke DH, Lord C (2018) The legacy effect: understanding how segregation and environmental injustice unfold over time in Baltimore. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 108(2):524–537

  • Harvey D (1978) The urban process under capitalism: a framework for analysis. Inter J Urban Reg Research 2(1–4):103–131

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey D (1987) The urbanization of capital: Studies in the history and theory of capitalist urbanization. Science Soc 51(1):121–125

    Google Scholar 

  • Heynen N, Kaika M, Swyngedouw E (2006) In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Heynen N (2014) Urban political ecology I: The urban century. Prog Hum Geogr 38(4):598–604

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heynen N (2016) Urban political ecology II: The abolitionist century. Prog Hum Geogr 40(6):839–845

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heynen N (2017) Urban political ecology III: The feminist and queer century. Prog Hum Geogr. doi: 10.177/0309132517693336

  • Hirsch E, O’Hanlon M (1995) The anthropology of landscape: Perspectives on place and space. Oxford Univ Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang G, Zhou W, Cadenasso ML (2011) Is everyone hot in the city? Spatial pattern of land surface temperatures, land cover and neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics in Baltimore, MD. J Environ Manag 92:1753–1759

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurley PT, Halfacre AC, Levine NS, Burke MK (2008) Finding a “Disappearing” Nontimber Forest Resource: Using Grounded Visualization to Explore Urbanization Impacts on Sweetgrass Basketmaking in Greater Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. The Prof Geographer 60(4):556–578

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurley PT, Maccaroni M, Williams A (2017) Resistant actors, resistant landscapes? A historical political ecology of a forested conservation object in exurban southeastern Pennsylvania. Landsc Res 42(3):291–306

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurley PT, Taylor LE (2016) From swamp to ridgeline: Exploring exurbia in southeastern Pennsylvania and the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. In A Comparative Political Ecology of Exurbia (31–49). Springer, New York

  • Jacobs J (1961) The death and life of great American cities. Random House, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Johns Hopkins University Libraries (2017) Residential Security Map of Baltimore, Maryland. http://jhir.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/32621 Accessed 5/4/2017

  • Jorgensen A, Tylecote M (2007) Ambivalent landscapes—wilderness in the urban interstices. Landsc Res 32(4):443–462

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kang W, Minor ES, Park C-R, Lee D (2015) Effects of habitat structure, human disturbance, and habitat connectivity on urban forest bird communities. Urban Ecosyst 18:857–870. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-014-0433-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • King KL, Locke DH (2013) A comparison of three methods of measuring local urban tree canopy cover. Arboricult Urban For 39(2):62–67

    Google Scholar 

  • Knigge L, Cope M (2006) Grounded visualization: integrating the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data through grounded theory and visualization. Enviro & Planning A 38(11):2021–2037

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohn E (2013) How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Konijnendijk CC, Richard RM, Kenney A, Randrup TB (2006) Defining urban forestry—a comparative perspective of North America and Europe. Urban For Urban Green 4(3–4):93–103

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kosek J (2006) Understories: The political life of forests in New Mexico. Duke Univ Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kowarik I (2005) Wild urban woodlands: Towards a conceptual framework. In: Kowarik I, Körner S (eds) Wild Urban Woodlands: New perspectives for urban forestry. Springer, Berlin, pp 1–32

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kowarik I, Körner S (2005) New perspectives for urban forestry. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Lachmund J (2013) Greening Berlin. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Li TM (2014) Land’s end: Capitalist relations on an indigenous frontier. Duke Univ Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Livesley SJ, McPherson EG (2016) Calfapietra C (2016) The urban forest and ecosystem services: Impacts on urban water, heat, and pollution cycles at the tree, street, and city scale. J Environ Qual 45:119–124. https://doi.org/10.2134/jeq2015.11.0567

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Loughner CP, Allen DJ, Zhang D-L, Pickering KE, Dickerson RR, Landry L (2012) Roles of urban tree canopy and buildings in urban heat island effects: Parameterization and preliminary results. J Appl Meteorol and Clim 51:1775–1793

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lord C, Norquist K (2010) Cities as emergent systems: Race as a rule in organized complexity. Environ Law 40:551–597

    Google Scholar 

  • MacFaden SW, O’Neil-Dunne JPM, Royar AR, Lu JWT, Rundle AG (2012) High-resolution tree canopy mapping for New York City using LIDAR and object-based image analysis. J Appl Remote Sensing:6. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.6.063567

  • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Neumann RP (2002) Imposing wilderness: Struggles over livelihood and nature preservation in Africa. Univ. of Cal Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Ocejo RE (2013) Ethnography and the city: Readings on doing urban fieldwork. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogden L (2011) Swamplife: People, gators, and mangroves entangled in the Everglades. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Olson SH (1997) Baltimore: The building of an American city. Johns Hopkins, University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neil-Dunne JPM, MacFaden SQ, Royar A (2014) A versatile, production-oriented approach to high-resolution tree-canopy mapping in urban and suburban landscapes using GEOBIA and data fusion. Remote Sens 6(12):12837–12865. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs61212837

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peluso N (1992) Rich forests, poor people: Resource control and resistance in Java. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pickett STA, Cadenasso ML, Grove JM, Nilon CH, Pouyat RV, Zipperer WC, Costanza R (2001) Urban ecological systems: Linking terrestrial ecological, physical, and socioeconomic components of metropolitan areas. Annu Review Ecol Syst 32(1):127–157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickett STA, Cadenasso ML, Rosi-Marshall EJ, Belt KT, Groffman PM, Grove JM, Irwin EG, Kaushal SS, LaDeau SL, Nilon CH, Swan CM, Warren PS (2017) Dynamic heterogeneity: a framework to promote ecological integration and hypothesis generation in urban systems. Urban Ecosyst 20(1):1–14

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickett STA, White PS (1985) The ecology of natural disturbance and patch dynamics. Academic Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Pietila A (2010) Not in my neighborhood: How bigotry shaped a great American city. Ivan R Dee, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Pincetl S (2012) Nature, urban development and sustainability – What elements are needed for a more comprehensive understanding? Cities 29(2):S32–S37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinho P, Correia O, Lecoq M et al (2016) Evaluating green infrastructure in urban environments using a multi-taxa and functional diversity approach. Environ Res 147:601–610. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2015.12.025

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Polsky C, Grove JM, Knudson C et al (2014) Assessing the homogenization of urban land management with an application to US residential lawn care. PNAS 111(12):4432–4437

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Power G (1983) Apartheid Baltimore style: The residential segregation ordinances of 1910–1913. Maryland Law Review 42:289–328

    Google Scholar 

  • Rademacher A (2011) Reigning the river: Urban ecologies and political transformation in Kathmandu. Duke Univ Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rademacher A (2015) Urban political ecology. Annu Rev Anthropol 44:137–152

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sandberg LA, Bardekjian A, Butt S (2014) Urban forests, trees and greenspace: A political ecology perspective. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schlager E, Ostrom E (1992) Property-rights regimes and natural resources: A conceptual analysis. Land Econ 68(3):249–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith ML, Zhou W, Cadenasso ML, Grove JM, Band LE (2010) Evaluation of the National Land Cover Database for Hydrologic Applications in Urban and Suburban Baltimore, Maryland. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association 46(2):429–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00412.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith N (1984) Uneven development: Nature, capital, and the production of space. Univ. of Georgia Press, Athens

    Google Scholar 

  • Swyngedouw E, Heynen N (2003) Urban political ecology, justice, and the politics of scale. Antipode 35(3):898–918

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sze J (2006) Noxious New York: The racial politics of urban health and environmental justice. The MIT Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tallis M, Taylor G, Sinnett D, Freer-Smith P (2011) Estimating the removal of atmospheric particulate pollution by the urban tree canopy of London, under current and future environments. Landsc Urban Plan 103:129–138

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Troy A, Grove JM, O'Neill-Dunne J (2012) The relationship between tree canopy and crime rates across an urban-rural gradient in the greater Baltimore region. Landsc Urban Plan 106:262–270

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Troy A, Grove JM (2008) Property values, parks, and crime: A hedonic analysis in Baltimore, MD. Landsc Urban Plan 87:233–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsing AL (2005) Friction: An ethnography of global connection. Princeton Univ Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsing AL (2015) The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton Univ Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • West P (2006) Conservation is our government now: The politics of ecology in Papua New Guinea. Duke Univ Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • West P (2012) From modern production to imagined primitive: The social world of coffee from Papua New Guinea. Duke Univ. Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Williams R (1973) The country and the city. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Willis P (2000) The ethnographic imagination. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolcott HF (2008) Ethnography: A way of seeing, 2nd Edition. AltaMira Press, Lantham

  • Yeip R (2015) Baltimore’s demographic divide. Wall Street Journal, published May 1, 2015. http://graphics.wsj.com/baltimore-demographics/

  • Zhou W, Huang G, Pickett STA, Cadenasso ML (2011) 90 years of forest cover change in the urbanizing Gwynns Falls watershed, Baltimore, Maryland: spatial and temporal dynamics. Landsc Ecol 26:6450659

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Laura A. Ogden

  2. Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems & Society, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Carissa Aoki

  3. Baltimore Field Station, US Forest Service, Baltimore, MD, USA

    J. Morgan Grove & Nancy Falxa Sonti

  4. National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Annapolis, MD, USA

    William Hall & Dexter Locke

  5. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY, USA

    Steward T. A. Pickett

  6. Baltimore Green Space, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Miriam Avins & Katie Lautar

  7. Center for Urban Research and Education, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    John Lagrosa

Authors
  1. Laura A. Ogden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Carissa Aoki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. J. Morgan Grove
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nancy Falxa Sonti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. William Hall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Dexter Locke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Steward T. A. Pickett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Miriam Avins
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Katie Lautar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. John Lagrosa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura A. Ogden.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ogden, L.A., Aoki, C., Grove, J.M. et al. Forest ethnography: An approach to study the environmental history and political ecology of urban forests. Urban Ecosyst 22, 49–63 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0744-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0744-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation