Anne G. Short Gianotti

High Time for Conservation: Adding the Environment to the Debate on Marijuana Liberalization

The liberalization of marijuana policies, including the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana, is sweeping the United States and other countries. Marijuana cultivation can have significant negative collateral effects on the environment that are often unknown or overlooked. Focusing on the state of California, where by some estimates 60%–70% of the marijuana consumed in the United States is grown, we argue that (a) the environmental harm caused by marijuana cultivation merits a direct policy response, (b) current approaches to governing the environmental effects are inadequate, and (c) neglecting discussion of the environmental impacts of cultivation when shaping future marijuana use and possession policies represents a missed opportunity to reduce, regulate, and mitigate environmental harm.

Defining urban, suburban, and rural: a method to link perceptual definitions with geospatial measures of urbanization in central and eastern Massachusetts

Developing greater understandings of socio-ecological relationships across urbanizing areas is increasingly recognized as important for the conservation and management of natural resources in a variety of development contexts. Efforts to do so have been hindered by a lack of consistent measures of urbanization and the challenge of integrating socio-cultural characteristics into definitions of urban. We present a novel method for linking perceptual definitions of urban, suburban, and rural to geospatial characteristics and demonstrate how the method can be used to map urban, suburban, and rural areas at multiple scales in central and eastern Massachusetts. Our method can facilitate comparative approaches to urban ecology, be used to scale up socio-ecological studies, and inform conservation research and practice in urbanizing areas.

Learning to listen: how collaborative dialogue in regulation influences landowner adoption of best management practices on unregulated lands

The emergence of new environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) has launched a debate about the continued relevance of traditional regulatory approaches. Previous research examining the relationship of regulations and NEPIs has shown that regulations can compel engagement with voluntary approaches. In this paper, we demonstrate that the linkages between regulation and voluntary approaches need not be coercive. Through a study of sediment pollution in northern California, we show that regulatory processes have facilitated learning and motivated landowners to undertake voluntary actions. We suggest three elements that are fundamental to the success of this process: (a) the voluntary action must benefit the landowner, (b) resources must be available to reduce the implementation burden, and (c) the regulatory process must involve open and respectful communication between the landowner and the regulator. While not a panacea, this process of regulatory spillover offers a promising pathway for extending the reach of existing regulations.