Max J. Pfeffer

Social Learning for Collaborative Natural Resource Management

This article contributes to understanding about the potential and limitations of social learning for collaborative natural resource management. Participants in a deliberative planning process involving a state agency and local communities developed common purpose and collaborative relationships, two requisites of comanagement. Eight process characteristics fostered social learning: open communication, diverse participation, unrestrained thinking, constructive conflict, democratic structure, multiple sources of knowledge, extended engagement, and facilitation. Social learning is necessary but not sufficient for collaborative management. Other requisites for comanagement, including capacity, appropriate processes, appropriate structures, and supportive policies, are necessary to sustain joint action.

Immigrant environmental behaviors in New York City

Objective. This article compares environmental behaviors of immigrants and the native-born to answer questions about potential impacts of immigration on the U.S. environment. Methods. We consider immigrant/native-born differences in the likelihood of engaging in environmentally friendly behavior. With data from a survey of New York City residents, we test two hypotheses regarding environmental behavior: (1) controlling for environmental orientation, environmental knowledge, acculturation, community attachment, and economic status will reduce immigrant/native-born differences, and (2) controlling for race will increase immigrant/native-born differences. Results. Our analysis provided no support for the second hypothesis, but there were varied results for the first hypothesis depending on the type of environmental behavior considered. Conclusions. Our findings for New York City show that fears of immigrants being less likely to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors are unfounded. Of greater significance to environmental organizations is the lower level of immigrant involvement in environmentally oriented political behaviors, suggesting that continued immigration will present challenges both in making the environmental movement more ethnically diverse and in maintaining its vitality.

Organizing Citizen Engagement for Democratic Environmental Planning

In recent years civic engagement emphasizing community involvement and collective learning has become a centerpiece of environmental management. This article explores civic participation in water resources management and whether a framework developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) fosters democratic environmental planning. We provide an overview of citizen involvement in water resource management, discuss the U.S. EPA framework, and highlight key issues with two case studies. It is widely acknowledged that lack of meaningful stakeholder and other public input in the planning process may lead to barriers to successful environmental management. Our case studies indicate that the U.S. EPA framework, while not new or especially innovative, represents a necessary commitment to civic engagement and provides a structure for organizing it. Findings from our study emphasize the importance of financial resources and strong commitment to the principle of civic engagement in order to increase and sustain the democratic underpinnings of environmental planning.

Process, Not Product: Investigating Recommendations for Improving Citizen Science “Success”

Citizen science programs are increasingly popular for a variety of reasons, from public education to new opportunities for data collection. The literature published in scientific journals resulting from these projects represents a particular perspective on the process. These articles often conclude with recommendations for increasing “success”. This study compared these recommendations to those elicited during interviews with program coordinators for programs within the United States. From this comparison, success cannot be unilaterally defined and therefore recommendations vary by perspective on success. Program coordinators tended to have more locally-tailored recommendations specific to particular aspects of their program mission.

Assessing Water Quality Using Two Taxonomic Levels of Benthic Macroinvertebrate Analysis: Implications for Volunteer Monitors

ABSTRACT With regard to the identification of benthic macroinvertebrates, we evaluated the extent to which family-based information gathered by non-scientist volunteers compared to genus-level analysis by scientists. Volunteer monitors were trained in the techniques of family-level benthic macroinvertebrate analysis by scientists. The volunteers then sampled a local third order stream, identified specimens to the family level, and calculated metrics that led to a water quality rating based on the family-level data. The scientists examined all of the samples, identified the specimens to the genus-level, and re-calculated the metrics and the resultant water quality rating. Metrics of water quality based on family-level analysis did not always correlate well with those based on genus-level analysis. However, ratings of overall water quality were either identical or differed little between the family and genus levels of analyses.

The Labor Process and Corporate Agriculture: Mexican Workers in California

cans have been employed in California since that time (Samora, 1971:18). The existence of a large reserve of available Mexican workers is a varied and complex issue. Mexico’s economy is one of the most rapidly expanding economies in Latin America. Rapid economic expansion after the revolution has broken the semi-feudalistic bondage of the Mexican peasantry, resulting in migration to urban industrial centers in Mexico and across the U.S. border. While the existence and reproduction of ’a large surplus population in Mexico is an important issue, it will not be the focus of this discussion. Rather, this study will be a consideration of the harvest work force in California fruit and vegetable production. California is the leading agricultural state in the U.S. in terms of farm sales and the largest employer of farm labor as a state. Fruit and vegetable production is highly labor-intensive and employs as much as three-fourths of all seasonal farm workers in California. Additionally, California in 1974 produced over forty per cent of the quantity of fruits and vegetables produced in the entire U.S. Agricultural production in California is characterized by highly specialized crop production. In the words of Lloyd Fisher (1953:1) &dquo;... the dominant feature of California agriculture is the extraordinary diversity of the crops it produces, and the specialization of individual farms within the pattern of diversity.&dquo; Harvest operations in a geographical area characterized by specialized crop production as well as by a number of crops ripening at similar times call for the employment of an extremely large work force for very short periods of time. California growers have maintained such a harvest work force for almost a century by exploiting farm workers having a variety of national origins. These nationalities have included Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Mexican and others (McWilliams, 1971). Since World War 11 Mexican workers undoubtedly have been the most important foreign element t~f the harvest work force in California crop production. The focus of this discussion will be on the relationship between the labor process In crop production and Mexican workers employed in such production. The characteristics of the labor process in crop production place constraints on the forms of control growers must exert over workers for profitable completion of the harvest. In terms of the labor process, controls commonly exercised by capltalists in industries other than agriculture are not suited to crop production. The inappropriateness of otherwise common forms of control over workers is due to the peculiarities of crop production. Thus, growers have been offered more directly political forms of control over workers. These political forms of control have been exercised by the U.S. government. The actualization of these controls has changed over the past several decades. In this discussion an argument will be made that white the particular manifestations of these political forms of control may have changed, labor requirements in crop production have remained stable. The varying manifestations of directly political forms of control over workers merely reflect, given the prevailing political clirr~ates, different strategies on the part of the U.S. govern ment to insure the existence of a work force having characteristics consistent with the labor requirements of crop production.

Sustainable agriculture in historical perspective

This paper is an evaluation of the sociological significance of the development and adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. The concept of “appropriationism” is introduced as a means of determining whether or not sustainable agriculture is an expression of class antagonisms in U. S. agriculture. “Appropriationism” is the process by which corporate agribusiness replaces natural processes with industrial products. A comparison of responses to farm crisis in the late 19th century and in the 1980s is employed as a heuristic device to determine the contemporary sociological significance of sustainable agriculture. Based on past experience and changes in key institutions over the past century, it is concluded that the development of sustainable agricultural practices will not significantly challenge the economic prerogatives of agribusiness and that the long-term process of the industrial appropriation of natural processes in agriculture will continue into the 21st century.

Environmental globalization, organizational form, and expected benefits from protected areas in Central America

Environmental globalization has led to the implementation of conservation efforts like the creation of protected areas that often promote the interests of core countries in poorer regions. The creation of protected areas in poor areas frequently creates tensions between human needs like food and shelter and environmental conservation. Support for such conservation efforts partially depends on expectations of benefits by those impacted. This article considers the effects of different organizational models on local expectations of benefits to be derived from protected areas. Our analysis indicates that individuals are more likely to expect that benefits of the park go to other communities or the nation as a whole than to expect direct benefits for themselves. Forms of park organization also impact these expectations. Individuals exposed to the zoned park, as opposed to a conventional, strictly protected park, were more likely to expect benefits from the park regardless of the beneficiary considered. In addition, for those exposed to the zoned park, location of residence is related to expectation that individuals will benefit themselves. However, our interviews with park residents also indicate that the expectations of individual benefits are rarely met, creating potential dissatisfaction and sometimes animosity toward the park administration.

Values and policy conflict in West German agriculture

Family farming became a major social force in the Federal Republic following World War II. Several political, economic and social factors facilitated the development of a unified political representation within the farm sector. The German Farmers Union (Deutscher Bauernverband) became the main representative of the farm sector. Its platform included the preservation of family farms and it attempted to realize this goal through the promotion of commodity price support policies. Political support for these programs was legitimized with the elaboration of a system of values espousing the positive qualities of family farms. Price support policies were opposed by free market advocates with an alternative system of values that fundamentally contradicted those of family farm advocates. Although commodity price supports promoted by partisans of family farming dominated agricultural policy formation in the 1950s and 1960s, fiscal crisis in the EEC and economic differentation within the farm sector began to undermine the position of family farming as a social force. But economic stagnation also prevented the free market position from gaining dominance. Economic differentiation within the farm sector has had an important regional dimension, and this has served as a basis for policy compromise. Economic changes over the post-WWII period have undermined the family farm as a social force. Nevertheless, values associated with family farming continue to have a place in agricultural policy. However, family farming is valued less as an end in itself, and more as a means to the realization of more practical ends such as the preservation of rural landscapes for recreational purposes.

Low-Wage Employment and Ghetto Poverty: A Comparison of African- American and Cambodian Day-Haul Farm Workers in Philadelphia*

For decades inner-city residents of Philadelphia participated in seasonal farm work in nearby rural areas of New Jersey. In the 1980s newly arrived Cambodian refugees became the dominant group, replacing African Americans in this workforce. Review of theories that address the relationship between ghetto poverty and labor markets raises key questions about the observed labor market transformation: I) Were African-American day-haul workers systematically replaced with workers from other racial or ethnic groups due to discriminatory hiring practices by employers? 2) Was the transformation of the day-haul farm workforce simply a reflection of the growth of better employment opportunities for African Americans? 3) Were African Americans unwilling to accept this type of low-wage employment? This research answers these questions. Little secondary data on this labor market are available, so a variety of sources are used to reconstruct this transformation. Data include those from participant observation field work, a community survey, and numerous interviews with informants. Census and other data are used to corroborate results based on original fieldwork. Analysis of these data indicates that the labor market transformation in question is the result of a complex set of factors, especially changes in family structure and the labor process, that combine to limit farm work opportunities. These findings provide negative answers to each of the key questions posed. The evidence does not support the conclusion that African Americans were systematically replaced due to the discriminatory hiring practices of employers. Many African Americans had left farm work before the influx of Cambodian refugees, and while there was recent evidence of employer discrimination, it was against Cambodians, not African Americans. Also, African American participation in farm work bore no relationship to the unemployment rate, indicating that African Americans did not leave farm work for more desirable employment. Finally, the findings indicate that the inelasticity of African-American participation in farm work was not the result of an unwillingness to accept low-wage employment, but was due to 1) a decline in the population of recent migrants with weak labor force attachments, and 2) a lack of access to social networks that link potential farm workers to crew leaders. This study demonstrates the importance of “social buffers” in linking the ghetto poor with low-wage employment opportunities. In the case of Philadelphia day-haul farm work, incentives to crew leaders to integrate the ghetto poor into the farm labor market have steadily declined for more than a decade. This study points to the need for more research on the role of social buffers in providing the ghetto poor with access to employment.