Restoring the Rustbelt: Social Science to Support Calumet’s Ecological and Economic Revitalization
Project 3: Special places of Calumet
People are often very attached to certain places – places where they can get away, where they can experience beauty, solitude and nature. Imagine such a place, a special place for you.
What is it like? How would you feel if your special place was in an area where plans were being made for major changes.
Herb Schroeder, an environmental psychologist with the USDA Forest Service, has devel- oped a research method to uncover what is important about people’s special places and trans- late this into useful information for natural resource planners and decision makers. Most of his work has been conducted in the North Woods of Wisconsin and Michigan. These are the kinds of places where we expect people to have attachments to special places – places where free-flowing water, natural forests and wildlife abound. The same research process was followed in the Calumet area, and people’s responses indicate that these same attachments are alive and well in the midst of one of the largest industrial areas in the world.
In a written survey, people were asked to describe, in their own words, what makes their special place special. The answers were analysed for common themes and interesting differ- ences. The Calumet area has many diverse landscapes, with natural areas next door to indus- trial areas. These natural places provide many of the same important experiences as do wilder, more remote settings. Looking across all of the survey responses, from the pristine North Woods to the Calumet region, the findings suggest that solitude, beauty and refuge are important in all of these settings. For example, compare two descriptions of special places:
A river with a unique eddy creating a hole for brook trout. A mile walk through wet cedar swamp and tag alder. Occasional sightings of raccoon, bear, deer, heron and hawks. . . . No easy spot to find, but is visited four times per trout season on the average. A spot discovered alone but since have found others know of it and have fished it. Have encountered only one other party there in 8 years. Complete privacy, solitude is relaxing.
Although I passed by frequently, I never noticed a big swamp through the trees and down the hill until a friend showed me an obscure path down to it. Now, throughout the year, I sit immobile on a fallen tree and watch deer, muskrats and beavers. . . . I never encounter another soul there, yet friends tell me they have visited. The people who go there treat the site with awe and respect. . . . It’s a tiny, private undiscovered place where I can go all by myself to chill out and get reconnected to that which is important in my life.
The first place is in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the second is in Calumet. What does this mean for managers and decision makers interested in improving Calumet’s natural areas?
Many of these sites will be moving into public ownership, and may be developed for more access. Maps, tours and new trails will introduce these hidden places to more and more people. It is important to take the experiences these places currently provide into account when making changes, to ensure that the opportunity for solitude, refuge, beauty and other experiences is not lost in the rush for improvement.
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the ‘power’ of science and how this power has developed and grown, particularly in natural resource management. Provide an explanation as to why this has occurred.
2. Why have so many natural resource issues become so difficult to solve? Are these issues primarily a manifestation of a lack of scientific understanding, management confusion or the lack of a clear political direction?
3. Differentiate between nature’s ‘goods’ and ‘services.’ Using a local setting, identify some of the goods and services present at that location.
4. Select a natural resource issue not discussed in the chapter, and describe how the various social sciences might contribute to a better understanding of this issue.
5. Peruse your local newspaper and identify a natural resource issue. Discuss the ways in which various social science applications and disciplines, as presented in this chapter, can help further our understanding regarding that issue.
Case Study Discussion Questions
6. Compare and contrast the kinds of information from the Calumet studies. What kinds of project planning and implementation questions can this information help to answer? How do you think managers can apply the information from these research projects?
7. Imagine yourself as an industrialist in Calumet. What social science research information do you need to be an effective part of this initiative? (Check: are you assuming all industrialists are anti-environment?)
8. Imagine yourself as an environmentalist. What social science research do you need to be an effective part of this initiative? (Check: are you assuming all environmentalists are anti-industry?)
9. Social science research is important in its own right, but must also be integrated with biological and physical science in initiatives such as at Calumet. How are these social science research projects integrated with biological and physical science information?
10. Not everyone shares the common belief in the USA that economic and environmental issues can be balanced successfully. What do you think? What do you think those who disagreebase their opinion on? What can social science contribute to this debate?
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Power and Decision Making