Bradley B. Walters

Mount Allison University · Department of Geography and Environment

Interdisciplinary research on people, plants, and environmental change (IRPPE) typically requires collaboration among experts who each bring distinct knowledge and skills to bear on the questions at hand. The benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary research in principle are thus confounded by the dynamics of multidisciplinary collaboration in...

Context Theorizing complex phenomena like human–environment relationships is difficult and often of dubious explanatory value. If our goal is to understand causal interactions between people and the land and to explain environmental changes in the landscape, the more pressing need is for better causal–analytic methodology, not for more or better th...

Many philosophers and scientists now view the discovery of causal mechanisms as central to research and explanation. In this paper, we consider the relevance of this mechanistic approach to human ecology. The consensus is that mechanisms are relatively stable and recurring causal structures underlying the phenomena we are trying to understand or ex...

Saint Lucia’s rural landscape is more forested today than at any time in at least seventy-five years (probably much longer). This change is profoundly significant given widespread efforts to achieve sustainable development on small-island states like Saint Lucia. Yet, this seemingly ‘good news’ story runs contrary to most conventional narratives ab...

Saint Lucia’s rural landscape is more forested today than at any time in at least seventy-five years (probably much longer). This change is profoundly significant given widespread efforts to achieve sustainable development on small-island states like Saint Lucia. Yet, this seemingly good-news story runs contrary to most conventional narratives abou...

Event ecology is a research methodology put forward to counter the privileging of some types of factors or causes over others in such fields as political ecology. In contrast to approaches in these fields, event ecology seeks to explain environmental changes or events, both singular and recurrent, by first considering multiple possible social and/o...

Event ecology is a research methodology put forward to counter the privileging of some types of factors or causes over others in such fields as political ecology. In contrast to approaches in these fields, event ecology seeks to explain environmental changes or events, both singular and recurrent, by first considering multiple possible social and/o...

Research on human-environment interactions is bedeviled by two key analytical challenges: integrating natural and social science information and demonstrating causal connections between proximate and distant influences. These challenges can be met by adopting an event-focused, causal-historical approach to research methodology, referred to here as...

Islands of the West Indies are among the most historically impacted by agriculture, yet agricultural influences on forests there have been little studied. This research compared tree species richness and vegetation structure between farmed lands, post-agriculture secondary forests and mature remnant forests in two watersheds in Saint Lucia, and sou...

Property rights are a central topic in conservation debates, but their influence on environmental outcomes is rarely carefully assessed. This study compared land use, tree planting practices and arboreal vegetation on government, estate private, smallholder private and communal “family” lands in Saint Lucia. The influence of tenure was apparent, bu...

Abductive causal eventism (ACE) is an analytical methodology based on a pragmatic view of research methods and explanation that places at the center of research inquiry the answering of “why” questions about events, including human actions or environmental changes of interest. When used in human-environment research, the methodology entails constru...

Why should we engage in causal explanation and do research guided by causal explanation as a goal? And how should we do these things? These are questions we had in our minds in compiling this reader. In this introductory essay, the answers given in the chapters to follow are previewed under the following headings: A Pragmatic View of Causal Explana...

All social scientists, despite their differences on many issues, ask causal questions about the world. This anthology sets forth strategy and methods to answer those questions. The selected readings, all illuminating causal explanation for social scientists, are not only by anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and human ecologists but also by...

Background/Question/Methods This paper will describe "event ecology", a novel research methodology for studying the interactions between people and the environment. In contrast to some other human-environment research programs which are guided in their analysis by the application of regression modeling or broad theoretical frameworks, event ecolog...

Research on human-environment interactions is especially challenging given its interdisciplinary character and its need to address complexly interacting causes in time and space. “Event ecology" has been suggested and illustrated as an approach which can effectively address these challenges. Yet, previous writings on event ecology offer only a limi...

This paper reviews concepts and theories of 'environment and security' and examines their relevance in understanding human–mangrove interactions. Scientists and decision-makers are increasingly interested in the relationship between environmental change and human security. Research on human–mangrove interactions suggests that mangrove forests illus...

There is growing research interest in the ethnobiology, socio-economics and management of mangrove forests. Coastal residents who use mangroves and their resources may have considerable botanical and ecological knowledgeable about these forests. A wide variety of forest products are harvested in mangroves, especially wood for fuel and construction,...

Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and Its Transformations: Critical Anthropological Perspectives. Roy Ellen. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000. 356 pp.

Coastal fishing communities are frequently portrayed as bastions of tradition at odds with the modernizing forces of technological change and industrial capitalism. This article examines this debate in the context of intensive aquaculture introduced into regions formerly dependent on the wild fishery, specifically with respect to the explosive grow...

Over the next century society will be facing significant increases in temperature and sealevel, which pose a growing threat to low-lying coastal communities. To protect these communities, adaptation strategies are needed that will be sustainable not only in the immediate future, but throughout the next century and beyond. Recent events like the tsu...

Expansion of planted forests and intensification of their management has raised concerns among forest managers and the public over the implications of these trends for sustainable production and conservation of forest biological diversity. We review the current state of knowledge on the impacts of plantation forestry on genetic and species diversit...

Barriers to successful adoption of novel silvicultural practices are rarely just technical in nature. Simply put, why do some forest users practice better silviculture than others? Diverse perspectives in the social sciences have been brought to bear on this question, but most efforts suffer from theoretical or methodological biases which undermine...

Small-scale wood harvesting is one of the most ubiquitous forms of resource-use in the tropics, yet ecologists have barely studied it. This paper examines the effects of small-scale woodcutting on forest structure, composition and regeneration of mangrove forests in the Philippines. Information for the study was obtained through the application of...

Small-scale wood harvesting from mangrove forests is a commonplace yet barely studied phenomenon. This paper integrates bio-ecological and ethnographic methods to examine local wood use and cutting of mangrove forests in two areas of the Philippines. Findings reveal considerable site variation in cutting intensity, with heavier cutting typically cl...

Small-scale wood harvesting from mangrove forests is a commonplace yet barely studied phenomenon. This paper integrates bio-ecological and ethnographic methods to examine local wood use and cutting of mangrove forests in two areas of the Philippines. Findings reveal considerable site variation in cutting intensity, with heavier cutting typically cl...

Anthropological claims about indigenous or local knowledge often exaggerate the cultural mystique of such knowledge "systems" and the difficulties associated with rendering local knowledge accessible to outsiders and with ascertaining its utility for initiatives in economic development and environmental conservation. We argue that part of this conf...

Recent environmental narratives suggest that local people are effective stewards of forest resources. Local restoration and management of mangrove forests, in particular, are now widely advocated as a solution to achieve both economic and environmental conservation goals. This paper presents findings from a study of 2 coastal sites in the Philippin...

Historical research has enhanced understanding of past human influences on forests and provides insights that can improve current conservation efforts. This paper presents one of the first detailed studies of mangrove forest history. Historical changes in mangroves and their use were examined in Bais Bay and Banacon Island, Philippines. Cutting to...

Local fisherfolk and fishpond owners have been practicing “restoration” of mangrove forests in some parts of the Philippines for decades, well before governments and non-government organizations began to promote the activity as a conservation tool. This paper examines ecological characteristics of these mangrove plantations and compares them to nat...

Starting with a priori judgments, theories, or biases about the importance or even primacy of certain kinds of political factors in the explanation of environmental changes, self-styled political ecologists have focused their research on environmental or natural resource politics and have missed or scanted the complex and contingent interactions of...

Past explanations of why rural people respond as they do to external development interventions have emphasized the role of key limiting factors or critical characteristics (wealth, education, land tenure, etc.) which are thought to influence peoples' behavior in predictable ways. Efforts to promote tree planting and soil conservation in eight neigh...

"This paper summarizes research on two coastal sites in the Central Visayas region of the Philippines that are widely recognized and show-cased as success stories in community-based mangrove reforestation and management. Investigations of 12 different coastal villages in these two sites revealed considerable within and between village variation, bo...

There has been relatively little social science input into the study and practice of ecological restoration. This shortcoming is examined with particular reference to restoration work in the Philippines involving the planting of native upland forest and coastal mangrove trees in a densely populated and highly degraded, coastal watershed. Experience...

We measured pollinator visits of Impatiens capensis flowers found in different-sized patches beneath canopy gaps and beneath closed canopy in a mature, old-growth deciduous forest in New Jersey. Honeybees, bumblebees and halictid bees made up the majority of visitors. Visitation rates per flower increased slightly, but not significantly, in relatio...