Conservation Geography of the Golden-

cheeked Warbler in Austin, Texas—A

Community-Based Solution?
• Landscape
Ecology
• Population
Ecology
• Cultural Ecology
• Political Ecology
Rob Fergus
19 August 2004
Hornsby Bend Bird
Observatory
“Environmental problems
are fundamentally based on
how human society is
organized. Accordingly,
social change is required for
their resolution”

--Robert Brulle
Agency, Democracy, and Nature
The U.S. Environmental
Movement from a Critical
Theory Perspective
(MIT Press: 2000)
Dudley Duncan (1961)

POET Model of
Environmental Change

• Population

• Form of Social
Organization
• Natural Environment

• Technologies
Paul Ehrlich and John
Holdren (1971)

IPAT Model of
Environmental Change

• Impacts on Environment
due to

• Population

• Affluence

• Technologies
 Origins of Environmental
Degradation
Effects on natural
Social
Origins environment or
social institutions,
proximate causes Responses to
cultural beliefs, biodiversity loss, global ecological
individual climate change, air
personality pollution, water pollution,
degradation
characteristics soil/land pollution and feedback through
degradation) human actions:
Driving
• Government action
Forces Effects on human
society • Market changes
population levels,
technology living space restriction, • Social movements
practice, waste repository overflow, • Migration
affluence levels supply depot depletion
or consumption such as loss of • Conflict
of natural ecosystem services and
resources exhaustion of natural
resources
 Balcones Canyonlands
Preserve Warbler
• Golden-cheeked
• Black-capped Vireo
• Six additional invertebrate species
• 30,428 acres
required by the
1996 BCCP
permit.
• 27,547 acres
acquired as of
July 2004.
• 13,034 acres
managed by City
of Austin.
Austin
Urban
Growth
1983-
2000
What social institutions, cultural beliefs, individual
personality characteristics are driving sprawl and
habitat loss in Austin?
 Population Growth and
Sprawl

187.4 square miles consumed by the Austin urban area 1970-90.

65.1% attributable to increased population.
Source: NumbersUSA (2001)
Percent White
Population
BCP in highest
income area of
Greater Austin.
social cultural beliefs individual
institutions • Value home personality
• Homebuilders ownership characteristics
• Employers • Education • Anglo Immigrant
important —lack familiarity
• Civic with environment
governments • Consumerism
• University
• School districts • Status educated
• Soccer leagues • Technological
• Electronic training
media • Upper middle class
professionals
100 Acre plots
Surveyed 10
times mid-March
to mid-May
All sightings
mapped
25
20
BC
15
EL
10 IV
5 SE
0 FR
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 BH

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

BC 5 9 7 5 5 5.5
EL 8 9.5 16.5 18.5 20 16.5
IV 10 16.5 13 8 15.5 21.5
SE 9 18.5 12 6 12.5 12.5
FR 10 20 10.5 11 13 12.5
BH 4 16.5 3 6 5.5 6.5
Total 46 90 62 54.5 71.5 75
Unknowns
• Survivorship
• Productivity
• Dispersal of
Fledglings
• Movements of
nonbreeders
• Urban impacts
•Territory selection
• Landscape effects
Budget and
Staffing Issues
2002
$701,724
2003
$540,088
 Communicative Action
Social agreement based on truth, normative rightness, and
sincerity.

Validity Outcome of Social task Symbolic

claim of communicative performed component of
speech action social order

• Truth • Valid • Cultural • Culture

Knowledge Reproduction

• Normative •Legitimate • Social •Society

Adequacy Relationships Integration

• Sincerity •Responsible • Socialization • Person

Personality of responsible
adult

(adapted from Habermas 1987:142)

 BCP
Coordinating Committee
Organizatio
Austin City Council
• City of Austin Mayor n
• County Commissioner City Manager
• USFWS Representative
Deputy City Manager
• Appointed Secretary
Director Water Utility

Citizen’s Scientific
Land Management Division Head
Advisory Advisory
Committee Committee
BCP Preserve Manager Land
Managers
Staff Meeting
Break down of
communications lead to:
•Environmental
degradation of
society
•Lack of
environmental ethics
in society
•High levels of
consumption and
inability of individuals
to engage in joint
action
Outcomes of BCCP Management
Process
• Bureaucratic
organizations break
down communicative
action
• Contradictions in
popular consumer
culture obscure
realities of ecology
• Market and
bureaucratic
rationality replaces
environmental ethics
• Careerism obscures
ability to work
together