Grantee Research Project Results

A Thousand Pieces of Paradise: Nature, Property, and Community in the Kickapoo Valley

EPA Grant Number: U915403
Title: A Thousand Pieces of Paradise: Nature, Property, and Community in the Kickapoo Valley
Investigators: Heasley, Lynne
Institution: University of Wisconsin - Madison
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: September 1, 1998 through September 1, 2001
Project Amount: $51,298
RFA: STAR Graduate Fellowships (1998) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Fellowship - Forestry , Biology/Life Sciences , Ecological Indicators/Assessment/Restoration , Academic Fellowships , Tribal Environmental Health Research

Objective:

The objective of this research project is to trace the environmental history of one valley in the rural Midwest. I focus on spatial and historical relationships among land tenure, land use, and the landscape of the Kickapoo Valley. Simultaneously, I contrast these visible relationships to society's less visible relationships, while shifting ideas about property and nature. The research involves history, ecology, and geography, all of which are crucial for answering the following central questions:

1. How have ideas about property and nature been articulated in real-life relationships among people in the Kickapoo Valley?

2. How have they taken shape on the landscape?

3. Can we measure the environmental consequences of our land tenure arrangements?

4. Has society placed property against nature, when both are intrinsic to our everyday lives?

Approach:

I integrate the approaches of environmental history and landscape ecology. To gain the spatially explicit, quantitative insights typical of landscape ecology, I developed a geographic information system (GIS), which documents land tenure and the landscape of three townships at six times, dating back to the 1930s. This research project is part of a larger body of work emerging from archival research and interviews with Kickapoo Valley residents, as well as maps from the GIS.

Supplemental Keywords:

fellowship, agriculture, ecology, environmental history, forests, geography, geographic information system, GIS, land tenure, landscape, Midwest, nature, property, rural., RFA, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Scientific Discipline, Geographic Area, Ecological Indicators, Environmental History, State, Ecosystem Protection, Forestry, Ecology, Urban and Regional Planning, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, exploratory research environmental biology, Midwest, Social Science, Ecological Effects - Environmental Exposure & Risk, Ecological Effects - Human Health, Chemical Mixtures - Environmental Exposure & Risk, Ecology and Ecosystems, rural transformation, cultural landscapes, landscape ecology, landscape patterns, forest tenure, land use, Wisconsin (WI), culture and ecology, land tenure

Progress and Final Reports:

The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.