Eating some invasive species could help to mitigate the impacts of climate change-related invasions, and may increase future food security

Climate change is predicted to increase the spread and abundance of invasive species and to erode global food security. I hypothesized that by incorporating edible invasive species into local food sheds, these two problems could help to mitigate each other. I set out to answer two questions: could eating invasive species reduce their spread and abundance? And could eating invasive species minimize the impacts of climate-change related food shocks? To answer these questions, I surveyed the existing literature on human consumption of invasive species, created a list of criteria that make an invasive species suitable for management through human consumption, and identified what components of global food security could be strengthened by edible invasive species. I found that some invasive species populations could be reduced by human consumption, but that careful management would be required to ensure eating invasive species did not create perverse market incentives that facilitated further invasions. I found that invasive species might offer possible interventions to increase food quantity, promote food access, increase food safety, and contribute to environmental stability, four important components of food security. However, no studies exist specifically on the topic of invasive species and food security, and much further research is required to substantiate my hypotheses. In order to ground my research in practical applications and communicate my results to a wide audience, in addition to written results, I created two recipes using edible invasive species in Iceland, informed by my research on invasive species population biology and climate change-related food insecurity

Groundwork for Developing a Land Justice Popular Education Curriculum in Maine

Land injustice is the inequitable distribution of land and land related wealth. The history of land injustice in Maine is extensive and has taken the form of land privatization, land theft from Wabankaki tribes, the evictions of Malaga island’s mixed race population, and exclusion of migrant workers from land ownership. Land justice is a proposed framework for addressing inequities in land ownership that are rooted in class and race. Land in Common is a community land trust that aims to transform the relationship between people and land, by seeking a world in which land is cared for in the common and out of the private market. Land in Common intends to develop a popular education curriculum, as one of many strategies, for addressing land injustice in Maine. Popular education is the form of education that encourages learners to critically examine their own lives and enables collective action to change social and political conditions. Land in Common plans to convene a diverse group of individuals from frontline communities fighting against land injustice in Maine to collaboratively create a popular education curriculum focusing on land justice. Our project supports Land in Common’s work to create this program by exploring the many models of popular education that could be used to promote land justice organizing in Maine. We interviewed representatives from six US-based organizations leading popular education programs on topics related to land justice, in order to better understand the range of approaches and strategies for rolling out and running a popular education program. We identified and compiled free online popular education curricula that could be used or adapted by Land in Common, and created a Wordpress website to house these materials. We then synthesized the findings of our research and interviews to determine what the most important themes of popular education are. The themes we identified were that popular education programs need to be listening based, democratic, action oriented, meeting the needs or oppressed people, and creating transformative social and political change. We then summarized our findings on the logistics of organizing a popular education curriculum, including finding an audience, funding the education, leading and facilitating learning, and training facilitators. We discussed some major challenges organizations doing popular education face, and summarize the methods organizations use for evaluating the success of a curriculum. To conclude, we have developed a list of recommendations based on some of the logistical themes of creating and running a popular education program. We have included recommendations based on the following themes: starting a program, audience, funding, governing, training and measuring success

This Land is My Land: racism and antiracism in farmland succession in Auburn, Maine

White people own 99% of all farmland in Maine. While white farmland owners are aging out of farming, which puts this land at risk of development, a new generation of farmers of color is currently seeking farmland. However, institutional racism poses significant barriers to entrant farmers. Additionally, research suggests that farmland succession also relies on informal social networks that actively exclude people of color, although little scholarship has focused exclusively on this topic. In this thesis, I conduct a case study with farmland owners and service providers to better understand how the social networks of farmland owners impact the ability of farmers of color to access farmland in Auburn, Maine. I find that farmland owners and their neighbors create significant barriers to farmland access for farmers of color. Farmland owners interact with the racist distribution of farmland by hesitating or refusing to sell to farmers of color, selling to the highest bidder in a racist economic structure, willing farmland to white family members, and opposing reparations. I also study the rhetoric of farming owners, finding that participants employ rhetorical tropes that disguise racism, blame racism on people of color, and attempt to define racism in nonracial terms. I also find several examples of farmland owners practicing antiracism. I suggest that future antiracist work to address racism within farmland owner social networks should focus on implementing antiracist national farming policy, educating landowners, creating a Farmer of Color Farmland Succession Program, and exploring models of land access beyond capitalist structures of ownership