http://anso.williams.edu/profile/nbv2/
On Friday April 24, Natalie Bump Vena ‘04, Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Williams, came to Log Lunch to speak about her research on preservation in Cook County, Illinois. After graduating from Williams, Vena attained an M.Phil. in Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 2005 and is currently a J.D./Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University’s School of Law and Department of Anthropology. This year she taught “Governing Nature” and next year will teach “Environmental Justice.”
In her talk, Vena presented her research on “Preservation’s Loss in the Cook County Forest Preserves” for her Northwestern dissertation. She explained that interested parties have worked to preserve land in Cook County for the last 100 years, and today there is 69 acres of protected land, 11 percent of the county. Most of this land is in the suburbs but some is in the city. Though the land was naturally prairie, the founders planted many trees, creating the “forest preserve district.” The trees were not a natural part of the landscape, but a valued aspect of nature to the early 20th century urban progressives.
Though her research, Vena wanted to discover what different groups think of preservation today, noting that there are some “fundamental and existential problems with preservation.” In Cook County, there is a contentious dispute between those who want to retain the 100-year-old park as introduced forest and those who want to restore it to its previous prairie state. In the early 2000s, anti-restorationists were mobilized on Chicago’s northwest side. Today, while a volunteer prairie restoration movement is active, this is much uncertainty about the efficacy of the efforts related to the group’s authority and expertise.
Vcna noted that this Cook County dispute illustrates the politics of preservation. With the Illinois “Forest Preserve District” as a case study, Vena’s talk and her research illuminated an oft-overlooked reality in environmental pursuits. Parties can be united around environmental values, but they may hold different notions for what the ideal environmental goal is and the means to achieve it.
By Sara Clark ‘15
For more information on Vena and her work, please visit http://ces.williams.edu/profile/nbv2/.
