2015 Conference

Full Presentation Panel

Addressing Wicked Problems: When Boundaries Don’t Exist and Change Happens

Jillian Girard

Addressing climate change, managing toxics, “all lands” forest management, and assessing the role of genetic engineering in agriculture can all be characterized as “wicked problems” due to their social and ecological complexity.  These issues share a number of attributes – they cross ecological boundaries, require the engagement of multiple actors and sectors, and cannot be resolved through a single technological or policy fix.  Scientific uncertainty and colliding value systems color the debate in each case – while much is known, ranges of probability can be mistaken for lack of data, and what may be “true” may be seen as different from what is “right”. 

While complexity and evolving knowledge are the hallmark of these challenges, traditional policy and governance structures have rarely been designed to encompass these attributes.  Policies and management frameworks are usually media specific (focusing on air, water, or land) and are rarely designed to allow the many different agencies and actors that touch on an issue to work together in a coordinated manner. Budgets and performance measurement systems are based on specific organizational goals and objectives, not recognizing that to address such complex issues will require that multiple actors find alignment between their goals and work together in complementary ways.  The evolving nature of our understanding of such issues makes an adaptive approach essential; however, policies and programs are rarely designed with feedback loops or with the “permission” to adapt as we learn more about what works and what doesn’t.

This presentation will explore this context for two complex issues – toxics management and approaches to managing genetically engineered crops – and will examine approaches that seek to acknowledge and embrace the complex social and environmental dynamics of these topics.  What is the evolving role of national vs. state or local policy in these arenas?  How do regulatory and mandatory approaches interface with voluntary initiatives? What role do markets play in shaping the management and policy dynamics in each case? What strategies can be used to find areas of alignment among multiple actors? Are there themes or lessons to be learned that can inform approaches to other “wicked problems”?

Trends of Mercury Exposure in the Peruvian Amazon: A systematic review of mercury concentration studies of humans and the environment

David J.X. Gonzalez

Decades of artisanal small-scale gold mining activity in the Amazonian region of Madre de Dios, Peru has resulted in significant mercury contamination of air, water, soils and biota.  To understand trends of mercury concentration resulting from releases of mercury in Madre de Dios in the environment, wildlife, and human populations, we collected and reviewed all the empirical studies reporting empirical measurements of mercury concentrations in a range of abiotic and biotic media in Madre de Dios.  Included in our review were: studies published in the international and Peruvian peer reviewed scientific literature, student thesis and dissertations, primary research reported in published and unpublished government reports, and in poorly circulated Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) project reports.  Studies were collected through extensive searches of online literature and dissertation databases, interviews with mercury researchers, archives of government and NGO project logs, and consultations with current and former funders and government administrators.  

Trends of mercury concentrations are reported in four generalized categories to facilitate comparison among relevant studies: mercury concentrations in humans, concentrations in fish, concentrations in other wildlife, and ambient (abiotic) mercury concentrations. The existing body of mercury research in Madre de Dios indicates that mercury exposure is widespread throughout the region and has been increasing over time. Serious gaps in knowledge regarding mercury concentrations and effects in wildlife and human populations are shown and discussed. This study represent a synthesis of every published mercury study in the Southern Peruvian Amazon to date, and reveals a twenty year temporal record of mercury contamination in a major  Amazonian watershed.  

Reducing water pollution from herbicides through sustainable agriculture: An examination of agricultural practices and farmer learning

Joanna Ory

Atrazine is the second most commonly used herbicide in the US, with an annual use rate of 73-78 million pounds (Grube et al., 2011). It is also a known endocrine disruptor that causes the feminization in many wildlife species (Rohr and McCoy, 2011). The US EPA’s Atrazine Monitoring Program shows that levels have exceeded the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) set by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 3 µg/L in drinking water for 58% of systems sampled in their monitoring program (EPA, 2011). The EPA states that prolonged exposure to atrazine in exceedance of the MCL can lead to cardiovascular and reproductive problems in humans. The discovery of drinking water contamination from atrazine and other herbicides has prompted regulatory responses in different countries with the aim of controlling pesticide pollution. Italy and Germany were the first countries to ban atrazine in 1991. In the US, Wisconsin is the state with the strictest atrazine restrictions. Environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) have called for a total atrazine ban throughout the US (Wu et al., 2009). This paper is a case study of both the Wisconsin atrazine restrictions and the atrazine ban in Italy. This multidisciplinary paper documents the history of the policies and their environmental consequences with a focus on the environmental sustainability of atrazine alternatives. Survey data and interviews from 2012 are used to describe the agricultural decisions made by corn farmers in response to atrazine restrictions and which alternatives are currently being used. The chapter includes data synthesis of water quality monitoring performed to highlight how the policies ultimately affected water quality. The conclusion contains lessons learned as well as recommendations for international and US environmental policy.