Denver STEW-MAP
Denver
Travis Warziniack, USDA Forest Service
Amanda Egan, USDA Forest Service
Austin Troy, UC Denver
Dana Coelho, Metro Denver Nature Alliance
Jay Diffendorfer, US Geological Survey
Sara Davis, City and County of Denver
Colleen Donavan, Social Science Strategies
Denver
Across the country, people are planting trees, organizing community gardens, monitoring local ecosystems, and cleaning up nearby parks or natural areas. Those who do this work may not think of what they do as “stewardship”, however, they are indeed stewards of their local environments. Care of shared natural resources in urban areas increasingly relies on the work of environmental stewardship groups and coalitions. At the same time, land managers and other decision makers often do not understand the roles and contributions of civic stewards. Stewards themselves may also not be aware of others doing similar work in their area.
At present, no natural resource agency or organization is collecting or distributing comprehensive civic stewardship data at the local level. The Denver/Front Range Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) will fill this gap by surveying formal and informal stewardship groups across seven Colorado counties. Based on methodology developed by the USDA Forest Service’s NYC Urban Field Station, the Denver STEW-MAP will paint a picture of the region’s environmental stewardship “landscape”, documenting where the many private, non-profit, and public sector organizations work, how they are connected, and from where they source information and tools. For more information on the benefits of STEW-MAP, see “Why do STEW-MAP?”
The Denver STEW-MAP seeks to answer the question: What are the social and spatial (geographic) interactions among groups that conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for, and educate the public about their local environments? Methods include an organizational-level survey with subsequent maps and social network datasets created from survey responses. In this way, the project adds a social layer of information to biophysical information on green infrastructure (e.g., urban tree canopy, parks and open space, riparian areas) in the metro area that already exists or is being developed. It will also uncover gaps in action, knowledge, and resources, which will inform the continued development of Denver Urban Field Station and influence future applied research projects and priorities.
News, Events, and More
- December 20, 2020, Nature of Cities
- December 1, 2020, Nature of Cities
- September 24, 2020, The Nature of Cities Blog
- Research Tool for Visualizing and Understanding the Nature of Stewardship Becomes Art in New ExhibitSeptember 10, 2020, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station News Release
- June 24, 2020, ReGreen Springfield
- June 24, 2020, The Nature of Cities blog
- April 1, 2020, Bridger-Teton National Forest
Latest Publications
- STEW-MAP in the New York City region: survey results of the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project June, 2019
- A Social-ecological framework for urban stewardship network research to promote sustainable and resilient cities June 9, 2017
- Toward an understanding of citywide urban environmental governance: An examination of stewardship networks in Baltimore and Seattle September 9, 2016
- Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden August 12, 2016
- Stewardship mapping and assessment project: a framework for understanding community-based environmental stewardship February 25, 2016
- Mixed methods analysis of urban environmental stewardship networks August 31, 2015