As I walk through my college campus during the start of my final fall semester, I try to pause and pay attention to the things I see around me, and maybe make a new friend. 

The trees and how their leaves sway in the wind. 

The bumblebees who pollinate the blooming flowers.

The duckweed that floats on top of a pond as frogs swim through the water. 

The ways in which I interact with other beings, like the people, plants, animals, shapes life for me here at Wellesley College. It may seem to some that people, like students, faculty, and staff, are at the center of college life. Sure, if I see a friend walking to class, we might wave at each other. Still, there are other beings that also shape my human social world and sense of community as a Wellesley College student.

The tree leaves that sway in the wind provide a pleasant shade to me during the sunny afternoon.

The bumblebees who pollinate help make more flowers that I pick and give to my friends.

The duckweed movement helps me see that the frogs are still around the pond, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get to make a frog friend.

These are just a few examples of relationships in my own life and how they affect me. It’s more than just people, but other species and beings. 

Relationships with other species can be investigated through a social science research approach called multispecies ethnography.  This is more than just a way of doing research for people who work in universities, though. It is about rethinking our place in the world and how we relate to the living beings in it, both human and more-than-human beings. It can even shift your mindset of living alongside so much more life than just the people you might speak to everyday. Everyone is capable of doing this kind of work because you start by thinking about yourself.

The multispecies framework decenters human-to-human interactions and demonstrates our connections with other beings within the physical world. Viewed through this lens, the world looks different. People become better community members to the other beings we live alongside as we try to understand what our relationships are to each other. 

Although my relationships with other non-human beings at Wellesley relate to how they help me, there are relationships that are not explicitly extractive or exploitative. I don’t want to take advantage of these relationships, for example, for financial gain. However, that would be an interesting component of a relationship that could be examined in a multispecies framework. Think about your relationship with your pets, the plants outside, the animals that may scurry on the sidewalk, that fungi on a dead tree stump, or what might live within a field of grass. Once you start to see more, you start to wonder more. Maybe you can even make your own frog friend!

As we start to view the world more holistically by taking these multispecies relationships into account, we can start to think and act on pressing issues. For example, if we reflect on a negative relationship with insects and where it comes from, we might start to appreciate their important role in an ecosystem more. This could be a way to start tackling the issue of biodiversity loss as we can see the value of the different species in the world.

I will continue to explore multispecies ethnographic work and themes in different contexts. How can interspecies relationships differ based on human cultures? How do multispecies ethnographers relate to their own research? How does the COVID-19 pandemic affect interspecies relationships? How is multispecies ethnography connected to conceptions of nature? How do these frameworks help us tackle the issue of climate change? I will attempt to answer these questions throughout the semester while continuing to reflect on my own interspecies relationships in order to create a broader understanding of community, nature, and culture within the context of multispecies ethnography.

In the time it took you to read the title, two people were displaced from their homes due to climate change. 

Climate displacement is not equally distributed. While it is not on the minds of most Americans, forty-seven percent of the residents on Tuvalu, a small island nation in the South Pacific, will have to seek resettlement by 2030. Few have the means to do so. 

Tuvalu will be among the world’s first climate migrants. But there will be many many more – estimates range from 200 million to one billion people.

Climate migration is when climate stressors, such as the rising sea level in Tuvalu, or changing rainfall and temperatures elsewhere pressure people to permanently or temporarily leave their homes and livelihoods. Like any migration that is dominated by push factors, it can be jarring, painful, and sudden. 

Climate migration is not limited to countries like Tuvalu, although it would be equally important even if it was. Most climate migration is within national boundaries, but it does and will continue to spill into international domain. Climate change and therefore climate migration will affect American migration, European city demographics, and beyond. 

Increasing our understanding of climate migration is essential as it continues to impact migrants, global security, and human development. To do so this beat will explore several themes. Are humans by definition climate migrants? Is there value in distinguishing between climate and other migration – especially when the climate will exacerbate other causes of migration? What can be done to make migration more comfortable and less jarring? How can awareness be ensured that although dire, the climate is one of many factors, not the only cause of migration?

Climate migration is here, and this beat seeks to help us understand it.

The next time you reach for the pack of double-stuffed Oreos, check the ingredients in “America’s favorite cookie”. Palm oil is high up on the list. This vegetable oil is playing an outside role in the sixth extinction crisis.

Palm oil is not only found in Oreos, it can be found in almost half of all packaged goods. From Nutella to potato chips, and even your next cup of instant noodles, you are most likely consuming palm oil.

 To an average consumer palm oil doesn’t mean much, but to the lions, elephants, and tigers in Indonesia it threatens their existence. Today species extinction is occurring at rates 100 times higher than normal. According to a recent UN report, the number one driver of extinction is habitat destruction. 

Palm oil production drives the destruction of biologically-rich rainforests. Even though they only make up 15% of the world’s landmass, rainforests hold half of the world’s biodiversity. The loss in species diversity can have a ripple effect that can lead to increases in pandemics, food scarcity, and worsen climate change. 

The palm oil industry not only affects the survival of species, but also contributes to human rights violations and marginalizes indigenous communities. Nevertheless, massive corporations like PepsiCo, Ferrero, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive continue to profit off of this cheap commodity.

 Although halting habitat destruction for the production of palm oil requires governments and businesses to take responsibility, a starting point is addressing palm oil within our own kitchens. 

Throughout the term I will be researching how consumer actions play an important role in changing corporate behavior, while also looking at other solutions like policy and the work of NGOs.

Burmese python (source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Have you ever wanted to be a snake hunter? Well, some people in Florida have gotten to do just that. 

Burmese pythons, an invasive species native to Southeast Asia, have been eating their way through the South Florida ecosystem since 2000. To accelerate the eradication of these snakes, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Service began paying citizens up to $150 per snake to humanely kill pythons in 2017. The recommended methods include decapitation with a machete or using a firearm.

Of course, not all removal methods for invasive species are this extreme.

The introduction of invasive species, living organisms that are both non-native and cause some type of harm to their new ecosystem, has a wide variety of causes. In order to effectively address these species, a broad range of methods needs to be employed. 

For garlic mustard and other plants, removal can simply be yanking it from the ground. For many insects, the intentional introduction of a natural predator, a form of biological control, can be utilized. In other cases, preventative measures, such as inspecting items being imported or exported, can help.

All of these methods are important to use because invasive species can cause irreversible damage if left unchecked. For example, the emerald ash borer, a small beetle from Asia, was discovered in Michigan in 2002. It has caused the death of over 40 million ash trees in Michigan and spread to 35 other states. In a 2005 study, it was found invasive species cost the U.S $120 billion per year in economic damage. Other harms range from zebra mussels clogging water pipes to leafy spurge taking over land used for cattle grazing.

Given the enormous impacts of invasive species, it is essential to learn how to manage them. How was an invasive species introduced? Who bears the costs associated with removing invasive species? Who and what is impacted by not addressing them? We might not all need to start hunting snakes, but we should learn what methods are effective or not at removing or preventing invasive species and their associated damages.

Planting trees in cities isn’t a “silver bullet” for climate change, but urban forestry can still do a lot of good for a lot of people. Photo courtesy of Kimberley Zak (@KimZakPhoto on Instagram)

What do you think of when you picture a forest? Dense canopies and lush understories teeming with an array of wildlife come to mind. I imagine the depths of the Amazon rainforest or the heights of California’s redwood trees. 

Modern cities, with their sprawling suburbs and growing populations, are the antithesis of this romantic image of the forest. But cities are home to trees too, and these urban forests are just as important as their wild counterparts. 

Urban forestry refers to the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of trees in cities. It can include anything from planting new trees to protecting old ones. Just as traditional forests benefit society by storing carbon and supporting biodiversity, urban forestry provides a myriad of benefits to city communities. 

Today, urban areas and the people who live in them are faced with intersecting environmental hazards: climate change, extreme heat, natural disasters, and biodiversity loss. Systemic racism perpetuated by redlining and segregation has concentrated these environmental impacts in low-income communities of color and created ongoing cases of environmental injustice. 

Urban forestry can help address these intertwined environmental issues, and bring other benefits to people and communities. Urban forests sequester 25.6 million tons of CO2 every year–that’s equivalent to taking 5.5 million cars off the road. Their canopies provide shade that counters rising temperatures from the urban heat island effect. Trees can dampen the impact and aftermath of storms, reduce the amount of pollution in the air, and provide habitat for local wildlife. Beyond creating more sustainable cities, urban forestry is a promising strategy for achieving environmental justice by improving environmental quality in marginalized neighborhoods.

Though tree planting and conservation are valuable tools in the fight against climate change and environmental injustice, they aren’t a silver bullet. Our first priority must be to stop burning fossil fuels. Planting trees can’t be a free pass to keep on destroying the planet.  

As with any solution, communities must contend with trade-offs that come with urban forestry. Tree planting requires time, money, and natural resources for growing and establishing seedlings. Efforts to create or restore green spaces can also lead to green gentrification, undermining the social justice goals of urban forestry. 

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the never-ending surge of environmental challenges. Urban forestry is a bright spot in the constant barrage of bad news and is a solution worth further exploration. In this beat, I will explore what urban forestry looks like in cities across America and how the practice can benefit people, communities, and the environment.