Year of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Science (MS)

Degree Name

Resource Conservation

Other Degree Name/Area of Focus

International Conservation and Development

Department or School/College

W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation

Committee Chair

Keith Bosak

Commitee Members

Sarah Halverson, Caroline Stephens

Keywords

Community Food Forest, Place-based Food Systems, Place-based assessment of ecosystem service

Abstract

As population grows, the borders of urban and peri-urban areas continue to expand. The UN projects that by 2050 more than 68% of the world population is expected to live in urban areas (UN, 2018). Presently, urban centers are heterotrophic, or highly consumptive of products produced elsewhere, making them one of the most pressing challenges to global sustainability (Wu, 2008). With an ever-increasing imperative for more sustainable food production, multi-use edible green landscapes and other autotrophic, or self-feeding urban agriculture initiatives, are gaining attention and creative practice to incorporate a diversity of ecosystem services (ES). Community food forests (CFF) are novel pieces of this emergent place-based food system (PbFS). To validate the call to incorporate CFF within a PbFS, I establish a framework for analyzing the tangible and intangible ES of these systems as an alternative to the industrial model by working towards goals of sustainability, equity, food citizenship, and place-building. I continue this framework by introducing the ES typology to understand the multifaceted benefits available from a landscape. In chapter two I present a scoping review of CFF in literature and practice. I apply the PbFS and ES typologies to expose the limitations of our scholarly inclusion of CFF as pieces of a larger system. This review exposes the gap that exists between our academic approach with the purpose and intentions of CFF currently in practice. To answer the call proposed in chapter two for a scholarly investigation of the perceived and actual value of CFF to a community of users, I apply a place-based ecosystem assessment to 6th Ward Garden Park, a CFF in Helena, MT. This case study highlights the importance of CFF to meet cultural services needs within a community while working towards the larger goals of PbFS. The case study identifies CFF as systems of stacked ES benefits while identifying specific ES that serve as doorways for deeper use and community benefit. Looking forward, this case study provides a working model for assessing user perceptions and values of CFF as a way to assess their role in addressing the wider vision PbFS.

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