The responsibilities of ecologists: Reflections on my 30 years experience with the New World Agriculture and Ecology Group [NWAEG]

Background/Question/Methods

The New World Agriculture and Ecology Groups emerged in the 1970s from the Science for the People collective. A group of ecologists interested in making their science relevant to issues of social, economic and environmental justice put their science to work toward these goals. Participating in NWAEG provided me with the option of integrating my scientific and political passions, which before had been in two separate worlds.  As a community ecologist with interest and experience in terrestrial ecosystems, agriculture and food systems were obvious vehicles for the integration of my ecological and political interests. In NWAEG we analyzed contemporary agriculture and the environment in order to develop and implement just and sustainable alternatives. We base our work on the premise that the recurrent problems of the human condition, including hunger, poverty, disease, and war, result from power differences between classes, genders, races, etc. Since solutions to agricultural problems are neither wholly technical nor wholly social, we attempt to integrate both technical and social approaches in our research and its applications. We seek to go beyond reforms that do not address the unequal distribution of wealth and power in the world, and reject approaches to science that pretend to be politically neutral.

Results/Conclusions

In this talk I will reflect on the influence of NWAEG on my academic and personal life by following my academic trajectory from working with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee in the Mid West in the early 1980s to my living and working in Nicaragua in solidarity with the revolutionary Sandinista government, to my recent collaboration with La Via Campesina and creation of the sustainable food systems initiative at the University of Michigan.  Perhaps these experiences could inform and inspire the new generation of ecologists to keep pushing the boundaries of ecology. As academics we are in a privileged position in society. With that privilege comes responsibility. Letting my moral compass guide my science, and science inform my moral compass is the right way for me.