Community Participation and Geographic Information Systems - Chapter 14

Chapter 14 Environmental NGOs and community access to technology as a force for change David L. Tulloch 14.1 INTRODUCTION Environmental NGOs are finding themselves, and as a result their con-stituencies, increasingly empowered as users of geospatial technologies in New Jersey. A common concern regarding geospatial technologies is that the systems require significant technical knowledge in order to be properly applied to a problem. The average citizen lacks the requisite basic technical skills, thus limiting the opportunities for PPGIS. Finding a way in which these citizens can participate in the application of a community-based or community-oriented system is a challenge. Special interest groups purport-ing to represent various segments of their larger community can serve as the interface between citizens and government by operating, evaluating, or opposing public systems. A basic assumption of this chapter is that NGOs can either 1 interface with an otherwise inaccessible public system, thus rendering it a PPGIS despite the system’s initial failings, or 2 develop on behalf of members of the community a system that can serve as a PPGIS, despite parallel local government efforts. 14.2 FACTORS SUPPORTING NGO ACTIVITY With this assumption in mind, this chapter will highlight four factors respon-sible for accelerating NGO activity in New Jersey and empowering citizens through a series of state-level NGO-PPGIS. These factors include: 1 prominent environmental and land-use issues that require attention 2 a traditional local government political structure that has limited devel-opment of public geospatial data and systems 3 a state government ‘champion’ that has assisted NGOs with data and software © 2002 Taylor & Francis Environmental NGOs and community access to technology 193 4 a state-wide NGO ‘champion’ that has provided technical assistance and assisted with communication and coordination between groups. The role of any individual factor in promoting or inhibiting PPGIS devel-opment is hard to identify; rather, these factors have acted in concert to pro-mote or inhibit the development of geospatial systems (Tulloch 1999). This chapter will address each factor and describe how they have interacted to promote or inhibit PPGIS development in New Jersey. 14.2.1 Factor 1: physical and social conditions affecting the New Jersey land use puzzle New Jersey has unique physical and social conditions that have accelerated the need for environmental response in the state. As the most densely popu-lated state in the nation (over 8 million residents living in less than 8,000 square miles), New Jersey is home to dense urban areas (e.g. Newark, Camden, and Paterson), extensive sprawl, large industries (e.g. pharmaceut-icals and petrochemicals), and significant transportation systems (e.g. the Port of Newark, Newark International Airport, the New Jersey Turnpike, and Amtrak’s Northeast corridor). This intense development exists alongside some impressive natural areas, including the Pinelands (the largest body of open space on the mid-Atlantic seaboard between Richmond and Boston), the Hackensack Meadowlands, the Delaware Water Gap, and the New Jersey Highlands. In addition, New Jersey’s extensive agricultural areas pro-vide seasonal produce for Philadelphia and New York City, and place it Table 14.1 1997 surface area of land-cover/land-use in New Jersey, based on the National Resources Inventory (Natural Resources Conservation Service 1999) Land-cover/use classification category Developed (includes urban, built-up land, and rural transportation zones) Forestland Agricultural land (includes cropland, pastureland, and Conservation Reserve Programme land) Water areas Other rural land (includes barren land and marshland) Federal lands (includes military bases, National Wildlife Refuges and National Park Service properties) Acres 1,848,900 1,624,700 682,500 530,200 380,500 148,300 Percentage of NJ 35 31 13 10 7 3 Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service 1999. © 2002 Taylor & Francis 194 D. L. Tulloch Figure 14.1 New Jersey land-cover, 1995. among the nation’s top ten producers of bell peppers, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, sweet corn, tomatoes, snap beans, cabbage, escarole/endive, and eggplant, as well as a number of specialty crops including cranberries, blue-berries, peaches, and asparagus. © 2002 Taylor & Francis Environmental NGOs and community access to technology 195 What is unique about New Jersey is the cheek-by-jowl relationship between these diverse land-uses (see Figure 14.1 and Table 14.1). Since at least the 1950s, NGOs have formed in response to the conflicts that have emerged at the convergence of agricultural land-uses, natural areas, and urban development. One indicator of this complex relationship between urbanization and agriculture is that the average per acre-value of New Jersey farmland ($8,370) is the highest in the nation. The constant tension between these broad categories of land-use has caused the destruction of irreplaceable resources, and has contributed to the increased role of NGOs in providing solutions to competing land uses. 14.2.2 Factor 2: strong home rule and limits on local technology development An important force in New Jersey is the state’s tradition of strong home rule. As a result, the state has 566 independent municipalities (shown in Figure 14.2) that control land-use and address development-related envir-onmental issues, with only a few able to support local development of GIS. This creates a particularly difficult challenge for the development of NGO systems because local governments are an important source of foundational spatial data sets in other parts of the country. With the state sliced into 566 independent municipalities, many com-munities find themselves without the tax base necessary to support the development of even a rudimentary geospatial system. Most are small communities: 63 per cent of the municipalities in New Jersey have less than 10,000 residents, while over 25 per cent have less than 3,000. It is almost inconceivable that accurate, detailed information could be compiled at any level other than the local level, particularly for data themes like parcels and land-use (as opposed to the more generalized land-cover data as described in Table 14.1). In other states, strong home rule could serve as a negative factor for NGOs who find themselves stymied by the lack of local data. However, in New Jersey this local data void has provided a rallying cry for NGOs; some are trying to produce their own complete local data sets, while others have focused on ways to encourage or assist the municipal-ities within their jurisdiction to develop databases. It should also be noted that strong home rule has contributed to environ-mental and growth management problems in New Jersey (Mansnerus 1998). The state has been severely limited in its ability to address land use and environmental problems at the local level. A significant portion of New Jersey’s sprawl has come as a result of the state’s municipalities competing against one another for new development (and property taxes). Strong home rule has also had the unintentional outcome of promoting fragmented land-scapes that are inefficient for providing community services, make farming © 2002 Taylor & Francis 196 D. L. Tulloch Figure 14.2 New Jersey’s 566 municipalities. difficult, and create landscapes ill-suited for ecologically desirable native species. 14.2.3 Factor 3: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and NGO-based GIS The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has rec-ognized the fertile ground provided by factors 1 and 2, and sown the seeds for NGO-based GIS participation throughout the state. The NJDEP, acting through the New Jersey State Mapping Advisory Committee (SMAC), has published a series of CD-ROMs that provide a variety of statewide cover- © 2002 Taylor & Francis ... - tailieumienphi.vn