Dear Reader: What does your connection with the environment look like?
My IDEA Grant project examines social-ecological system connections and documents the relationship between human and environmental well-being. Inspired by my passion for environmental justice, I advocate for a rural fishery and historic community in my working paper, presenting the Apalachicola Bay oyster decline as a detriment to all Franklin County residents. Contrasting previous literature which focuses largely on those with direct ties to oyster harvesting, my project reframes the conversation. My work focuses on the entire community and their collective experiences amidst the fishery failure, aiming to expand the stakeholders considered in future policy decisions.
My project bridges disciplines by connecting environmental disturbances, policy decisions, and community changes to traceable human outcomes. Apalachicola Bay has faced environmental disruption for more than a decade and the species’ decline and consequential ecosystem service loss has cascaded throughout the surrounding communities. Illustrating how human and ecological systems are intricately connected, In my work, I detail altered futures and changed livelihoods as consequences of environmental change.
The loss of oysters acts as a signal for distress in marine environments. Much like this keystone species, I believe the loss of fishery communities is a distress signal for humans.
The field of environmental science stands firm upon uncharted territory in terms of climate change. My project inspires readers to think about what could happen if we don’t have anymore local fishing towns or similar communities reliant upon a healthy ecosystem? Who will signal the loss of biodiversity, as the oystermen once did in Franklin County?
I have always been connected to the environment, spending my earliest years visiting my grandparents’ farm for weeks at a time. My family taught me the impact of an extended drought period, altered growing seasons, and pesticidal pollution. I believe my passion for environmental protection started in the lessons passed down from my grandparents. As I have grown, this passion has only strengthened, and with it a growing curiosity towards those who don’t share my sentiment. For me, I have always known that a healthy environment is a healthy people, because that was the truth for our family. I find myself wondering how others form a connection to a healthy environment without an experience like mine?
Examining communities surrounding Apalachicola Bay, similar lessons to those echoed in my childhood were passed down from oyster harvesters to their families. But without oystermen, and with reports of other fishing populations in the Bay declining, who will be able to pass down these lessons? With the region’s industries dominated by tourism, what opportunities are available for a rising young generation? My project examines these questions and potential answers, hoping to advocate for future investigation into environmental change and altered communities.
My research will affect those around me by showing how a community can be upended by the loss of a healthy ecosystem. In order to convey the importance of environmental protection, I display the ways that environmental catastrophe echoes throughout our human systems, prompting individuals to examine the ways environmental degradation has permeated into their own quality of life.
My project will be finalized next semester as I complete an official publication through Florida State University’s Honors in the Major program. Drafting my paper, I have relied on past meeting agendas, informational videos, and extensive documentation. Compiling this information with transcribed verbal data, I further situate these findings within existing scholarship to create a well-rounded line of reasoning throughout my work. I look forward to using these research and analysis skills during law school in the near future.
For my last year at Florida State, I hope to inspire other undergraduate students to pursue a research project of their own. I look forward to relaying what I have learned with members of the Maji Project, a club focused on the water-crisis where I will serve as an advisor for this next academic year. As my Honors in the Major and IDEA grant projects conclude, I look forward to deepening my involvement in community meetings and sustaining my advocacy for this region.
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