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Keith G. Tidball
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M.A.
George Washington University
B.A. University of Kentucky
Keith G. Tidball joined the Department of Natural Resources in 2003. He serves as Associate Director of the Civic Ecology Initiative where he helps people organize, learn, and act in ways that increase their capacity to withstand, and where appropriate to grow from, environmental change and uncertainty. He focuses on efforts that nurture cultural and ecological diversity, create opportunities for civic participation, and that foster learning from different types of knowledge to increase community capacity and resilience. He works to connect people with plants and animals in urban contexts for purposes of education, community restoration and regeneration, and biodiversity conservation through Civic Ecology programs such as the National Science Foundation funded Garden Mosaics program. His research in Environmental Security, Community Based Approaches to Urban Natural Resource Management and Civic Ecology pursues questions such as: What role might natural resources, defined broadly, play in restoring societal equilibrium and community resilience in urban environments? How might community based natural resources management knowledge and approaches be adopted for use in field expedient conflict resolution "tool kits," especially for use in urban contexts? What role might the field of natural resources play in national and international strategic planning for post-conflict and other potentially volatile transition scenarios?
Research
Cities experiencing social chaos may be viewed as socio-ecological systems that, as a result of a disturbance such as disaster or conflict coupled with lack of resilience, have shifted into a qualitatively different, undesirable state. Mr. Tidball has argued that urban community greening and other "civic ecology" approaches that integrate natural, human, social, financial, and physical capital in cities, and that encompass diversity, self-organization, and adaptive learning and management leading to positive feedback loops, have the potential to play a key role in developing urban community resilience before a disaster or conflict strikes. His current research applies resilience theory to urban socio-ecological systems, attempts to expand comparative analysis of resilience narratives in cities to encompass more community-based and environmental approaches, and proposes an asset- and community-based tool, i.e., urban community greening, which can serve as the focus of social learning about resilience in cities. See Tidball and Krasny, Risk to Resilience: Urban Community Greening and Civic Ecology.
Extension
Mr. Tidball is primarily engaged in extension efforts which focus on engaging urban people in Civic Ecology. Civic Ecology Education integrates learning from scientists and community members, and community action. The goal of Civic Ecology Education is to build resilient communities, through enabling youth and adults to develop and apply an understanding of science and of diverse cultures, and to become active, contributing, and informed members of their community. Civic Ecology Education builds on and reinforces existing community assets. See Krasny and Tidball, Civic Ecology Education: A Systems Approach to Resilience and Learning in Cities.