The San Juan Islands of Washington are a unique habitat for both humans and wildlife. Although geographically close to many urban cities, these islands remain relatively rural and have maintained close connections to wildlife. Marine and terrestrial wildlife are very different in their ecology and how humans perceive them. Yet, there are few distinctions between how marine and terrestrial wildlife is generally presented in educational materials for the public. The San Juan Islands are also home to a large, seasonal ecotourism industry. Consequently, there tends to be a high density of tourists in the area, particularly during the summer. I worked with Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Friday Harbor, WA on San Juan Island to evaluate human interactions and attitudes regarding wildlife. For ten weeks I volunteered and used participant observation methods at the facility. I conducted eight semi-structured interviews ranging from 30 to 120 minutes to examine differences in human actions and attitudes towards terrestrial and marine wildlife, as well as any differences in attitude between visitors and residents of the islands. Initial results indicate that, unlike visitors, residents are more likely to view all wildlife as a nuisance. Moreover, marine animals tend to be more appreciated and less intentionally harmed by humans. Based on these findings I evaluated the current outreach materials used by Wolf Hollow and made recommendations for improvements, which included implementing new methods and materials in order to more effectively educate the public about how to live harmoniously with all types of wildlife.

The American Farmland Trust estimates that we are losing more than an acre of farm and ranch land every minute. This rapid conversion of farmland to residential and commercial development presents an urgent and dangerous problem, as it severely compromises our ability to grow our own food, and raises serious issues of food security, resiliency, and environmental degradation. However, there are numerous tools that counties can employ to reverse this trend and protect local farmland. Counties are in the driver’s seat when it comes to farmland preservation, and this research looks critically at what counties can do to prevent conversion using the tools of regulation, development rights, tax incentives, and economic development, while highlighting the Puget Sound Basin as a case study for what is working and what needs improvement at the county level. I gathered most of this information in my internship with the American Farmland Trust, where I worked with a graduate student to create a scorecard using the above criteria, and used it to evaluate the farmland protection programs of the 12 counties in the Puget Sound Basin. Among our findings are that total farmland acreage in the Puget Sound is dwindling, that no county reaches the ideal in farmland protection programs, and that farmland across the Sound remains vulnerable. Fortunately, there are a number of counties that are using certain tools very effectively, and counties can draw on one another’s strengths and examples to shape better farmland protection programs across the region.

 In 1943 Hanford, Washington became home to the first full scale nuclear production complex and is now the most contaminated nuclear Superfund site. How have the lived experiences, local knowledge, health indicators and perceptions of risk in disparately-impacted communities shaped the complex processes of planning and decision-making of the clean-up at Hanford? Community Based Action Research can provide critical insight into the socio-cultural dimensions of the Hanford site needed to understand the complex processes that shape clean-up efforts, and how those decisions affect the lives of primary stakeholders. This methodology can also be utilized to critically examine how those decisions impact the experiences and health of the larger community. Archival research, participant observation and interviewing have been utilized to identify stakeholder groups and create accessible collaborative descriptive accounts of the Hanford site. This research will add to our collective understanding of the importance and use of cultural resources found on the Federal reservation, the contemporary economic importance of the super fund site, as well as how Hanford has and continues to affect a diverse array of stakeholders. This research has the potential to contribute to understandings of environmental justice policies as well as increase involvement of marginalized stakeholders and facilitate the implementation of collaborative, sustainable solutions to mitigate threats to population health and safety.