By Marie-Eve Jean.
Marie-Ève Jean is a 24 year old graduate student of water resources engineering at the University of Alberta, in Canada. She is actively engaged in community agriculture and water resources management, having volunteered in a community center in Rwanda and on a reforestation project in Costa Rica. She is passionate about international development, the environment and agriculture.
As a young person involved in water management for agriculture in Canada, I am motivated to contribute to my communities and raise awareness about social and environmental issues. A great challenge we are facing today is how to develop community projects that link together people and their environments. When people participate to clean the environment, grow their own food or enjoy outdoor activities, they can develop healthy and environmentally-friendly lifestyles and more importantly, a sense of responsibility towards our planet.
A great example of a project that truly connects people with their land in an international perspective is the Green and Gold Community Garden in which I am involved. A faculty member at the University of Alberta initiated the project six years ago. This garden occupies about 2 acres of land and is situated on the University’s Campus and run entirely by volunteers. Every year, the volunteers are in charge of plowing the ground, planting the seeds, irrigating the land, digging out the weeds, and of course, harvesting the delicious product of their work when the vegetables and greens are ready! All of the vegetables produced are made available to the public in exchange for a donation. All funds raised by the garden are sent to a not-for-profit organization that supports socially and economically marginalized women in Rwanda (the Tubahumurize Association). People volunteering in this garden do not feel they are doing hard work; actually, it is just the contrary! The garden is providing them an environment free of stress in the middle of a big city. When people are volunteering here they feel this sense of being a part of a community where they can exchange and grow as individuals. The fresh food produced by the garden also encourages a larger public to reconnect with the importance of sustainable land use and agriculture. Volunteering in this garden is definitely a rich experience for me because I truly believe in the importance of restoring this fundamental link between people and the land that feeds them. This link is still as vital as before, but it is less and less visible for the majority of the population in our urbanized cities.
Through my research work, I also noticed the need for a better connection between people and their land. I am doing a research on reservoir management for sustainable irrigation as a graduate student in water resources engineering. This work is part of a multi-disciplinaryproject which focuses on innovative land-use management approaches integrating the aspects of agriculture, municipal development, water and governance. Throughout my studies, I have had the chance to meet the water managers of the most allocated river basins of the country, located in southern Alberta where agriculture is concentrated. One of the difficulties that the farmers are facing in this region is the public’s negative perception of irrigation. Agriculture is perceived as using too much water from the rivers and impacting fish and riparian habitats. Efforts are made to reduce agricultural water consumption by improving on-farm irrigation technologies and the infrastructure efficiency as well as reviewing reservoirs operations to mitigate negative downstream effects. While it is still true that agriculture has a high consumptive use of water, the diverted water from the rivers enhances agricultural reliability and productivity while supporting wetlands and wildlife habitats around reservoirs and ponds. Integrated water resources management can help to balance conflicting water uses and enhancing mutual understanding from urban and rural communities without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems.
I feel that many people around me are great examples of leaders in their communities and actors of social change! I hope that during the Global Landscape Forum we will exchange many ideas about how to get more people connected to their environment and how landscape management can help us achieve this goal.
This belongs to a blog series profiling youth leadership in landscapes. Tell us your youth story – submit blogs to landscapes.youth@gmail.com
