Identifying social capital in Fayette County, Indiana was difficult to accomplish for three reasons. First, the social and cultural landscape of today is drastically different than it was in 2004 when Pretty and Smith put forth their ideas. Trust, common norms, and connectedness seem like concepts that are tenuous at best.  Secondly, poverty and drug use present such immediate and visceral threats that concern for environmental conditions are often overlooked. Lastly, there are no local environmental or conservation groups. Aside from technical and financial assistance from US Department of Agriculture offices and the limit resources of the Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), there is not an opportunity for citizen to create social bonds around conservation and ecological issues. It will be critical to address these three issues when working towards establishing and building social capital in Fayette County.

It’s an unfortunate reality that there continues to be a need to discuss the former President’s influence on poor, white, rural America, yet, here we are. The man struck a chord with my people, and there was apparently something addictive in his snake oil.  “Trump 2024” bumper stickers are common. Last week I counted three new “Trump Won” flags. A recent debate on a community Facebook page centered on whether a man should take down his “Fuck Biden” flag. Communities that suffer from pervasive distrust are unlikely to create cooperative arrangements (Pretty and Smith, 2004), and 76% of the votes for cast for President in 2020 in Fayette County (USA Today, 2020) were for a man who made a political career out convincing people not to trust anyone but him. He regularly, publicly, and often in a mocking tone that appealed to those unfamiliar with issue, proclaimed climate change to be hoax (Mother Jones, 2017). Building relations of trust regarding ecological issues is a prerequisite to establishing any of three forms of connectedness- bonding, bridging, and linking.

Linking has proven to be successful in Fayette County when Federal, a state university, and local shareholders worked together to address the prescription opioid and heroin issue. Recently, the state average for emergency room admittance for heroin and prescription opioid overdoses were 70.7 per 100k residents and 104.5 per 100k residents, respectively. For Fayette County, those numbers where 175.7 per 100k residents for heroin and 235 per 100k for prescription opioid (IN Dept. of Health, 2016).  In 2019 Purdue University received a 1.1 million dollar grand from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat rural opioid use. The University chose Fayette County to be the recipient of the services provided by the grant (Purdue, 2019). The program is not complete and no data about it’s effectiveness was available, however, personal observation would indicate there has been an improvement in awareness and attitude towards in addiction in general. The eagerness of law enforcement, healthcare workers, and private citizens to participate demonstrate that the community can work together to address a problem and achieve a common goal.

Identifying common goals in the absence of a conservation minded community group will be challenging. The Indiana Audubon Society owns property in Fayette County where a summer outdoor education camp is held each summer and a hummingbird banding festival in late August, however, they do not have a regular local presence (Indiana Audubon, 2021). The Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) is currently promoting cover crops, as it has with the same mediocre reception for at least a dozen years. However, with arial application becoming more affordable, there does seem to be increase in acres.

In the more specific areas of agrobiodiversity, nearby areas, and protected areas, Fayette County has enormous potential if the aforementioned issues can sucesfuly be addressed. Cover cropping will continue to expand and soil biodiversity will increase. The high rate of food insecurity lends itself to the potential for community wide gardening (though, it is rumored that most of the food from the current small community garden goes to waste because no one claims it).  The county’s unique blend of row crop, forest, pasture, and grass area has massive potential for nearby land cooperation. In neighboring counties, I know of several Quality Deer Management collectives of land owners that work together to raise mature deer- everyone agrees to not harvest a deer younger than 3.5 years old in order for everyone to have access to larger deer. That kind of cooperation between many landowners  for “widespread improvements in natural capital” is possible here, too (Pretty and Smith, 2004). The entire Audubon property is a protected sanctuary and open to the public- if the local community could engage more with the property, everyone has the potential to benefit.

Going forward, I would like to be more involved in the outdoor education program at Mary Gray Bird Sanctuary. I have volunteered as a counselor, but would be interested in participating in the planning. I would also like to attend some SWCD committee meetings. These are the farmers in Fayette County that are receptive to new conservation ideas and I would learn more about their goals and program implementation.

Part 2: Prepare talking points for the live/synchronous discussion on social capital and networking. See the instructions in the following To Do and prepare for your live chat with the other members of your CEL working group.

Indiana Audubon. Indiana Audubon Society. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://indianaaudubon.org/mgbs/.  

Indian Department of Health. Overdose Prevention. (2021, April 1). Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://www.in.gov/health/overdose-prevention/overdose-response-project/fayette-county/.

Schulman, J. (2016, December 5). Every insane thing Donald Trump has said about global warming. Mother Jones. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/12/trump-climate-timeline.

Pretty, J., & Smith, D. (2004). Social capital in biodiversity conservation and management. Conservation biology, 18(3), 631-638.

Purdue University News. Federal Award provides funds for Purdue to help Fayette County improve local opioid abuse prevention and treatment. Purdue University News. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q1/federal-award-provides-funds-for-purdue-to-help-fayette-county-improve-local-opioid-abuse-prevention-and-treatment.html.

USA Today. (2021, January 14). 2020 Indiana president election results. USA Today. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://www.usatoday.com/elections/results/race/2020-11-03-presidential-IN-0/.