Tag Archives: grassroots organizing

Everglades Oral History Collection

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Project description: This project documents issues involved in the restoration of the Everglades. Discussion topics center on influence of and coordination between environmental groups, lobbying by environmental groups, pesticides and mercury levels, water conservation, growth management, relationship between National Park Service and Army Corps of Engineers, Everglades Forever Act, Save Our Everglades, use of aquatic crops, drought and flood conditions, role of scientists in restoration, obstacles to restoration, sugar industry, various taxes, comprehensive plans and task forces, public education, aquifer storage and recovery, and lessons learned. [Description from finding aid]

Regulatory significance: This collection provides rich insight into environmental regulation, particularly the regulation of water, chemicals, and run-off from agriculture and land development.

Repository: University of Florida

Interview dates: 2001 – 2002

Digital access: Transcripts are available online. Audio for at least one interview is as well.

Physical access: For access to all transcripts and audio, visit Pugh Hall at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.

Link: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/ohevg

Environmental Activism in Los Angeles

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Project description: This collection consists of 19 interviews conducted from the 1970s to the present documenting environmental activism in the Los Angeles area.  Most interviewees were founders or “major participants” in important regional environmental organizations.

Regulatory significance: Interviews touch on both local and federal regulations and provide insight into the development and activities of local environmental groups and national advocacy organizations with substantial presence in the LA area (especially the American Lung Association). These groups’ efforts to influence regulatory policy and participate in negotiated rule making processes are key to several interviews in the project.

Repository: University of California – Los Angeles

Interview dates: 2006 – 2009

Digital access: Transcripts and audio for these interviews are available online.

Physical access: For access to all transcripts and audio, visit UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections.

Link: http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0008zh0f&title=Oral%20History%20Collection

Southern Rural Poverty Collection

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Project description: This project contains more than 30 interviews with individuals who worked to address southern poverty in their communities up to the early 1990s. The focus of the interviews is on efforts after the passage of major federal civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, including those related to Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.

Regulatory significance: Many of the interviewees discuss issues that stem from overlapping regulatory jurisdictions at the local, state, and federal level. Health care, housing, employment, and agriculture are major themes, and some interviewees discuss environmental regulation to improve the health of the rural poor.

Repository: Duke University, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy

Interview dates: 1992-1994

Digital access: Video recordings of the oral histories are available for many interviews, and transcripts are available for almost all of them.

Link: http://dewitt.sanford.duke.edu/rutherfurd-living-history/southern-rural-poverty-collection/

Minnesota Powerline Oral History Project

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Project description: These 44 interviews involve people on all sides of a controversy in western Minnesota over the routing of power lines. Per the finding aide, “the controversy escalated as costs of the project rose and additional frustration was created by cumbersome review processes, and by what many protesters saw as excessive concern by the federal and state governments for wildlife areas and highway right of way at the expense of protection for productive farmland.”

Regulatory significance: This project effectively captures a kaleidoscope of views over what tradeoffs regulators should make. Interviewees include politicians, regulators at the Department of Natural Resources, affected farmers, and board members of the electric cooperatives.

Repository: Minnesota Historical Society

Interview dates: 1977-1979

Digital access: Transcripts and audio are available online.

Physical access: Original audio tapes are kept at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Link: http://collections.mnhs.org/voicesofmn/index.php/10002532

Minnesota Environmental Issues Oral History Project

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Project description: This project contains more than 30 interviews with a variety of players in Minnesota environmental regulation. They explore issues such as timber wolf preservation, acid rain control, and forest management policies.

Regulatory significance: These interviews involve a wide range of environmental regulation issues, including use of lawsuits, tradeoffs with agricultural production, the involvement of nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy. Most of the interviewees were involved in these issues as activists and members of nonprofit organizations rather than as governmental regulators.

Repository: Minnesota Historical Society

Interview dates: 1986-1990

Digital access: Transcripts and audio are available online, as well as photos of many of the interviewees.

Physical access: For any interview not available online, visit the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Link: http://collections.mnhs.org/voicesofmn/index.php/10002529