Kairavi Garde: Watershed Whispers – Connecting North Carolina’s Ecology with its Community
It’s no secret that water here holds stories, whispering ancient secrets as it filters through and runs across North Carolina’s diverse topography. Rivers, streams, lakes, and marshes flood the areas around them with bursts of life vibrantly visible in lush green vegetation, unique wildlife, and rich human culture. I’ve spent the last year exploring how the water around us shapes our past, present and future – and how we, in turn, manage the flow of water through our communities.
In my first semester at NC State, I reached out to Dr. Cutts, a professor working in the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management department, and asked if her Location Matters Lab needed an undergraduate research assistant. Dr. Cutts researches the human dimensions of the environment – the overlaps between human systems and ecosystems and how they influence each other. To my delight, she accepted me into her lab as a Hazard and Interview Specialist. Ever since, I’ve been exploring how water moves through North Carolina communities and documenting the hardship that comes along with governing its constant movement. I wanted to deepen my understanding of North Carolina’s environment, and people that had long worked for and alongside it let me learn.
North Carolina is an incredibly biodiverse state. It boasts access to the Appalachian Mountains, famous for their festive fall foliage, the expansive Piedmont plateau– French for “foot of the mountain” – and rivers, swamps, and coastal areas, which are home to incredible wild plants like carnivorous venus flytraps and pitcher plants. It truly is a unique place to explore, live, and thrive. But I didn’t know most of this before I started my research.
I’m an out of state student. Most of North Carolina felt foreign to me, and I wanted to understand the incredible state I was now living in. So I began to talk to people, and I began to learn. Through primarily qualitative social science, I researched North Carolina’s water management systems and the ways they affect the communities that live within them. I conducted interviews with professionals around the state, learning about how nonprofits, academic institutions, and government departments worked together to form an expansive web of water management services. Constructing an interdisciplinary understanding proved vital – I learned different lessons from professionals that approached the same issue from different angles and gleaned the personal takeaways their experiences had provided them. Each interviewee shared a reflective story surrounding their experiences with different water management systems, wetland ecology, and local communities that my lab and I mapped together into a “scientific song”, harmonies and all. We wanted to share the ever changing story of North Carolina waters and people.
North Carolina isn’t just a diverse state biologically, but also anthropologically, and the communities living and growing across the state are inherently linked to the water that makes its way across the land through streams, high-quality watersheds, and rock formations. The Lumbee Tribe, consisting of around 60,000 members across the state, finds its cultural roots and homeplaces along the blackwater, or magically tea-like, stream called the Lumbee River. Throughout their history, the Lumbee people have lived among the swamps of North Carolina, coordinated their movements with the flooding of the Lumbee River, and fought to protect the natural areas they have called home.
They are one of the most prominent voices for the water of North Carolina, and work to both protect its integrity and the communities that it can threaten. Water and humanity have always had a nuanced relationship – as necessary as water is to our communities, it is also greatly feared. Storms along the North Carolina coast have destroyed integral infrastructure, displaced communities, and threatened economic security. Swampland converted for agricultural use often floods, and when heavy rains wash chemicals from agricultural operations into waterways, drinking water and recreational bodies are put at risk. Water is uniquely hard to protect and manage because it is synonymous with motion; it is constantly cycling through the atmosphere, filtering into the ground, and flowing through rivers before reaching our systems and pouring out of our steel taps. And it carries lots with it – microorganisms, sediments, chemicals, and stories.
If I had to name a singular takeaway from my internship, it would be that you cannot divorce the people from the water, and vice versa. Water has always provided a roadmap of cultural hearths, and North Carolina’s precious rivers, streams, marshes, and coast are no exception. Now, I’m closing my chapter of exploring North Carolina’s water systems, but I will carry the lessons I’ve learned with me forever.
There is only so much we can glean from data. Within the wonders of the analog world, human stories and vast landscapes teem with more profound realizations than we could ever dream of. As I continue my academic and professional journey into the realm of environmental work, I am committed to amplifying nuanced stories that challenge us to see beyond data and recognize the unique interconnection between humanity and ecology.
My time in Dr. Cutts’ lab has taught me to seek understanding through empathy, curiosity, and interdisciplinary interconnection. The experience has equipped me with both hard and soft skills that propelled me into my newest role. This summer, I’ll be working as an Alumni Engagement Intern with National Geographic, supporting the incredible nonprofit’s youth and educator engagement initiatives. I can’t predict where my passion will ultimately lead me, but I’m building invaluable skills and discovering how we can create meaningful change together as I get there.
Read more about Kairavi’s adventures here