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Publications & Related Summaries

1. Toch, Susan Lisa, Water To Drink: Sustaining Watersheds and the People Who Need Them Phoenix Publishing (June, 2003) 128pp

   This book is about quality, human and environmental qualities, and an unraveling of the complexities and similarities inherent in our human and ecological well-being. This unified effort can serve as a foundation for a process that confronts universal challenges, addresses the issues so important to our human and ecological health, and contributes to a solution in our common well-being. This community-based project involved the development of an international community-based consortium "Unified in Our Diversity" and demonstrates how our human resource demands can be managed within ecological constraints. An inter-disciplinary process is developed that specifically assesses risk to human health from resource use practices, and explores the similarities and interactions between our human needs and those of the ecosystems in which we all live together. Project applications and management, and the coordination of inter-disciplinary resource issues that traverse local, regional and international boundaries are demonstrated.

2. Toch, Susan (Author and Editor). Integrating Resource and Community Issues: An Implementation Strategy, St.. John, USVI (Oct. 1990) Published with the support of the Virgin Islands National Park. pp. 166.

   The Virgin Islands National Park encompasses over half of the island of St. John and is significant for its unique marine life, vegetation that includes the Caribbean Dry Forest, and dynamic Afro-Caribbean history. While the crisis of Hurricane Hugo prompted this island paradise to be classified a national disaster zone in September, 1989, the dramatic impact of high winds and rain only accentuated many long term resource conflicts into problems that could not longer be ignored. This work focuses on the interaction between the ecological, cultural, political and economic factors of resource use. The author supervised 27 multi-disciplinary students and coordinated with a diverse array of local and national interest groups. Detailed research projects and management plans were developed in order to address many of the problems that have chronically plagued this part of the Caribbean, protect island resilience, preserve sensitive resources and diminish the crippling effect of an occurrence such as Hugo. Results identify key players, resources, activities and possible avenues towards an innovative approach, integrating resource and community issues. In coordination with the National Park Service, and consultation with state and local officials, community groups, and island residents, this project builds on a renewed momentum to assess and strengthen the natural and cultural resources so vital to the community of St. John, and serve as a model for a unified effort in resources management.

3. Toch, S. An Approach to Ecological Management (Aug. 1988) Connectivity in landscape ecology. Proceedings of 2nd International Seminar, Munstersche, Geographische, Germany.

   Conflicts between economic development and natural resource conservation frequently lead to tensions between local development interests and broader collective values. This often results in alienation of local support for resource conservation that may in fact be beneficial to long term community development. An integrated management approach is needed that addresses local community concerns while maintaining the sustainability of the resource base. Through coordination with the Urban and Regional Planning Institute of the Ile-de-France, the University of Waterloo, the Canadian Social Science and Research Counsel and UNESCO, a working model is developed that builds upon specific management strategies in the Paris, France region in order to illustrate an approach that can bridge the gap between conservation and development interests.

4. Tony Hiss Reflections: Encountering the Countryside - II New Yorker, August 28, 1989, pp. 37-63.

   REFLECTIONS about the countryside. Landscapes, in the view of some land-use experts interested in a regional approach to development, are now showing themselves to be a cake that you can eat and have, too. People can build on a landscape, that is, without eating away at it. There has been a despairing assumption that progress demands degraded surroundings. Tells of the importance of country surroundings on young children, college students, & hospital patients. "The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning" is a recently rediscovered & much pored-over book by an American forester & planner named Benton MacKaye, which was first published 60 years ago. MacKaye believed in the "regional city"-a piece of land about 30 miles by 40 with an urban area, a rural area & a wilderness area big enough to function on a sound economic & environmental footing. Long discussion of the work & ideas of regionalist Prof. Robert D. Yaro, director of the Center for Rural Massachusetts at the Univ. of Mass.-Amherst. He thinks we are now maturing as a nation in our thinking about land-use issues. We are in the process of building local institutions that take over the job of looking after public value on a volunteer basis & we're learning how to reinvest in areas so that they'll be more valuable to the next generation. Tells about wilderness areas in N.Y.C., upgrading urban & rural areas in Massachusetts. A three-part illustration at the end of this piece shows a New England landscape developed conventionally & a regionalist solution for the same density.
   Keywords: Hospitals; Landscape; Stein, Clarence S.; New York City; Massachusetts; Regional Plan Association; Jamaica Bay; Olmsted, Frederick Law; U.S. Air Force; MacKaye, Benton; San Francisco, California; The Country; Lynch, Kevin; Toch, Susan; Yaro, Robert D. (Prof.); Froebel, Friedrich; Ulrich, Roger S. (Prof.); "Learning Through Landscapes Project"; Greenways; Walter, 55Eugene Victor; Palisades Conservation Plan; Greenbelt Alliance; Connecticut River Valley; Pioneer Valley;