Castor canadensis and urban wetland governance â¿¿ Fairfax County, VA case study

Nonhuman power is evident in urban ecologies, from droughts to tree diseases to everyday encounters with wildlife. Some urban environmental governance literature takes up questions of nonhuman agency, generally focusing on human-environment relations and their influence on decision-makers involved in planning, politics, and management. However, results from current research on a wetland restoration project suggest that there is more to nonhuman agency in environmental governance than its effects on human actors. This restoration project, located in a Washington D.C. Metro Area park, involved the installation of a berm and a water control system for the management of a hemi-marsh habitat. Resident beavers (Castor canadensis) emerged from the planning and proposal process as major players influencing the project design and implementation. The research traces the development of this urban wetland, drawing on assemblage theories of power to analyze how the elements of the managing apparatus (dispositif)â¿¿including animal ethology, technological expertise, environmental ethics, and the concept of biodiversityâ¿¿function to govern the space. Nonhuman agency in the network compelled park managers to incorporate beaver behavior and perception into the governing apparatus. Both humans and nonhumans emerge from this dispositif as coproducers of place and as political subjects playing a part in urban ecology governance decisions. The research shows that beavers not only exert their agency on the ecological network in the wetland, but also that their perceptual worlds (umwelt) form part of the logic of governance that guides management decisions. Ultimately, this research suggests that critical social theory frameworks coupled with nonhuman ontologies will help us to better understand the lively and productive human-environment relationships that are at the core of urban ecosystems.