<p> In recent years, an unprecedented growth in large-scale agricultural projects has taken place in the Peruvian Amazon. The development of these projects &ndash;principally oil palm&ndash; has triggered a national scale environmental controversy due to evidence of the large-scale deforestation involved. This dissertation analyzes the ways in which oil palm expansion has been materially and politically brought into being. By examining the historical and material characteristics of this expansion, the politics of the environmental conflict around it and the ways in which the state attempts to govern it, this monograph analyzes how the interrelation of material conditions, social coalitions and the nature of the state shape the geographies of resource booms. </p><p> The methods used for data collection have been principally qualitative. These included semi-structured interviews, field observation in project areas and participant observation in discussion and planning forums on the development of oil palm. These data collection methods were complemented with a systematic gathering of policy documents, laws and regulations, grey literature and media reports. </p><p> In the production of oil palm geographies, the physicality of the resource plays an important role. Biophysical factors set conditions for oil palm development, but are also navigated in various ways by the different forms taken by the industry. Resource booms are shaped by the specific interplays between material factors and social organizations. Coalitions of actors interested in promoting resource booms are contested by counter or &ldquo;environmental&rdquo; coalitions when expansion raises environmental concerns such as large-scale deforestation. Struggles between environmental and agrarian agendas have been reproduced within the Peruvian state. I argue that the state has no policy regarding plantation expansion in the Peruvian Amazon but operates &ldquo;on demand&rdquo;, responding to pressures from growers and environmentalists. </p><p> The lenses of materiality, coalitions and the state prove to be productive avenues for the analysis of how resource booms are brought into being. These have to be used flexibly, however, in order to account for variations in the material world, the forms taken by political disputes, and the nature of the states that navigate these disputes. This framing could inform research on land grabs, environmental conflicts and environmental governance. A focus on the production and contestation of resource booms sheds important light on the actual ways in which environmental politics are navigated by disparate actors.</p><p>

<p> Rivers are vital for sustaining biodiversity and human development, yet globally only a small fraction of rivers enjoy protection and those with protections are often impaired or modified. Rapid rates of freshwater species&rsquo; extinctions indicate current conservation practices are failing. Despite over fifty years of scientific evidence justifying river conservation, it remains that less attention is focused on protecting ecosystems than on developing water resources for economic growth. This disparity is indicative of the &lsquo;nature as resource&rsquo; versus &lsquo;conservation of nature&rsquo; paradigm. Today, this paradigm is complicated by new attentions centering both on water resource development projects and conservation policy as climate change adaptation strategies. Policies protecting rivers are recommended for contending with more intense storms and flooding, increasing resilience for species, forests, and agricultural areas, and fostering some types of water security. Creating, implementing, and managing climate adaptation policies will require a strong state presence in water resource governance. We know, however, the aforementioned paradigm hinders conservation policymaking. Therefore, understanding how conservation policy has already been rationalized, implemented, and managed is critical to advancing climate adaptation policymaking. Yet, little empirical research has been conducted on federal river conservation policy creation or application across the U.S.</p><p> To that end, this dissertation, presented in three discrete original research articles, examines the United States National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Specifically, this study investigates the socio-ecological drivers behind the creation of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 (WSRA hereinafter) and the spatial dimensions of the policy&rsquo;s application and management over time. This study is grounded empirically in extensive archival materials, interviews with federal land management agency personnel, conservation advocates, and technical experts, as well as spatial and temporal analysis of a geodatabase. Together, these methods were employed to answer the following research questions which guide this study: (1) What factors influence the temporal and spatial distribution of river segments protected under the Wild &amp; Scenic Rivers Act? (2) What does the history of management in designated segments suggest about emerging trends and patterns in river conservation? (3) How are competing environmental values and ideologies understood and reconciled in the context of river conservation?</p><p>

<p> Coral reefs surrounding Maui have declined rapidly over the past several decades. While the cause is multifaceted, a source of concern is anthropogenic nutrient pollution and the algal blooms it stimulates. Studies have linked wastewater and agricultural fertilizers to the excessive nutrients entering Maui&rsquo;s coastal waters. The Wailuku-Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility (WKWRF) injects approximately 4.4 million gallons per day of secondarily treated wastewater into Kahului Bay through underground injection wells without a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit as required by the Clean Water Act. Kalialinui Stream passes through a large sugarcane operation and meets Kanaha Beach less than a half mile east of the WKWRF. In November 2015, January 2016, and September 2016 a section of the Kalialinui Stream was tested for nutrients and found to be exceeding freshwater standards. The WKWRF and Kalialinui Stream both appear to be contributing nutrients to marine waters with little regulation or consequence.</p><p>

<p> The San Bernardino National Forest (SBNF) has experienced periods of high, concentrated bark beetle epidemics in the late 1990&rsquo;s and into the 2000&rsquo;s. This increased activity has caused huge amounts of forest loss, resulting from disease introduced by bark beetles. Using remote sensing techniques and Landsat Thematic Mapper 5 (TM5) imagery, the spread of bark beetle diseased trees is mapped over a period from 1998 to 2008. Acreage of two attack stages (red and gray) were calculated from a level sliced classification method developed on data training sites. In each image using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is the driver of forest health classifications. The results of the analysis are classification maps for each year, red acreage estimated for each study year, and gray attack acreage estimated for each study year. Additionally, for the period of 2001&ndash;2004, acreage was compared to those reported by the USDA with a thirteen percent lower mortality total in comparison to USDA federal land and a thirty-two percent lower total mortality (federal and non-federal) land in the SBNF.</p>

<p> Loss and degradation of grassland habitat are driving forces that contribute to widespread declines of grassland birds in the United States. Many studies have evaluated habitat needs for the conservation of grassland birds, but the relative contribution of public lands in representing and maintaining avian biodiversity remains poorly understood. Having a better understanding of the role that publicly managed grasslands play in the conservation of grassland bird habitat is important for assessing the value of the investment the American public makes in these lands, therefore I investigated spatial relations among variations in amounts and distributions of publicly owned and managed grassland habitat and avian species richness. My study focused on two ecoregions, the Northwestern Great Plains and the High Plains, which comprise a substantial portion of the U.S. Great Plains, the continental Central Flyway for migratory bird species. The Great Plains provide critical nesting habitat for grassland birds, however federally owned and managed grasslands are unequally distributed between the two ecoregions, with the Northwestern Great Plains having a greater proportion of federally owned grasslands. I found that, overall, the quantity, size, and connectivity of grasslands were greater in the Northwestern Great Plains, and the region hosted slightly more of the 13 species I studied than did in the High Plains. Both ecoregions, however, sustained roughly half of their respective public lands as grassland. Areas of higher species richness were more widespread in the Northwestern Great Plains ecoregion and were associated with BLM, FWS, and NPS holdings. In the High Plains ecoregion, areas of higher species richness were limited to the northwest within FWS, USFS, and DOD holdings. Areas managed for biodiversity in both ecoregions were not necessarily associated with higher species richness. For example, some areas with the greatest species richness in the High Plains ecoregion were managed for multiple uses, but the onus for conservation of grassland birds need not fall entirely on the federal government. Non-public (privately held) grasslands in the landscapes surrounding public lands can add value to public grasslands by helping to offset habitat fragmentation and small patch size. My analyses found this particularly evident in the High Plains ecoregion, and it speaks to the importance of grassland bird habitat conservation being a joint effort among federal agencies and private landowners.</p>

<p> This paper investigates geographical conditions that may have helped the establishment of settlements throughout the American Bottom Region of the Middle Mississippi River Valley dating to the Mississippian Period. Archaeological sites and various geographical variables are obtained from many sources, including the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency central database, LiDAR digital elevation models, reconstructed pre Columbian landscape landform assemblage maps, soils data compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture, and geographic proximity models generated using a GIS. The known archaeological sites are pooled with a sample of non-sites from the study area. The entire sample of sites and non-sites is modelled in a logistical regression to distinguish sites from non-sites through qualitative and quantitative geographical variables. This analysis reveals that people living in the American Bottom region at the time of the establishment of the Mississippian period appear to have settled in areas that were relatively higher in elevation on the landscape, that were suitable for farming, and were possibly in the nearby vicinity of natural resources including access to fresh water and minerals.</p>

This thesis adopts a hermeneutical framework in order to undertake a discourse analysis of the representation of Mongolia in five works of contemporary travel writing. It argues that this travel writing is characterized by a discourse that reflects and reproduces an 'imaginative geography' of Mongolia as a traveller's frontier. Evidence of this discourse can be found in sets of collective, cohesive representations that cross-cut the works studied and have the effect of naturalizing a very particular conceptualization of Mongolia as a travel destination in an age of globalization and mass tourism. This research adds to the growing body of geographical scholarship on travel writing, but departs from it by considering contemporary works rather than ones from the colonial period.

The United Nations Environment Programme's Regional Seas Programme (RSP) is one of many international regimes for the protection and management of the marine and coastal environment. However, the literature suggests that this programme has, above others, attracted numerous accolades. Notably, the RSP has been referred to as "the jewel in UNEP's crown". Absent from this literature is evaluation based evidence to corroborate such declarations. The complexity of the evaluation science literature necessitates the creation of a three-part Model of Evaluation Science to capture recurring themes and concerns. The first part presents a typology of evaluation forms. The second part details the generic steps involved in the policy and programme evaluation process. The third part decants a set of key barriers and challenges to conducting evaluation. The Model is tested through a diagnostic field study in the case study of the Caribbean RSP. Evidence obtained from Content Analysis of the literature and Key Informant Interviews with strategically-placed personnel at the Caribbean Regional Co-ordinating Unit, indicates that capacity does not exist to evaluate the RSP's impacts on the state of the environment. As such, the Model is used to examine the state of programme evaluation capacity. Data obtained from the Interviews is presented as a set of "actual" capacity conditions, contrasted with the ideal or "expected" conditions provided by the tenets of the Model. Finally, the thesis concludes by passing judgment on the "jewel in the crown" declaration, and presents a set of recommendations to strengthen evaluation capacity in the Wider Caribbean Region.

The thesis focuses on the factors that account for variations of salaries and self-employed income among individuals---both born in Canada and immigrants---residing in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver in 2001 based on the Canadian Census data. The research addresses the influence of place of birth and linguistic profile on income. Other independent variables such as age, sex, schooling and occupation are included in the analysis. The ultimate goal of the study is to highlight income differences among paid and self-employed workers (both incorporated and unincorporated) as well as to demonstrate that self-employment status can improve the financial performance of an individual. Descriptive and general linear model types of analysis are employed. Both types of analysis demonstrate significant differences in income with respect to the different factors under study. My hypotheses addressing income differences among paid and self-employed workers and regarding the increased beneficial role of self-employment for certain groups of individuals are partially or generally confirmed. The regression models for all three classes of worker reveal low R 2 values. Nevertheless, the contrast analysis in the regression models, as well as the descriptive analysis, demonstrates statistically significant differences between the mean income values of the different categories of variables and reference categories. This suggests that if the chosen variables explain just the main fluctuations in income variations and more precise results would require more details on individuals of the research approaches. The analysis is, however, meaningful at the level of major trends and influence of selected variables on income variations.

This thesis is an exploration, conducted in the open-minded spirit of humanistic geography, of the geographical meanings of the personal garden space as it is portrayed in selected contemporary personal gardening literature. Through an interpretive framework based on three geographical metaphors---the personal garden as a microcosm, landscape, and place---the personal garden revealed itself to be a cultural, social and personal space, essentially human, as well as a biological, ecological and environmental space, essentially nonhuman. This fundamental human-nonhuman duality at the core of the personal garden reflects the human-physical duality at the heart of the discipline of geography, as such making the personal garden a space of particular geographical significance. This thesis adds a new type of literature, personal gardening books, to geographical inquiry and contributes to growing geographical dialogue on the topic of personal gardens. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)