Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Geography, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-59).

This research is an exploration of the local, place-based knowledge surrounding a degraded urban river, the Lower Neponset River and Estuary in southern Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, and its environmental restoration. Through a mixed-methods approach to sociological inquiry that included 18-months of ethnographic interviews and participant observations, Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping, archival document research, and critical environmental history, it explores the different ways local citizens interpret the river as a place of historical importance, personal nostalgia, social and family networks, neighborhood legacies, aesthetics, economic security, danger, psychological refuge, ecology, and political power. Using an interpretive analysis of the narrative, visual, and spatial data related to those meanings, it then explores how such different local, place-based interpretations can be used to inform the theory, practice and politics of urban river restoration. The research shows that recognition of the socio-cultural diversity in local citizen interpretations of the Lower Neponset River’s restoration is important for environmental managers, planners, and local decision-makers to recognize alongside ecological and economic development “best-practices” (e.g., holistic watershed management, anadromous fish re-introduction, flow and function, ecosystem services, affordable housing quotas, “Smart” growth, etc.). The research recommends that environmental managers, planners, and local politicians and decision-makers give equal consideration to the socio-cultural, political, economic, and ecological factors surrounding urban rivers, and the diversity of meanings that their “restoration” conjures, in order to make strides towards ethical environmental restoration and management practices that are socially, as well as environmentally, sustainable.

No description available.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 130-150). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf [126-134]). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2001. / Adviser: Kevin Dunn. Submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 248-292). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

This dissertation is the result of geographic research combining several years of study of Guatemalan culture, society, and history with approximately eight months of fieldwork. Through this work I have sought to explain the social and environmental transformations of Maya communal lands in the Guatemalan highlands over time, with special reference to one particular tract of communal lands and its partial incorporation as an inhabited park into the country's national system of protected areas. I draw on theoretical and methodological frameworks from the geographic sub-discipline political ecology in order to better understand the complex and contested terrain of environmental conservation in an indigenous people's homeland. The focus of the dissertation is a case study, grounded in local and regional history and geography, of the evolution of land tenure and management of the communal forests and grazing lands of the Sierra Madre in the county of Totonicapan. The communal lands of the K'iche' Maya people of Totonicapan have been widely acknowledged as some of the best protected in the Central American region. Yet the issues that confront land managers and those who depend on the commons for livelihood and sustenance have grown increasingly complicated, involving conflicts and shifting alliances between state management agencies, national and international nongovernmental organizations and local communities, and reflecting diverse perspectives on conservation and development. The creation of a protected area in the region in 1997 that encompassed part or all of nine major settlements and as many as 20,000 K'iche' inhabitants raised serious questions regarding the future, not only of Maya communal lands, but of the Maya of Guatemala in general given the interconnectedness of Maya identity and communal land tenure. Weaving together some of the diverse strands that inform the political ecology approach—especially environmental history, political economy, cultural ecology, and post-structuralism—I seek to represent the creation of the Regional Municipal Park Los Altos de San Miguel Totonicapan as the result of a complex intersection of local, regional, national and global forces, and by doing so, to contribute to discussions of the park's future that better reflect this complexity.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [209]-252).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1965. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bbibliography: leaves 147-151.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Environmental Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 329-347). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99217