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Integrated data analyses are becoming increasingly popular in studies of wild animal populations where two or more separate sources of data contain information about common parameters. Here we develop an integrated population model using abundance and demographic data from a study of common guillemots (Uria aalge) on the Isle of May, southeast Scotland. A state-space model for the count data is supplemented by three demographic time series (productivity and two mark-recapture-recovery (MRR)), enabling the estimation of prebreeder emigration rate - a parameter for which there is no direct observational data, and which is unidentifiable in the separate analysis of MRR data. A Bayesian approach using MCMC provides a flexible and powerful analysis framework. This model is extended to provide predictions of future population trajectories. Adopting random effects models for the survival and productivity parameters, we implement the MCMC algorithm to obtain a posterior sample of the underlying process means and variances (and population sizes) within the study period. Given this sample, we predict future demographic parameters, which in turn allows us to predict future population sizes and obtain the corresponding posterior distribution. Under the assumption that recent, unfavourable conditions persist in the future, we obtain a posterior probability of 70% that there is a population decline of >25% over a 10-year period. Lastly, using MRR data we test for spatial, temporal and age-related correlations in guillemot survival among three widely separated Scottish colonies that have varying overlap in nonbreeding distribution. We show that survival is highly correlated over time for colonies/age classes sharing wintering areas, and essentially uncorrelated for those with separate wintering areas. These results strongly suggest that one or more aspects of winter environment are responsible for spatiotemporal variation in survival of British guillemots, and provide insight into the factors driving multi-population dynamics of the species.

This dissertation examines the manifestations of the development discourse in the context of a bilateral South-South program of educational assistance through scholarships provided by the Cuban government at the secondary and postsecondary levels to students from Ghana. The research assesses the meanings attached to this program on the basis of the observations, understandings and perceptions of a group of graduates, and of former administrators who were involved in the design, implementation and/or administration of the program. The study gives legitimacy to the perspectives of a distinct group of knowers in a country of the postcolonial Global South who were socialized into an educational model that differs from the educational context of their home country. The research aims to illuminate the links between the program graduates’ experiences with the Cuban program and their subsequent contributions to Ghanaian society, with particular emphasis on the process of their reintegration. Research questions focus on the study participants’ perceptions regarding the relevance of the Cuban education in regard to academic and practical preparation; the combination of liberal and utilitarian principles of education; access opportunities; and ways in which the Ghanaian government may have encouraged the graduates’ return to Ghana in the context of the global brain drain phenomenon. Upon their return to Ghana, the graduates encountered challenges with respect to cultural disorientation due to the partial adoption of Cuban norms and values. They experienced difficulties integrating into professional life based on a perceived lack of understanding of certain Cuban credentials among Ghanaian employers, and encountered discrimination based on their education in an Eastern Bloc country. Once they had overcome the initial challenges, the graduates felt that the technical and professional aspects of their education, in particular the strong applied focus of their study programs, were well aligned with the Ghanaian context. There was evidence that early recruitment at the secondary level and a defined recruitment strategy resulted in program participation across the 10 Regions of Ghana. A distinct subgroup of graduates currently residing in the Bahamas provided insights into the reasons for their non-return to Ghana or their decision to leave their home country again.

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This thesis examines 'improvement' of wetland commons in early modern England as a contested process of rapid environmental change. As a flagship project of agrarian improvement, drainage sought to alchemise pastoral fen commons into arable enclosed terra firma and promised manifold benefits for crown, commoners, and commonwealth alike. In practice, however, improvement schemes generated friction between the political and fiscal agendas of governors and projectors and local communities' customary ways of knowing and using wetland commons, provoking the most sustained and violent agrarian unrest of the seventeenth century. This thesis situates the first state-led drainage project in England, in the northern fens of Hatfield Level, in the context of the local politics of custom, national legal and political developments, and international movements of capital, expertise, and refugees; all of which intersected to reshape perceptions and management of English wetlands. Drawing on the analytic perspectives of environmental history, this thesis explores divergent ideas and practices generating conflict over the making of private property, reorganisation of flow, and reconfiguration of lived environments. This thesis argues that different 'environing' practices - both mental and material - distinguished what was seen as an ordered or disordered landscape, determined when and how water was understood as a resource or risk, and demarcated different scales and forms of intervention. Rival visions of the fenscape, ways of knowing land and water, and concepts of value and justice were productive of, and produced by, different practices of management, ownership, and use. Drainage disputes therefore crossed different spheres of discourse and action, spanning parliament, courtroom, and commons to bring improvement into dialogue with fen custom and generate a contentious environmental politics. In seven substantive chapters, this thesis investigates how improvement was imagined, legitimised, and enacted; how fen communities experienced and navigated rapid environmental transformation; and how political, social, and spatial boundaries were reforged in the process. By grounding improvement in the early modern fenscape, this thesis reintegrates agency into accounts of inexorable socio-economic change, illuminates ideas at work in social contexts, and deepens understandings of environmental conflict.