Land informality, or the absence of clear property rights, has been identified as a strong cause for lower economic development performance. In Africa, despite the presence of a formal institutional setting of property rights and established laws, the practice of land rights has favored a persistent informal institutional regime. This dissertation addresses the reasons for the persistence of land informality in the presence of formal laws in the case of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. Using process tracing, I dissect the processes of land conflict resolutions within the formal and informal institutions in order to pinpoint reasons for such prolong informality. I identify a very coherent and organized institutional set within the customary institutions, and the ambiguous relationship these institutions have with formal institutions. The inability of the formal institutions to resolve the informality issue is not the result of incompetence; it is the result of survival mechanisms from both the informal and formal institutions. Informality is the effect of the layered institutional setting and persists because of the resilience of survival mechanisms.

Lesotho is faced with massive problems relating to the environment and landuse planning. The main concern is land degradation and soil erosion. The problems which have been identified are legislative and socio-economic. The social and economic make-up of the country makes it a difficult task to redress the identified problems. Lesotho has ample laws which addresses the environment and proper land-use planning but there is evident lack of implementation and law enforcement. A decisive government policy which recognise the importance of according environmental issues the highest priority is needed. This will facilitate proper implementation. / Private Law / LL.M.

As the United States becomes increasingly urbanized, the importance of federally designated wilderness areas as places of reflection and refuge from city life becomes even more apparent. These wilderness areas provide visitors with opportunities for solitude, recreation, and connecting with nature. Wilderness has long been important to American society, influencing the likes of John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry David Thoreau. With the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, the assurance that these areas would remain protected in perpetuity for the enjoyment of the American people was enshrined into law. While these wilderness areas remain protected by Federal law, increasing visitation rates and changing social norms may begin to threaten the so-called "wilderness experience," making it difficult for visitors to enjoy and experience the conditions set forth in the Wilderness Act. Wilderness managers must therefore seek to understand the attitudes, preferences, and motivations of wilderness visitors using these areas to ensure that management conditions provide for a high-quality wilderness experience. This study uses quantitative survey methods to explore differences in management preferences, wilderness conditions, and crowding perceptions between overnight and day visitors to wilderness areas. Visitors were surveyed at 30 trailheads throughout the Olympic National Park Wilderness during the summer of 2012. While wilderness visitors held many similar opinions on management preferences and wilderness conditions, there were differences in the degree to which they agreed or disagreed. Overnight visitors tended to be more sensitive to crowding than day visitors, both on hiking trails and at attraction sites, and were more supportive of management policies that limited access in favor of increasing opportunities for solitude experiences. This study supports the use of a management by objectives framework that incorporates indicators and standards of quality to ensure that certain conditions are met. Findings from this study can aid in the development of standards for crowding and the establishment of other management policies in Olympic National Park Wilderness to ensure that all visitors are provided with the opportunity for a high-quality wilderness experience.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 107-109. / by Virginia Chrisman Welles. / M.C.P.

This study serves as a first step towards a comprehensive hazard assessment for the San Francisco volcanic field in northern Arizona, which can be applied to local response plans and educational initiatives. The primary goal of this thesis is to resolve the conditional probability that, given a lava flow effusing from a new vent in the San Francisco volcanic field, it will inundate the city limits of Flagstaff. The spatial distribution of vents within the San Francisco volcanic field was analyzed in order to execute a lava flow simulation to determine the inundation hazard to Flagstaff. The Gaussian kernel function for estimating spatial density showed that there is a 99% chance that a future vent will be located within a 3.6 x 109 m2 area about 20 kilometers north of Flagstaff. This area contains the location of the most recent eruption at Sunset Crater, suggesting that the model is a good predictor of future vent locations. A Monte Carlo analysis of potential vent locations (N = 7,769) showed that 3.5% of simulated vents generated lava flows that inundated Flagstaff, and 1.1% of simulated vents were located within the city limits. Based on the average recurrence rate of vents formed during the Brunhes chronozone, the aggregate probability of lava flow inundation in Flagstaff is 1.1 x 10-5 per year. This suggests that there is a need for the city to plan for lava flows and associated hazards, especially forest fires. Even though it is unlikely that the city will ever have to utilize such a plan, it is imperative that thorough mitigation and response plans are established now-- before the onset of renewed volcanic activity.

What motivates agricultural-land owners to use conservation easements? As these legal tools have become a popular strategy for private land conservation in the U.S., a growing body of literature is examining how and why landowners conserve their properties through conservation easements. This research project expands upon environmental, geographical and rural land development literature through a qualitative fieldwork study of 34 private, conservation landowners associated with the Franklin Land Trust, a nonprofit conservation organization in western Massachusetts. The study identifies a broad range of environmental, social, spiritual and financial motivations for agricultural-land owners to conserve their properties, and indicates that for the vast majority of study participants certain motivations were more important than others depending on landowners’ level of reliance on their land to sustain their livelihoods. Using this classification criterion, landowner profiles identified in this study include full-time farmers, supplemental-income farmers, and farmland retreat owners. For most of the landowners within the biggest group—the full-time farmers—the most important motivation to conserve was financial; particularly, to obtain a cash payment to improve the economic viability of their farming operation. Nonetheless, the financial motivation was not the only important one for the 34 landowners, nor was it always the most important. This study makes two additional contributions to land conservation research. First, it examines agricultural-land conservation through phenomenological approaches to the study of place. In this regard, findings suggest landowners and land trust staff members have different relationships with the conserved land and its surroundings and, therefore, different senses of place. Second, the study frames agricultural-land conservation through conservation easements as a potential aspect of rural sustainability with respect to the economic, social, and environmental benefits of conservation, from the point of view of both agricultural-land owners and a land trust. The findings also indicate that the landowners of this study were generally very satisfied with the outcomes of using conservation easements despite drawbacks. Overall, this study contributes to land conservation studies through an analysis of individual motivations and experiences that shape the decisions of agricultural-land owners to grant conservation easements.

Landscape metrics, a means of quantifying landscape attributes, are frequently used in landscape ecology to describe the spatial characteristics of a landscape, but they have been less often used in anthropology. Using geographic information system (GIS) software, this study tests a method that investigates statistical correlations between groundcover landscape metrics and socio-demographic variables in Hillsborough County, Florida. Statistically significant correlations were found, illustrating the potential utility of this exploratory method. Wealthier areas with fewer ethnic minorities tend to be more fragmented and diverse in terms of groundcover; these areas also tend to have a lower percentage of impervious surfaces. The method of analysis is critiqued and applications for the results are discussed with the hope that they might help guide municipal planners in designing better urban communities.

Lesotho is faced with massive problems relating to the environment and landuse planning. The main concern is land degradation and soil erosion. The problems which have been identified are legislative and socio-economic. The social and economic make-up of the country makes it a difficult task to redress the identified problems. Lesotho has ample laws which addresses the environment and proper land-use planning but there is evident lack of implementation and law enforcement. A decisive government policy which recognise the importance of according environmental issues the highest priority is needed. This will facilitate proper implementation. / Private Law / LL.M.

The Irish Hills Natural Reserve Conservation Plan is a unique component of the Cityof San Luis Obispo’s green belt that provides a number of hiking and mountain bikingtrails within a short distance from the downtown core as well as ensures that valuablehabitat be preserved into the future. As the subject of my thesis project, IHNR presented the opportunity to pursue an aspect of city planning that can often be over-looked and, conservation planning. Conservation planning is an important element of the planning profession in that it incorporates such elements into the future growth of cities. With proper planning it is possible to foresee future development patterns and thus be able to designate and protect high value natural resource areas as open space, in order to preserve and protect their resources. In addition to setting the guidelines for preserving and protecting the natural resources and important habitats of Irish Hills, the conservation plan has a secondary effect of ensuring the future health of the surrounding habitats.

Thesis. 1976. M.Arch.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 118-122. / M.Arch.