Climate change threatens the integrity of many parks and protected areas worldwide. Mountain parks are amongst the most vulnerable, facing changes in temperature, hydrology, glaciation, fire frequency, and pest and disease outbreaks. Species migration is a key tool in climate change adaptation, but often physical and jurisdictional fragmentation makes it impossible for species to migrate, putting species at risk of extirpation or extinction. Transboundary collaboration and regional planning are tools that can help physically connected parks and protected areas overcome jurisdictional fragmentation and allow for species migration, giving species a greater chance at being able to adapt to climate change. However, there are many barriers to transboundary collaboration and regional planning that makes this difficult to achieve. This research aims to address the challenges parks face with regards to transboundary collaboration and regional planning, and provide possible solutions for overcoming these challenges. A qualitative research project was conducted to determine the state of transboundary collaboration and regional planning in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, using Jasper National Park, Mount Robson Provincial Park, and Willmore Wilderness Park as the study area. A document review, questionnaire, and Importance-Performance Analysis were conducted to determine: the current policy within the Parks Canada Agency, British Columbia Parks, and Alberta Parks in regards to the management implications of climate change; the degree to which transboundary collaboration and regional planning are occurring in and around the study area with regard to climate change; the challenges parks face with regards to transboundary collaboration and regional planning; how these challenges should be addressed; and to determine what park agencies and managers need to be able to participate in transboundary collaboration and regional planning. Ultimately, it became clear that while transboundary collaboration is a potentially effective tool for climate change adaptation, little transboundary collaboration is occurring within the study area. In order for this to occur, all parks must have appropriate legislation, policies, and plans in place; British Columbia Parks has these, but both Parks Canada and Alberta Parks do not. Parks planners and managers are not able to put priority on transboundary collaboration until it is mandated within the management plans. However, parks managers are supportive of transboundary collaboration for climate change and it seems likely that the parks will use this tool as it becomes increasingly necessary over the next 25 years.

The study of place has been a component of the recreation literature for about three decades. Most researchers have sought to either describe the cognitive and evaluative beliefs (place meaning) recreational visitors ascribe to a setting or identify the intensity of the human-place bond (place attachment). Few have attempted to qualitatively investigate the meanings visitors ascribe to a setting and quantitatively measure the intensity of their attachment to that setting within the same study design. Nor has there been much work aimed at understanding these concepts in marine environments. In this dissertation, I began to fill these gaps in the literature through the use of a three- phase multiple-method research design. In the first phase, I conducted 20 interviews to identify the meanings that recreational visitors ascribe to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) and to further explore how the symbolic interactionist framework can be used to understand place meanings. Ten place meaning themes emerged from the informants' statements. The second phase used 34 items developed from the 10 meaning themes that emerged from the previous interviews and a place attachment scale to explore how recreational visitors' attachment to a marine resource was reflected in their depictions of why the resource is meaningful. Three hundred and twenty-four individuals, living in Queensland, Australia, responded to a postal/email survey conducted during January and February of 2009. The results indicated that all the meanings recreational visitors ascribe to the GBRMP provide context for the attachment they hold for the setting, however particular sets of meanings are important in differentiating between attachment intensity levels. The final phase, which also used the postal/email survey described, identified how place attachment affected the relationship, identified by Stern et al. (1995), between the recreational visitors' environmental world view (EWV) and attitudes toward negative impacts on the reef ecosystem. I found that place attachment partially mediated the relationship between EWV and attitudes toward impacts. The conclusions presented in this dissertation filled in gaps in the recreation literature's understanding of place while providing further insight into how place meaning influences other constructs important to natural resource management.

Abstract As an island state, Taiwan has developed a delicately close relationship with the resources in the ocean around her. The Pescadores, or commonly known as Penghu, is an archipelago located in the middle of the Taiwan Strait to the southwest of the Taiwan Proper. The waters here are crystal clear with every element there should be to form the best fishing grounds. For example, there are endless intertidal zones rich in crustaceans and sea snails and clams for baby fish of all kinds to feed on, and the coral forests in deeper waters offer perfect shelters for schools and schools of adult fish. However, in recent years, due to over-fishing, the oceanic environment has been rapidly and severely damaged, resources decayed. To retain diversity and vitality for oceanic resources and to make fishing here a permanently maintainable business, establishing oceanic nature preserves is a necessary, urgent thing to do. Nevertheless, restrictions and limitations that would come along with the establishment of nature preserves could very probably cause conflicts in between the fishermen, local public, experts in this field, as well as the local government. The Goal of this research is to derive effective and efficient principles of conflict management. By applying the conflict management mechanism the author offers to the rules of oceanic nature preserves, we should hope that the preserves in Penghu will set an example for the others to come in Taiwan. This research is basically a qualitative study. The¡§structured interview method¡¨ is employed to standardize questions for interviewees to answer or choose to answer. By providing interviewees with the framework of whole idea and asking them to answer similar questions, we can explore deeper into the core of the research. The interviewees include executives of Penghu County Chinwan Marine Protected Area, other officials concerned, experts that care much about Penghu¡¦s oceanic environment, nature protection group members, representatives of the two nearby villages, and the villagers. Besides that, this research also covers some depth study as to the uniqueness and variety of the coral communities in this region. This research has revealed that all people interviewed consider the establishment of the preserve site very important and essential to the preservation of both fishery resources and biological diversity. Out of the seventeen interviewees, thirteen (that is, nearly 80% of the people involved) do not think that the preserve site will do any harm to their interests, while the others do. The biggest conflicts are that the local people in the fishing business are worried about their careers being threatened, that local people have not felt well respected and participated in this public matter, and that there is quite some misunderstanding as to the policy regarding the preserve site. However, the villagers do wish to work this out through such ways of communication as holding hearings, villagers¡¦ meetings, or carrying our surveys. According to the press, this case, being a pre-conflict environmental policy issue in nature, has been experiencing quite some resistance. However, this research reveals that the negative powers are not so strong as reported; the desired balance can be reached when all factors involved have been properly taken into account. For example, by developing eco-tourism, local people can turn their fishing careers into scuba diving coaching, boat rental, or the like to retain their economical competitiveness. Besides, the government can help assemble a community development committee and a patrol squad for the villagers to spontaneously join in. This way, the government and local people can develop a partnership toward mutual profits instead of suffering from conflicts.

Abstract There are three marine protected or conservation areas (MPA or MCA) at Southern Taiwan that are enriched with marine resources. These sites are assigned by the order of government administration. The Kenting National Park was first established in 1984. In 1987, the Executive Yuan also passed two more coastal sites, Jien-sen and Jiou-peng, as marine protected areas. The government has adopted the strategy and policy on the marine coastal sites but it has lack of clarity on the administration and authority to manage the site since their establishment. The local residences also are not pleased with the site selection for setting up the marine protected area because of the problems of economic need and their livelihood influences from the protected site restrictions. These have caused the inefficiency of implementation on the management of the marine protected sites to protect and conserve the marine resources.The present studies research to understand both the Houbihood pilot protected site in Kenting National Park and the Jen-sen coastal protected area for a better operation mechanism with regard to managing the conservation sites. The research employs the literature search, interview to local residences and scientists to obtain information about the operation and management of marine protected site. These include the issues of site establishment, zoning and process, law requirement and implementation, public inquiry and participation, committee organization and site management. The obtained survey results were made to compare with the successful management scheme and organization of the Basin Head marine conservation site, Prince Edward Island Province of Canada. The Basin Head Conservation Committee serves a good example for setting up marine conservation areas in Southern Taiwan. The establishment of marine protected area requires background data information including the law and policy, organization structure, manpower and resources for the justification of implementation and its operation in order to achieving the protection and conservation at the marine environment. The present studies report that the government administration must have a unique guidelines and criteria for the national use as well the local application. The government shall draw a long term planning and strategy for law enforcement and practical cooperation scheme between the government, local organization including non-government organization and the assistance of Taiwan Coastguard Administration. The fundamental issues include the survey and collection of background data for the environmental and ecological data information at the marine protected site.

This research explores influences affecting livelihood decision-making of community members in rural Tanzania, especially the relationship between the decision-making process and conservation related actions and behaviours. The Theory of Planned Behaviour provides a framework to investigate such linkages. The selection of three villages within a study area which includes a formal conservation mechanism, Saadani National Park, provides a context for conservation policy, documented impacts on typical resource based rural livelihood activities and opportunities for livelihood diversification. The research documents the range of contextual and internal influences and their importance to people through reflection on both recent and potential future livelihood decisions. This research study employs a phenomenological qualitative research approach applied to a case study. Key informant interviews were conducted with two community leaders from each village, twelve senior tourism industry representatives from the three major local lodge operations and two representatives from the national park senior management team. Focus group discussions were also held in each village with a total of 82 participants. The groups were segregated by gender and age. Semi-structured interviews were held with thirty household representatives in each of the three study villages. Field data were supplemented with document analysis of materials related to local and regional community development and conservation initiatives. Results showed that in this resource based livelihood context, attitudes and perceived behavioural control emerged as the dominant influences on intended behaviour in part due to the importance of past experience on livelihood decisions. Participants expressed a lack of perceived behavioural control resulting from few livelihood options and changes in the environment resulting from external forces. Such perceptions of control, reinforced by past experience, led to attitudes that tended to be pessimistic or fatalistic. Secondary influences were a range of social norms including livelihood activities as hereditary occupations, notions of individual versus collective approaches to livelihood endeavours, and impacts of, and adaptations to, cultural and social change. Conservation had little direct influence on livelihood decision-making. The dominant attitude was one seeking to maximize returns from resource harvesting reflecting a priority on short-term necessity rather than long term sustainability. Relative to other external influences, people generally did not feel that their own use of resources played a significant role in the capacity of the resource to yield livelihood benefits. However, people did recognize environmental change and adapted their livelihood activities to maintain or maximize benefits. Such adaptations provide the basis for improving conservation behaviour through greater understanding and broadening livelihood options. Livelihood decision-making was also found to be highly constrained by the nature and scale of the local village economies. Scale restricts potential growth and limitations on land, and resources constrain outside private sector investment thus limiting expansion of wage employment. Significant influences from cultural and social norms were also found, especially with respect to the pursuit of hereditary occupations, the preference for individual versus cooperative enterprises and adaptations reflective of societal change. Information systems and flow were found to be relatively insignificant in the livelihood decision-making process of local villagers. / Graduate / 0366 / 0700 / 0768

This project explores the anxieties and contradictions that appeared in discussions of education during the Progressive Era by examining education theory, as found in the journals Education and The Playground, and comparing this theory to children's books of the era. I argue that turn of the century educators and authors promoted practical education so that they could use the school, the home, and the playground to accomplish two goals simultaneously: protecting children from economic concerns in the present and preparing children for the future by helping them develop the skills they would need to be productive citizens. However, in attempting to accomplish both of these goals, these individuals turned the home, school, and playground into contradictory spaces. This project first explores how these educators and authors resolved the tensions and contradictions present in these spaces--and the problems of class and gender underlying their resolutions--before examining why they were invested in creating a protected space for childhood in the first place and finally showing how the protected space they attempted to create became destabilized. Ultimately, I claim that these educators and authors made the protected space of childhood contingent upon the child's ability to submit to and absorb practical lessons learned on the playground and in the classroom and the home. Consequently, it appears that these individuals believed that children must earn their right to a protected childhood, but by insisting that children earn their protection, these individuals allowed economic concerns to creep into the supposedly separate childhood space. Each chapter of this dissertation will explore a particular facet of Progressive Era education--specifically, humanities courses, vocational education, and the play and playground movement--to reveal the anxieties that surrounded the intersections among the establishment of practical education, the desire to protect children from the workforce, and the need to prepare children for their futures as productive citizens. / text

With an increasing understanding for the impacts of scuba dive tourism on the marine environments and local communities world-wide, research has recently expanded to include the perspectives of ecology, socio-culture and economy. However, due to the common lack of a transdisciplinary view, the following research aims at fulfilling the gap by viewing the management of scuba dive tourism at the two marine reserves of Bongoyo and Mbudya, Tanzania, through a sustainable perspective. Thereby, the research examines the ecological state of the marine environment as perceived by the scuba divers, the operation of scuba diving, as well as how scuba dive tourism relates to the major possibilities and challenges of the marine reserves. Supported in nature-based tourism management and the theories of recreation specialization and recreational succession, questionnaires were handed out to divers and interviews were conducted with stakeholders of the marine reserves, including a scuba dive operator, conservation groups and a private interest. The results portrayed degradation of the coral reef, with scuba diving constituting a minor influence, in comparison to the greater challenges of destructive fishing methods and lack of regulations. Thereby, the research illustrates scuba diving as a positive contributor to the marine environment, raising awareness on the need for conservation within both the local and the scuba diving community. Finally, the research concludes with proposals of sustainable management strategies for the operation of scuba diving within the marine reserves.

This paper is about modeling the perceived social impacts of three proposed marine protected areas (MPAs), each designed to protect coral reefs. The paper argues that shared perceptions of these impacts have resulted in divergent community-level responses to these MPA proposals. The study is uniquely situated in the Bahamas where the government has approved setting aside 30 No-take MPAs (including three under study here) to protect the coastal marine environment. The paper is based on 572 interviews conducted during eight Weld trips with members of six traditional settlements in the Exuma Islands and Cays in the central Bahamas. Overall, 34% of the census population of these settlements was interviewed at least once. Key Findings are that an MPA can impact in either positive or negative ways (a) community agency by the process of siting, (b) community resilience by eliminating or supporting some components of their traditional adaptations to social and natural environments, and (c) community identity by precluding or protecting customary marine access. MPA impacts to local communities determine whether those communities will support or resist proposed MPAs.

This paper argues for the application of Risk Society (Ulrich Beck & Anthony Giddens) and Social Resilience (Fikret Berkes & Carl Folke) theories in the social impact assessment (SIA) of proposed marine protected areas (MPAs). The former theory is the most cited social theory in Europe and has been found to explain worldwide human responses to proposed projects. The latter theory brings to the SIA of MPAs proven notions from human ecology. This paper is based on an on-going assessment of proposed MPA effects in the Bahamas and the growing literature on MPAs.

These three talks present a summary of key findings from socio-ecological research conducted in Buen Hombre, the Dominican Republic.