Increasingly the body of research shows that tourism is vulnerable to climate change. Tourism is also a non-negligible contributor to climate change, primarily through rapidly increasing air travel. Recently, a number of tourism destinations that are dependent on long-haul tourism have expressed concerns about the impact of climate policy (both implemented and proposed) on tourist mobility and arrivals to their countries. This thesis examines outcomes from a model which projects how climate mitigation policy could influence arrival numbers to the Caribbean region; an area projected to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. While impacts on this region are likely to be both physical as well as economical, mitigation policy restricting emissions from international aviation is likely to be the first wave of climate change effects felt. This policy, coupled with the fluctuation of global oil prices, may be a significant deterrent for travelers to the Caribbean. Different scenarios using likely mitigation policy costs on international flights and oil price fluctuations were modeled to understand how these tourism-dependent nations might fair with increases in travel cost due to conditions beyond their control. Both region-wide and destination specific results were examined showing that visitor numbers could decrease versus a business as usual scenario with climate policy and heightened oil prices, but not significantly until climate policy with deeper emission cuts and carbon prices higher than currently suggested are put in place. Result are not uniform across the region, and show that certain destinations are projected to be more vulnerable to climate mitigation policy than others. Recommendations focusing on both the aviation industry’s inclusion in climate policy and those to aid the region’s tourism sector are provided.

Increasingly the body of research shows that tourism is vulnerable to climate change. Tourism is also a non-negligible contributor to climate change, primarily through rapidly increasing air travel. Recently, a number of tourism destinations that are dependent on long-haul tourism have expressed concerns about the impact of climate policy (both implemented and proposed) on tourist mobility and arrivals to their countries. This thesis examines outcomes from a model which projects how climate mitigation policy could influence arrival numbers to the Caribbean region; an area projected to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. While impacts on this region are likely to be both physical as well as economical, mitigation policy restricting emissions from international aviation is likely to be the first wave of climate change effects felt. This policy, coupled with the fluctuation of global oil prices, may be a significant deterrent for travelers to the Caribbean. Different scenarios using likely mitigation policy costs on international flights and oil price fluctuations were modeled to understand how these tourism-dependent nations might fair with increases in travel cost due to conditions beyond their control. Both region-wide and destination specific results were examined showing that visitor numbers could decrease versus a business as usual scenario with climate policy and heightened oil prices, but not significantly until climate policy with deeper emission cuts and carbon prices higher than currently suggested are put in place. Result are not uniform across the region, and show that certain destinations are projected to be more vulnerable to climate mitigation policy than others. Recommendations focusing on both the aviation industry’s inclusion in climate policy and those to aid the region’s tourism sector are provided.

Dive tourism is a growing and important industry which is often reliant on a high quality natural environment. As dive tourism’s significance grows due to its economic and ecological impacts on many tropical destinations, it is important to understand how this special-interest tourism may be affected by environmental change. Mass coral bleaching episodes, a phenomenon with potentially severe implications for the health of coral reef ecosystems, have been increasing in intensity and frequency over the last three decades. This has begun to affect the enjoyment of visitors and the prosperity of individuals and dive tourism businesses that depend on reefs. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to explore the perceptions, opinions and adaptation strategies of dive operators in the Caribbean regarding coral bleaching and its effects on their business and dive tourism. This study was guided by an exploratory, sequential, mixed methods design and consisted of two phases: phase 1, a semi-structured interview, followed by phase 2, a web-based survey. The interviews for the initial phase were done with seven Tobago dive operators in January 2011 to gain perspectives and insights from local dive operators before the web-based survey was sent out. The themes that emerged from the interviews include: a lack of government action, locals and reefs, bleaching and business, and moving forward. A larger regional web-based survey was chosen for a second phase of the study to test operator opinions across the Caribbean. In total 318 operators were contacted, with 90 completing the survey. The results were varied, but the overall consensus was that coral bleaching is an important issue, but at the present time a lack of reef protection is more important. Into the future the issues of coastal development and climate change become more prominent. Based on the 2010 coral bleaching event, which was projected by NOAA to rival that of the 2005 mass bleaching, the 2010 paled in comparison. The operators said it was not as severe as previous bleaching events and that it in fact did not have any impact on their business.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the macroeconomic effects of the earthquake that struck Chile in 2010 and the impact it had on the Chilean economy.  It is a narrative case study of a small, open emerging economy and the timeframe is short term. Like other studies made about macroeconomic effects of a natural disaster, it is surprising to find how fast a country can so rapidly recover from a big devastation like the Chilean earthquake 2010. The final economic impact depends on the structural conditions of the economy and the economic policy mix undertaken to handle the short-term effects. The paper shows that despite the big disaster, Chile showed great resilience to the adverse shook due to its sound finances and effective countercyclical policies.

<p><italic>Virgin Capital</italic> explores the impact of the Economic Development Commission (EDC) program in the US Virgin Islands and asks, "How do contemporary circulations of capital and people alternately build upon and complicate long-present hierarchies?" This dissertation approaches the EDC, a tax holiday program that has attracted a number of primarily American bankers to the island of St. Croix, as a space in which struggles over quasi-offshore capital produces tensions rooted in race, class, color, gender, and generation. These clashes surrounding `appropriate' financial and social investment have both integrated St. Croix into the global financial services market and produced a great deal of tension between EDC community and residents of St. Croix. Moreover, the presence of this program has generated new categories of personhood that in turn have sparked new debates about what it means to `belong' in a territory administered by the United States. These new categories of personhood are particularly gendered and alternately destabilize and shore up long-standing hierarchies of generation, gender, and place. </p> <p>The ethnographic basis of <italic>Virgin Capital</italic> is 16 months of fieldwork I conducted on St. Croix, USVI. Throughout the dissertation, I bring academic writing together with the perspectives of Crucians and `EDC people.' These interviews, both formal and informal, are central to this project as they make clear the ambivalent positioning of the EDC program and its participants in the current moment of increasingly global circulations.</p> / Dissertation

<p>This dissertation examines Haiti's crucial role in the re-making of the Atlantic World in the early 19th century. The point of departure for this work is Haiti's Declaration of Independence in 1804 and my research explores how events in Haiti raised profound questions about revolutionary legitimacy and national sovereignty. The emergence of Haiti as an independent nation fueled unprecedented international debates about racial hierarchy, the connections between freedom and sovereignty, and the intertwining of ideological and political relationships among nations and empires. While these debates came to be resolved in part during the next two centuries, they remain alive today both for specific nations and for the international community.</p> / Dissertation

<p>Sea turtles, marine mammals and sea birds are vulnerable to higher mortality rates as a direct function of incidental capture (bycatch) in marine fisheries. Their migratory behavior exposes them to multiple fishing gear types and fishing practices and efforts to understand the rates of interaction between these taxa and fishing necessarily entails analysis of data over large spatial areas (ocean-basin) and multiple types of fishing activities. The acquisition the requisite data, however, requires considerable resources and many regions in the world are data-poor with respect to bycatch, including the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) in the west central Atlantic Ocean basin. This dissertation presents the results of multiple strategies used to assess sea turtle, marine mammal and seabird bycatch in the WCR, with a particular focus on sea turtle bycatch. The research incorporated a synthetic review of the literature, expert consultation, statistical techniques, and geospatial analyses to assess the bycatch seascape for the region. I conclude that sea turtle bycatch in the WRC is significantly linked to turtle rookeries, especially those on the continental land mass and in the southern section of the Caribbean basin, in large part because of the near shore artisanal nature of the fisheries and the importance of these habitats for foraging and reproduction. The limited information on marine mammal bycatch does not permit robust inferences, but it clearly identifies threats to at least one vulnerable marine mammal species, the tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis). Information on seabird bycatch was even more limited; the most vulnerable seabird populations occur in the higher latitudes (temperate zones) while the seabird populations in the WCR face significant threats from habitat loss and over-exploitation. This dissertation proposes specific recommendations for improving and advancing the information base for a regional, ecosystem-level management and mitigation of bycatch.</p> / Dissertation

On 30 December 1986, a local fisherman incidentally discovered the remains of a seventeenth-century merchantman off the coast of Rincon, a small municipality on Puerto Rico's west coast. Some days later, he and some acquaintances extracted objects from the site and stored them in a nearby restaurant. The assemblage of artifacts recovered included, among other items, pins, scissors, ordnance, pewter ware, woodworking tools, a myriad of concretions and a nautical astrolabe. It is from the last that the wreck site took its name. The operation continued for months until local authorities, alerted by a member of the salvage group, issued a cease and desist order. At that point, the whole affair entered a legal process that on the summer of 2005 had not reached its conclusion. The purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, the author presents the story of the shipwreck from the moment it was found until the court ruled regarding ownership of the artifacts. Since this was the first time ownership of a shipwreck was debated in Puerto Rican courts in recent history, this gives the reader an idea of how legal precedence was established concerning the island's submerged cultural resources. Second, based on what was popularly perceived to be the site's most remarkable find, a study was developed on the sea or mariner's astrolabe, a navigation instrument that played a fundamental role in the process of European maritime expansion during the late fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The reader of this text will learn that, during the fifteenth century, Portuguese navigators saw the need to gradually depart from the traditional Mediterranean navigation technique known as "dead reckoning." As their explorations along the West African coast forced them to sail far into the Atlantic Ocean for prolonged periods, a new method was developed that consisted of measuring the angle of certain heavenly bodies above the horizon in order to determine the latitude of the observer with reasonable precision. For this purpose, instruments that traditionally belonged to the field of astronomy were adapted to be used by seamen. Among them was the astrolabe, which became the most popular by the turn of the sixteenth century. After discussing the instrument's origin and development, the author analyzes how a renewed interest on the nautical astrolabe, which emerged in Portugal in the early twentieth century, introduced the instrument to the field of modern scholarly research. This work also presents a catalogue of sixteen sea astrolabes, some of which have never been published. The catalogue shows statistics and other relevant information, while placing the artifacts in the context of the previously existing data.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 57 p. : ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-39).

Thesis (M.A.I.S.)--Oregon State University, 2002. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-82). Also available via the World Wide Web.