<p> National parks and protected areas are an integral component of the Mexican government&rsquo;s long-term natural resource conservation strategy. They comprise over 90 million hectares throughout the country. However, the establishment and upkeep of these protected areas often incites conflict both between and among local actors. From poachers taking protected resources to indigenous peoples exercising their rights, protected areas have become a source of political, economic, and moral contention across the globe. In addition, their effectiveness in either ecological or sustainable development terms has been ambiguous at best. </p><p> Tulum, Mexico exemplifies this dilemma. The site of pre-Columbian Mayan architecture, Tulum is now facing explosive economic growth driven largely by an international tourism industry. This fragile ecological site and vulnerable cultural community have the potential to be seriously impacted by mass tourism. Accompanying the myriad social, political and ecologic implications of tourism are real challenges for park managers, who are placed in the delicate position of attending to federal objectives while mitigating on the ground realities. </p><p> This report chronicles nearly two months of ethnographic field work conducted with The National Commission for Natural Protected Areas, a federal government agency responsible for the management and administration of protected areas in Mexico. Preliminary results suggest that effective management strategies of protected areas are constrained due to &ldquo;top down&rdquo; and hierarchical management philosophies and approaches that do not adequately incorporate the multiple challenges faced by local communities, especially in light of the burgeoning tourism pressures. This report recommends the implementation of a participatory applied ecological management framework that adequately includes perspective from local actors. Hopefully, Tulum can come to represent a locality in which internationally-based tourism development can coexist with an increasing capacity for the adaptive management of natural protected areas.</p><p>

The Mid-Atlantic coastal forests in Virginia are stressed by episodic disturbance from storms associated with hurricanes and nor'easters. Using annual tree ring data, we adopt a dendroclimatic and statistical modelling approach to understand the response and resilience of a coastal pine forest to slow progressive climate change and extreme storm surge events. Results indicate that radial growth of trees in the study area is influenced by age, vigor, competition, microsite variability, and regional climatic trends, but dominated periodically by disturbance due to storm surges. We evaluated seven local storm surge events to understand the effect of storm surges associated with nor'easters and hurricanes on radial growth. A general decline in radial growth was observed in the year of the storm and three years following it, after which the radial growth starts recovering. Given the projected increase in hurricanes and storm surge severity with changing global climate, this study contributes to understanding declining tree growth response and resilience of coastal forests to past disturbances. This can help predict vegetation response patterns to similar disturbances in the future.

This qualitative research study investigated the expression of critical thinking in environmental subjects at university level in Australia. It also explored the strategies used by lecturers to encourage student critical thinking. Initially an open-ended questionnaire was sent to lecturers and tutors in universities across Australia and the responses from thirty participants were analysed thematically. From these participants semi-structured interviews were arranged with six lecturers and eight students from three different universities. The third phase of the research process involved analysing subject outlines and student assignments. Findings were triangulated to create a picture of the teaching and learning practices of critical thinking in this field. The three cases of Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering and Environmental Law were identified as having some common yet distinctively different themes in relation to critical thinking. In each discipline area three broad approaches to the expression of critical thinking were identified: scientific/technical, paradigmatic and reflective. The scientific/technical approach in science was most concerned with critique of experiments and studies, in engineering with problem solving and in law with the technical aspects of language and application of the law. The paradigmatic approach included critical analysis of the different theories, frameworks and paradigms of each subject. The reflective approach to critical thinking included students’ self evaluation of their learning within a specific subject. Notable differences between the three cases were the types of strategies used by lecturers to encourage student critical thinking. The Environmental Science lecturers were more inclined to use a wide variety of strategies, including provision of written material about critical thinking with critical thinking identified in marking criteria, discussion in class and guided exercises. The Environmental Engineering lecturers placed more emphasis on discussion in class than on providing written materials. The Environmental Law lecturers predominantly focused on the strategy of debating in class for the development of student critical thinking. The findings of this study are significant in providing support for the argument that development of critical thinking is subject specific rather than generic. This calls into question the use of generic skills testing for university graduates as a reliable measure of their ability to think critically in their field. The findings indicate that it is necessary for subject lecturers to be explicit with students about their expectations regarding critical thinking, particularly in relation to assessment. Findings suggest guidelines for lecturers including strategies and attitudes that encourage or hinder student critical thinking. Findings also suggest that the nature of the field of environmental and sustainability subjects lends itself to developing critical thinking, which is considered to be important.

The research is a critical analysis of the operational aspects of doing environment business with China through cross-cultural networks. In particular the investigation involved establishing an intensively documented, longitudinal profile of a single network. This network comprised Australian Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Chinese players based in the People's Republic of China. This profile covers a period of two decades. The research adopted a broad multi-disciplinary and inductive approach, using action research, case study methods, and systems analysis techniques. An innovative approach used time values as a constant to analyse the relativity of player connections, activities and structural levels in the network. This approach drew its applied orientation from the environmental sciences, and its theoretical base from the social science disciplines of marketing and international business. The specific field of study was the structure and evolutionary dynamics of networks. The outcome of the research is a model Australian SMEs can use for doing environment business with China. This model sets environment business in the context of a wider trading network of Chinese, Australian, South East Asian, and Middle Eastern players. The cornerstone of this model is the corporate role of the academic sector in accessing the Chinese environmental market. The research shows in detail how Australian SMEs can, and do, use cross-cultural academic linkages for trade. Such linkages facilitate market research, negotiation, risk management, product development, and the establishment of distribution channels in Asian markets. The study also demonstrates the importance of using a number of parallel nets of Chinese players to facilitate trade and overcome interruptions or obstacles. The research has contributed to knowledge by establishing an Asia-oriented, empirically derived model that differs substantially from the mono-cultural models in current practice in the Australian environment industry. The intensive investigation of the network of SMEs and Chinese players has identified the entrepreneurial strengths of SMEs in the international marketplace. This finding contrasts with the prevailing view that SMEs must depend on larger players for export success. In addition, the research has established that this kind of network has a clan-like structure. This finding is central to the model. The research demonstrates that a clan-like structure is a flexible framework that is compatible with the independence and capacity of small firms to adapt to change and to make decisions. This characteristic of SMEs enables them to proceed without, and at times in spite of, the encumbrances of large and unwieldy corporate and institutional structures. This finding is directly contrary to the belief prevalent in the Australian environment industry that SMEs depend on larger players to enter international markets. The finding also challenges the established view that Chinese networks are relatively closed systems based on family ties. The research shows that Australian SMEs can become part of these systems either directly or through links, and have many common attributes with their Chinese counterparts. The research has made a key contribution to theory by using these findings to develop an organic network model that differs from the so-called contrived network. This empirically derived theoretical model represents the seven dimensions of cross-cultural collaboration. The four social dimensions are the personal, organisational, sectoral and regional levels of a person-centred network, composed of nets of individuals with extensive linkages to other individuals and to organisations. The three dynamic dimensions are the triadic, the temporal, and the trading levels of interaction between the players. This theoretical model also demonstrates the depth of cross-connection between the nets of individual, and the embeddedness of the network in other networks. The model emphasises the centrality of time as the key connector between the social dimensions of the network and the exchange processes that characterise clan-like interactions. The model also represents the layers of evolutionary development that characterise the exchange processes in the network. These layers include adaptive processes, short-term exchanges, and long-term exchanges, and exchanges that derive from particular arrangements of players and market openings at critical points in time. This model extends concepts that have emerged from the original International Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Interaction Model, and gives empirical credence to recent philosophical, but untested, views on the relevance of time as a context for interaction.

While over 140 million people worldwide are at risk of drinking arsenic contaminated groundwater above the WHO guideline of 10 μg/L, the need for an efficient treatment scheme in actual groundwater conditions is growing. This study examines the use of zinc carbonate minerals for in situ removal of As(V) from contaminated groundwater. Batch adsorption isotherms compare the adsorption of As(V) to reagent grade ZnCO 3 and freshly precipitated ZnCO 3 minerals on calcite particles in buffered electrolyte solution and real groundwater. Column studies examine the exchange of calcite particles for zinc-carbonate minerals through injection of a zinc chloride solution and the subsequent removal of As(V). While arsenic adsorption in batch studies is greatly reduced in actual groundwater relative to synthetic solution, As(V) mobility is significantly impeded in column studies with R greater than 12,000 for both synthetic and actual groundwater. Plausible explanations for arsenic removal mechanisms are discussed.

Landfills in British Columbia are reaching capacity; this has sparked renewed efforts to curb the output of household waste. Extending previous quantitative studies, I use a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore what influences the perception of waste and activates the intention to recycle and compost. Participants from Ucluelet, British Columbia, accumulated their refuse, recyclables, and compost during a four week period; simultaneously, I interviewed them about the meanings and feelings they associated with the process. My results suggest that participants attitudes about waste are strongly influenced by what they see. Because garbage is regularly hauled away and dumped out of sight, participants were relatively unaware of how much they produce and its environmental impact. Increasing awareness appears to be a key factor in changing waste diversion intentions; incorporating small pro-environmental changes may lead to further changes. This reaffirms previous findings that adopting one environmental behaviour can empower further change.

Landfills in British Columbia are reaching capacity; this has sparked renewed efforts to curb the output of household waste. Extending previous quantitative studies, I use a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore what influences the perception of waste and activates the intention to recycle and compost. Participants from Ucluelet, British Columbia, accumulated their refuse, recyclables, and compost during a four week period; simultaneously, I interviewed them about the meanings and feelings they associated with the process. My results suggest that participants attitudes about waste are strongly influenced by what they see. Because garbage is regularly hauled away and dumped out of sight, participants were relatively unaware of how much they produce and its environmental impact. Increasing awareness appears to be a key factor in changing waste diversion intentions; incorporating small pro-environmental changes may lead to further changes. This reaffirms previous findings that adopting one environmental behaviour can empower further change.

Mining has been a major economic activity in the Canadian Arctic for the last century. It has made a valuable contribution to the development of this fragile economy and to the living standards of its inhabitants. The benefits include jobs and income, tax revenues and the social programs they finance, foreign exchange earnings, frontier development, support for local infrastructure, and economic diversification into a broad range of activities beyond the life of the mine. These benefits emerge as the result of activities and influences of several actors that exercise differing degrees of power, whether coercive or exchange by nature. These benefits, however, do not come without costs, particularly to Northern peoples who have suffered historically from the inequitable distribution of resources benefits and inevitable, adverse socio-cultural and biophysical impacts of rapid resource development. <br /><br /> Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) are a mandatory aspect of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Proponents wishing to develop natural resources on Inuit-owned land are required to negotiate and complete an IBA with the Regional Inuit Organization. These agreements have evolved from simple socio-economic contracts, to multiparty assemblages of agreements designed to promote sustainability beyond the operating life of the mine. <br /><br /> A political ecology approach was taken. Using this approach, it was determined that the distribution of decision-making power appears to be unequal and largely confined to the Industrial and Regional Inuit Association actors. As a result, other affected interests were marginalized in the process including members of the local community, environmental and other non-governmental organizations, and federal, territorial and hamlet government actors. <br /><br /> Nevertheless, the use of IBAs signal a recognition on the part of all stakeholders that historic mining practices are no longer acceptable and that it is now necessary to move towards a more equitable and sustainable approach to mineral development. <br /><br /> In order to answer the question of an IBA's usefulness as a tool of sustainability, a set of sustainable mining criteria was developed and used to assess whether, in fact, the agreement could be used to promote a more sustainable path to mining development in the North. After the application of the criteria to IBAs in general and to one case study in particular, which fell under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, it was discovered that the IBA instrument is limited in its utility&mdash;at least in terms of its current structure. However, in conjunction with other agreements and review processes, the IBAs utility as a tool of sustainability may be enhanced. <br /><br /> By the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement's very nature, decision-making ability on behalf of the community is restricted to the Kitikmeot Inuit Association that only represents the interests of beneficiaries of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the industrial proponent. Opportunities for broader community (non-beneficiaries) input appear limited, thus restricting the usefulness of IBAs as a tool of community sustainability, at least until this weakness is addressed. Moreover, on a broader level of analysis, it should also be noted that the IBAs still are designed to operate within the global, liberal, capitalist system which itself leads to power imbalances. Nevertheless, it should be noted that IBAs signal a recognition on the part of all stakeholders, that historic mining practices are no longer acceptable and that it is now necessary to move towards a more equitable and sustainable approach to mineral development.

Mining has been a major economic activity in the Canadian Arctic for the last century. It has made a valuable contribution to the development of this fragile economy and to the living standards of its inhabitants. The benefits include jobs and income, tax revenues and the social programs they finance, foreign exchange earnings, frontier development, support for local infrastructure, and economic diversification into a broad range of activities beyond the life of the mine. These benefits emerge as the result of activities and influences of several actors that exercise differing degrees of power, whether coercive or exchange by nature. These benefits, however, do not come without costs, particularly to Northern peoples who have suffered historically from the inequitable distribution of resources benefits and inevitable, adverse socio-cultural and biophysical impacts of rapid resource development. <br /><br /> Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) are a mandatory aspect of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Proponents wishing to develop natural resources on Inuit-owned land are required to negotiate and complete an IBA with the Regional Inuit Organization. These agreements have evolved from simple socio-economic contracts, to multiparty assemblages of agreements designed to promote sustainability beyond the operating life of the mine. <br /><br /> A political ecology approach was taken. Using this approach, it was determined that the distribution of decision-making power appears to be unequal and largely confined to the Industrial and Regional Inuit Association actors. As a result, other affected interests were marginalized in the process including members of the local community, environmental and other non-governmental organizations, and federal, territorial and hamlet government actors. <br /><br /> Nevertheless, the use of IBAs signal a recognition on the part of all stakeholders that historic mining practices are no longer acceptable and that it is now necessary to move towards a more equitable and sustainable approach to mineral development. <br /><br /> In order to answer the question of an IBA's usefulness as a tool of sustainability, a set of sustainable mining criteria was developed and used to assess whether, in fact, the agreement could be used to promote a more sustainable path to mining development in the North. After the application of the criteria to IBAs in general and to one case study in particular, which fell under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, it was discovered that the IBA instrument is limited in its utility&mdash;at least in terms of its current structure. However, in conjunction with other agreements and review processes, the IBAs utility as a tool of sustainability may be enhanced. <br /><br /> By the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement's very nature, decision-making ability on behalf of the community is restricted to the Kitikmeot Inuit Association that only represents the interests of beneficiaries of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the industrial proponent. Opportunities for broader community (non-beneficiaries) input appear limited, thus restricting the usefulness of IBAs as a tool of community sustainability, at least until this weakness is addressed. Moreover, on a broader level of analysis, it should also be noted that the IBAs still are designed to operate within the global, liberal, capitalist system which itself leads to power imbalances. Nevertheless, it should be noted that IBAs signal a recognition on the part of all stakeholders, that historic mining practices are no longer acceptable and that it is now necessary to move towards a more equitable and sustainable approach to mineral development.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan Technological University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.