Privately owned lands provide a number of benefits to humans, including food, clean air and water, and building materials. Private lands are also home to a host of wildlife species and the habitats that they rely upon for survival. As such, balancing human and ecological needs on private lands is of critical importance. Stewardship is a term popularly used to refer to this balanced approach of managing land for a host of benefits. When landowners lack the interest, ability, or willingness to incorporate stewardship into their management strategies, incentives are often provided to spur greater conservation outcomes. This two-part case study is focused on private land stewardship. Using qualitative data analysis, I first examined the behaviors that a sample of production-oriented ranchers defined as stewardship. I then explored the environmental values underlying their behaviors. Utilitarian values dominated the four broad themes that emerged from respondents' operationalization of stewardship, including: maintaining economically productive rangelands, protecting water resources, maintaining an aesthetically pleasing property, and providing for wildlife. Next, I sought to better understand the impact of incentives on durable conservation behaviors. As incentives can reduce intrinsic motivation, I used Self-Determination Theory as a framework for surveying participants in an existing conservation incentive program. The results suggest that landowners maintained their willingness to continue protecting a threatened bird species following the removal of an incentive. Each paper concludes with an analysis of findings within the context of the empirical literature, and present potential practical implications for future conservation efforts. / Master of Science

The increasing use of litigation as a tool to influence land management decisions has been documented within the Forest Service. The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), which allows successful litigants to recover attorney fees and other legal expenses from the federal government, has come under much scrutiny in discussions surrounding Forest Service litigation. In spite of increasing interest surrounding the relationship between litigation directed at land management agencies and the EAJA, no empirical research had ever attempted to examine this issue. This two part exploratory study used records obtained from land management agencies through the Freedom of Information Act and publicly available tax return records to examine several aspects of the Equal Access to Justice Act's role in land management litigation. According to agency records, the Forest Service paid out over $6 million in EAJA awards from 1999 through 2005. Agency records also showed that the Bureau of Land Management paid over $2.5 million dollars in EAJA awards from 1991 through 2005. The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were unable to provide usable records regarding the amount of fees paid by each respective agency. The study also found that the entities receiving the largest number of EAJA awards were all tax-exempt environmental organizations. Interestingly, ten of the fourteen organizations that were examined for having received multiple EAJA awards also appear on Gambino et al.'s (under review) list of frequent Forest Service litigators. While this finding suggests that the EAJA may be providing a monetary incentive for these organizations to institute litigation against land management agencies, further research is needed to understand the degree to which this is happening. / Master of Science

No description available.

The thesis investigates the processes of the formation and functioning of Water Users Associations (WUAs) which have been implemented under the policy of Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) in Maharashtra, Western India. The thesis explores (1) how social and economic hierarchies shape the process of participation in WUAs; (2) the roles played by the State and Non-Governmental Organisations in the process of participatory development; (3) the ways in which processes of neo-liberalisation have influenced water reforms in a developing country like India. The study draws on different critiques of neo-liberalism, and it explores theories of participation to provide a holistic understanding of PIM (Participatory Irrigation Management) reforms carried out in Maharashtra. The study uses a qualitative approach, based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out over twelve months at two Water Users Associations in a village in the Nashik district of Maharashtra. The study finds that processes of participation are complex, and characterized by the vested interests of the different actors involved in the process of the formation and functioning of WUAs in the village. The WUAs have been able to provide water to many farmers in the area. However, the policy has been unable to achieve much success in terms of resolving conflicts among farmers and enhancing the participation of small landholding and marginalized farmers in the WUAs. I found that the process of neo-liberalisation does not challenge or reform traditional institutions such as caste and gender, but rather that it uses them to entrench market reforms. The implementation of WUAs' policy in the wider neo-liberal context has increased the powers of the State and NGO intervention in the formulation and implementation of WUAs policy. Processes of WUAs' formation and functioning are significant examples of the ways in which neo-liberalisation is taking shape in India, including the commodification of water, and thereby, the reproduction of existing hierarchies and power imbalances. The study contributes towards developing an understanding of the wider processes of neo-liberal governance in the water sector.

This thesis examines how constitutional reforms relating to the right to water in Bolivia have affected water provision in peri-urban Cochabamba. This multi-sited ethnography explores how the right to water has framed reforms to the Bolivian water sector, how and why the right to water has been contested in Bolivia, the impact of reforms to the water sector on peri-urban water committees and emerging challenges and opportunities for sustainable water provision in peri-urban Bolivia. It demonstrates that despite the high profile role played by Bolivia in advancing the right to water at the international and national level, in practice the right to water continues to be a fairly nebulous concept. There is a disconnect between Bolivia's international stance on the human right to water and national reforms around the right to water. This thesis contends that the right to water is a banner under which the water sector has been reformed since the election of Evo Morales in 2006. Even though the constitution states that everyone has the right to water, in practice water often continues to be provided through community providers such as drinking water committees (DWCs), largely due to the failure of municipal water provision. Reforms and policy have focussed on (re)nationalising the sector and establishing new institutions to regulate and develop diverse water providers such as peri-urban DWCs. Through detailed ethnographic examination of peri-urban Cochabamba, the thesis demonstrates that activists and community-water providers in rural and peri-urban areas have contested reforms linked to the right to water. They have contended that reforms have the potential to undermine community water systems, and furthermore, that the state has failed to guarantee basic human rights and service provision. To date, the state and non-state initiatives to enhance the sustainability of DWCs have focussed on certain elements of sustainability, specifically protecting the aquifer and enhancing institutional sustainability of DWCs. By drawing on the experience and development of one DWC, this thesis also explores further elements that present challenges and opportunities to enhance sustainable water provision in peri-urban areas, namely building equitable access, and the reconciling of local power relations.

Thesis (M.S.) in Resource Economics and Policy--University of Maine, 2001. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-67).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / An interdisciplinary thesis in American Studies and Environment and Natural Resources. Title from PDF title page (viewed on Oct. 31, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-129).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 7, 2008). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Detroit Mercy, 2009. / "24 April 2009". Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-161.).

Thesis (M. L. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes special report study entitled: The mixed uses of spaces. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.