Increasing development like roads and houses will alter the future landscape of Vermont. Development provides important resources for people and society, but also results in consequences for wildlife and opportunities for recreation. Managing development requires information on the public's acceptability of development and how acceptability is shaped by information on various consequences. In this study, I examined three questions: 1) What is the public's acceptability of development? 2) Does wildlife information influence public acceptability of development and 3) Is the maximum amount of acceptable development influenced by views about wildlife, involvement in recreation, and demographic factors? I surveyed 9,000 households in Vermont by including a questionnaire which asked about development, wildlife, recreation, and demographics. I assessed acceptability of amount of development using social-norm curves and used parametric significance tests and mixed-effects models to examine the influence of wildlife, recreation, and demographic factors. The survey response rate was 44%. The maximum acceptable amount of development was slightly more than 32 households/km2, and not meaningfully influenced by the broader consequences of development on seven common wildlife species. The public demonstrated a strong preference for clustered development over sprawled development, which became unacceptable at 20 households per km2. Maximum acceptability of development was significantly influenced by views on some species, including bear, bobcat, and fisher, but not by others such as deer, fox, raccoon, and coyote. Similarly, those involved in common forms of outdoor recreation, including birding, ATVing, hunting, fishing and camping, were significantly less accepting of development relative to those not involved in these forms of recreation. Maximum amount of development was also affected by demographic factors, including town density, respondent age, home ownership and location of birth. The results provide a baseline measure of the public's acceptability of development, which can be used to guide decision-making about amount and pattern of development, wildlife management, and efforts to promote recreation in the state.

The following research project examines the effects of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on the environment and the cultural integrity of the St. Regis Mohawk tribe in the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne. This indigenous community has been subjected to widespread long-term industrial pollution from nearby toxic hazardous waste facilities and Superfund sites. The Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne has the distinction of being the only tribe whose officially recognized territory straddles the border between the United States and Canada. Using qualitative methodologies, coupled with an interdisciplinary framework, this study successfully engages with Akwesasne community members to explore such issues as bottom-up approaches to addressing complex environmental issues, by gaining a comprehensive understanding of organizational structures and tribal governance networks. This study also identifies a clear parallel between the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne's struggles and history of environmental justice efforts in the U .S. by articulating the effects of environmental degradation on their cultural integrity, in addition to surfacing themes of resistance and resilience in the community as building blocks for future action. The research project focuses on the place of the community's voice in the transnational public policy response to PCB contamination in the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne. Three case studies were conducted in environmental organizations on the Mohawk Nation territory: the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe Environment Division, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, and the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment. These environmental organizations have been working to protect the environment for approximately three decades. A case study analysis relies on data collected from interviews with staff members to determine how they organized themselves to address the environmental and social disruption caused by exposure to harmful chemical pollutants. Strong parallels can be drawn as a result of an analysis of environmental justice literature, since native communities have not, traditionally, been included in the scholarly academic literature on the Environmental Justice Movement in the United States. In addition to information gathered from institutional policy actors and related stakeholders, in-depth interviews with community members revealed a community framework for future policy development and action. Finally, the research focuses on how those community voices articulate the impacts of PCB contamination on the natural resources in the area, and as a result, on the ability of the St. Regis Mohawk tribe to maintain their culture, heritage, ceremonies, and traditional way of life.

There is no clear consensus on the impact of local communities on the resources they manage, primarily due to a shortage of studies with large sample sizes that incorporate multiple causal factors. As governments decentralize resource management to local communities, it is important to identify factors that prevent resource degradation, to inform more effective decentralization, and help the development of institutional characteristics that prevent resource degradation. This study used remote sensing techniques to quantify forest biomass in tropical deciduous forests in Kanha Pench landscape of Central India, and used these metrics to identify factors associated with changes in forest biomass. Kanha Pench landscape was chosen because of its variation in forest use, and because forests were transferred over a period where satellite imagery was available to track changes. To verify that remote- sensing measured changes indeed constitute degradation, I conducted ecological studies in six villages, to understand changes in biomass, understory, canopy, species diversity and long-term forest composition in intensively used forests. To understand the impact of institutional variables on changes in forest, I interviewed members of forest management committees in fifty villages in the landscape, and tested which institutional variables were associated with changes in forest canopy since 2002, when the forests were decentralized to local communities. The empirical results are of particular conservation significance in India, where further decentralization of forests to local communities in scheduled under the Forest (Dwellers) Rights Act, 2006. Results indicate that local forest use is associated with decreases in forest biomass, understory, canopy cover, and changes in vegetation structure, species richness and diversity. Most importantly, I found that human use has the potential to alter long- term forest composition as transition of some species to higher size classes is altered where humans use forest more intensively. Particularly, species that are fire and trampling resistant are more likely to become mature trees in intensely used forests. Thus, local forest use is associated with forest degradation as the long-term trajectory of the forest is altered, and forests may not be able to provide ecosystem services including livelihood needs such as fuelwood, construction, and non-timber forest products in the future. At a broader scale, remote sensing techniques (optical imagery Landsat and RADAR imagery ALOS-PALSAR FBD) were able to quantify forest biomass at an acceptable accuracy (67 percent), while more easily operatable MODIS based EVI was not. Landscape analysis showed that changes in forest biomass from 2007 to 2010 were associated with high population density, high fire radiative power and greater distance to towns. Since people only travel approximately 2 kilometers for subsistence forest use, the significance of greater changes further from towns suggests that, at a broader landscape scale, forest degradation is not primarily due to local use, but may be a result of other factors. Action taken to exclude outsiders and lower meeting frequency of committees (never) were identified as institutional variables associated with remotely-sensed positive change in canopy over the period when forest management was transferred (2002 to 2010). Villages with no meetings were also associated with higher incumbency of committee Chairpersons and lower incumbency of other committee members. Simultaneously, while economic payments increased awareness and participation in forest management committees, economic payments were not associated with any action to exclude outsiders from forest use. This suggests that managers need to focus on factors besides economic payments to incentivize committees to exclude outsiders, especially as it is associated with positive changes in the forest. Further, while elite capture of resources (as indicated by incumbency and lack of inclusiveness in decision-making) is not helpful for social equity, it does not appear to be detrimental for forests. Overall, this study suggests a number of management strategies to reduce forest degradation. Managers could focus on forests at a distance from towns and roads, as this is where most negative change in forests appears to occur. They could also work with local communities so that their use of forests does not prevent regeneration of species important for ecosystem services. Managers could also work with committees to find strategies other than economic payments for incentivizing community protection of forests.

This dissertation in environmental history is concerned with human landscapes of groundwater extraction. Using temporal and spatial comparison, it examines the role of groundwater tunnel-wells and human understandings of groundwater availability in the Western Desert of Egypt; the Balearic Islands of Spain; and Iran. In an Epilogue and final chapter, it examines conceptions of 20th-century expertise for environmental knowledge and economic development.

This dissertation includes three papers related to climate, resource use, and market applications for sustainable development in developed/developing countries. The first paper describes the development of a game-theoretic economic model investigating the linkages between credit and insurance markets for smallholder farmers, and how a new market tool (weather index insurance) may help to overcome credit constraints in rural financial markets of developing countries. The second paper extends consideration of agricultural climate-risk management to potential skill in predictions of late-season rainfall over monsoonal Indonesia, with the aim of better understanding: (i) forecast skill and risk in this region, and (ii) how forecast information may be better tied with financial market products, such as index insurance, to improve smallholder farmer incentives, decision-making, and livelihoods under climate risk. The third paper, in turn, looks at forest resource management in Canada, and what the application of new carbon constraints and a market for carbon would mean for investment, production decisions, and indicators of sustainable forest management in the Canadian boreal, both in respects to the management of the landscape (i.e. the forest resource), and the development of the forestry sector and forest-based communities.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2014. / This thesis describes research that was conducted to investigate the causes of problems associated with the conservation of biodiversity in the Rwenzori Mountains National Park. The Rwenzori Mountains National Park faces conservation problems such as illegal harvesting of park resources, encroachment on the park boundary, and poor relationships between the local people and the managers of the park. These problems triggered this study because despite attempts such as intensifying park rules and regulations, implementing community-based conservation initiatives, and providing environmental education to local people to address the problems, they have persisted. This study was conducted on the premise that before a solution to these problems can be found, their nature and extent, and possible cause, need to be understood. The study involved: a) an extensive review of the relevant literature to identify factors that affect successful conservation of biodiversity in national parks in Africa, b) a critical analysis of the role of traditional ecological knowledge in the conservation of biodiversity in national parks in Africa, c) the development of a theoretical framework that could guide an investigation into problems associated with the conservation of biodiversity in national parks using the case study of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, d) field investigations on how local people in the Rwenzori Mountains depended on the park, and what factors influence their dependence on the park, e) investigations into the environmental education provided to influence people to support conservation of the Rwenzori Mountains National park, f) the development of a generalisable scheme of factors that influence local people to illegally access and use the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, and g) preparation of a model that could serve as a framework for developing holistic community-based biodiversity conservation plans in a rural African context. The review of the literature was done through meta-data analysis of publications systematically selected from various web search engines on the internet. This was followed by field investigations. In order to have an in-depth and holistic understanding of the issues investigated, a mixed-methods approach to data collection was used. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 163 randomly selected respondents from households in villages within 5 km of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park boundary. The study also involved content analysis of the formal environmental education syllabus documents, and documents on the Rwenzori Region Environmental Education Strategy and its implementation. It was found that factors responsible for both the success and failure of conserving biodiversity in national parks were socio-cultural and economic in nature. Although there was an increasing number of studies in the literature advocating for the consideration of traditional ecological knowledge in the conservation and management of national parks in Africa, most of those studies are theoretical, based on logical accounts and contestable historical reviews. In the Rwenzori Mountains, the local community illegally accessed the park to harvest 87 plant species, hunt 46 species of animals, and to conduct various activities. Illegal access to the park was influenced by a range of factors which interacted in myriad ways. Some of the factors (such as traditional beliefs) were situated inside mindsets of individuals and others (such as unpredicted weather conditions, lack of alternative means of livelihood and survival, commercial benefits, and bureaucratic procedures for legally accessing resources) were external to the individual. Previous attempts by the park staff to address illegal access to the park, and the associated resource harvesting problems, were judged to have been unsuccessful because the interventions did not target the underlying factors. This thesis argues for the use of holistic frameworks in investigating and addressing problems associated with the conservation of biodiversity in the Rwenzori Mountains National Park and has demonstrated how such frameworks could be developed. An adaptable model which could enhance more effective community-based biodiversity conservation has been proposed and recommended for future interventions in the management of national parks in a rural African context.

No description available.

One of the main threats to water quality in the Chesapeake Bay is contamination by bacterial loading from point and non-point sources. While only very high levels of fecal bacteria (greater than 200 MPN/100ml) indicate the potential of a health threat to humans from contact with water, lower concentrations (14 MPN/100 ml) make the shellfish from contaminated waters unfit for human consumption. Many nearshore areas that are vulnerable to bacterial contamination also are suitable for the propagation of shellfish, including the hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria). This is especially true on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where shallow, sheltered waters with optimal salinity and little pollution support a hard clam aquaculture industry that had an economic impact upwards of $48 million in 2004 (Murray and Kirkley, 2005). Over the past decade, however, development pressures on the Eastern Shore have increased, and land has been converted from forests and fields to subdivisions and strip malls at a faster rate than in the past. Even in the absence of a point source of bacteria such as a wastewater treatment plant, bacterial loads from non-point sources associated with increased land development have the potential to degrade water quality to the detriment of marine life and marine resource users. One area where the conflict between aquaculture and other water qualitydependent uses, and development pressure is building is the Old Plantation Creek watershed on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Using a GIS-based watershed model to simulate land use and associated fecal bacteria loads, linked to a Tidal Prism Water Quality Model to estimate the disbursement of bacteria throughout the water body, this study predicts that if development continues to the maximum buildout allowed under current regulations it would lead to the condemnation of a large portion of the shellfish growing waters in Old Plantation Creek. By coupling this linked watershed-water quality model with an economic Input/Output (I/O) model, it was possible to determine the economic impact of those condemnations to the aquaculture industry and the economy of Virginia.

The collection of fecal coliform (FC) monitoring data in shellfish growing waters is primarily to assess public health risks from consumption of contaminated product. The data is also commonly used to assess the potential sources and loads of bacteria entering the aquatic system. This project is intended to extend traditional methods of developing these assessments, by applying an inverse modeling approach to improve the estimation of FC loads in the small watersheds typically contributing to shellfish growing waters in Virginia. Many fecal contamination studies in lower Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, have conveniently focused on analyses over relatively small spatial and temporal scales. The potential sources of bacteria are numerous and the magnitude of their contributions is commonly unknown (Hyer and Moyer, 2004). The effects of stochastic events merely complicate the already difficult task of quantifying sources and loads in an inherently variable system (White et al., 2008). Instead of identifying and quantifying individual fecal bacteria sources, like deer or raccoons or domestic animals, it is herein proposed to analyze spatial and temporal patterns of fecal contamination on relatively large scales and quantify FC loadings based on land cover. The result would make it easier for managers to assign land-cover-based accountability to restore fecal contaminated environments. Monitoring of FC concentrations throughout Virginia by the Division of Shellfish Sanitation (DSS) provided an opportunity to analyze FC levels from 1984 to the present and quantify FC loadings by type of land cover. There are three aspects in this study---spatial analysis of FC data, temporal analysis of FC data, and FC loadings quantification based on the findings from spatial and temporal analyses. GIS tools and a variety of statistical methods are used in combination with an inverse modeling approach. The modeling method was based on some basic concepts incorporated in the Watershed Management Model and the Tidal Prism Model currently used to develop Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) models for Virginia waters. The core contributions of this dissertation are: (1) This study provided a thorough examination of FC monitoring data in Virginia coastal waters and described how contamination levels are expressed at different spatial and temporal scales. Analyses examined tidal effects, regional effects, land condition effects, and climate effects. Results not only inform management decisions, but also provide guidance for the subsequent quantification of fecal bacteria loadings. (2) Fecal bacteria loadings are quantified as a function of land cover. The model developed in this study avoids the problems associated with using highly varied and poorly documented FC production rates and population numbers. Although the model is simple, the magnitude of Fecal Coliform Event Mean Concentration (FCMC) values based on land covers effectively distinguished the seasonal FC loadings.

Many production activities typically produce undesirable outputs, e.g., the production of the pollutant sulfur dioxide in the generation of electricity. Traditional economic metrics may overstate the efficiency and productivity of these production activities by failing to account for the undesirable outputs. These omissions can lead to conclusions that are biased against resource conservation and protection. Many fisheries capture their target species concomitantly with undesirable outputs such as bycatch of juvenile fish, marine mammals, sea birds, and sea turtles. One such fishery is the California-Oregon (CA/OR) drift gillnet fishery (DGNF), which incidentally takes protected species, such as sea turtles and marine mammals while harvesting swordfish and thresher shark. Beginning in August of 2001, regulatory measures to reduce the take of endangered species (e.g., leatherback sea turtles) have required the annual closure of an area located between Point Conception and 45?? N. latitude, for the time period August 15 to November 15. This regulatory closure acts as a natural experiment for assessing the impact of the time-area closure on the productivity of the CA/OR DGNF. The three primary purposes of this research were to measure the impact of the 2001 time-area closure on the productivity of the CA/OR DGNF, and to estimate the opportunity cost or shadow price of undesirable outputs. These shadow prices provide lower bound estimates of the social costs of conservation regulations intended to protect endangered leatherback sea turtles and other bycatch species. An alternative method which models the joint production of both desirable and undesirable outputs, the directional output distance function approach, was used to estimate the efficiency and productivity of drift gillnet fishing trips, thus crediting trips with reductions in undesirable harvest and increases in desirable outputs for the time period 1996-2008. By incorporating undesirable harvest into the production process, a more appropriate measure of total factor productivity was calculated than what is provided by traditional productivity measures. The new productivity measure can be used to develop more effective policies designed to maintain or improve a fishery's economic performance. The results indicate that efficiency and productivity measures which ignore undesirable outputs substantially misinterpret the economic performance of economic trips. The model that incorporates undesirable outputs indicates that productivity per trip has been growing by 788 pounds of swordfish over the research period relative to the base year. This is considerably lower than the average growth of 964 pounds when undesirable outputs are ignored and 878 pounds when undesirable outputs are allowed to expand. However, post-closure averages suggest that conventional estimates understate the economic performance of the observed trips. Post-closure productivity growth resulted in an increase of 334 pounds of swordfish harvest when adjusted for undesirable outputs. Average trip shadow prices (per animal captured) revealed a conservation opportunity cost for the reduction of undesirable outputs of &2,500 for marketable discards, &6,600 for unmarketable discards, &28,800 for sea turtles, and &9,800 for marine mammals in forgone composite swordfish and thresher shark revenue.