Local institutions and Natural Resource Management

As researchers and policy-makers confront the challenges of and opportunities for improving natural resource management, increasing attention is being given to the dynamics of coupled natural-human systems. Interdisciplinary study of these coupled systems has generated considerable research and management innovations. Among these are more intensive research of the emergence and behavior of local institutions and consideration of the potential for voluntary and/or collaborative approaches to supplement conventional natural resource policy and management approaches. Front and center in this line of research are studies of local institutional responses to common pool resource management issues. Over time, this productive line of research is encouraging greater integration of insights across social science fields and identification of systematic patterns in research findings. Responding to such encouragement, this research blends insights from collective action theory, institutional rational choice and the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework to investigate the distribution and success of resource-based organizations. Moreover, our research makes a unique contribution to this literature by considering the spatial aspects of these institutions' formation, behavior and success. Lake associations are an interesting class of resource-based organizations. These local, lake-centered institutions strive to address management issues using informal and voluntary strategies. Lake associations are most common in lake-rich states, including Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, New Hampshire and Maine. The objectives of these groups vary from narrow (private road maintenance) to broad (watershed health). These organizations allow for lake-centered boundaries including multiple jurisdictions, provide a voice to seasonal property owners, and resolve some issues related to coordination, property rights, and transaction costs. The numerous and diverse lake associations of Maine are the focus of our empirical work. The primary research objective of this analysis is to develop an integrated empirical modeling framework of lake association presence and lake management success. To fulfill this objective, we examined the relative performance of empirical econometric models that ignore and address potential sample selection bias. Because we only observe measures of lake association management success on lakes that have a lake association, the sample is non-random. In our empirical work, entry into the lake association management success sample is further complicated by our reliance on survey data to describe management behavior and performance. A broad secondary research objective is to continue exploring the extent to which the Institutional Development Analysis (IAD) framework can be used to explain the distribution and behavior of Maine lake associations. We assembled an extensive spatial database describing natural and human features of 2,602 Maine lakes (Maine's great ponds; > 10 acres in size) to support this analysis. We integrated this extensive database with a smaller survey-based database describing lake association behavior and natural resource management success. Data describing the distribution and success of lake associations were drawn from non-government organization, federal and state agency databases and primary survey data collected to describe social and economic characteristics of Maine lakes. We captured additional lake and association attributes by manipulating various state and federal GIS databases and creating primary spatial databases. Results to date reveal support for the IAD theoretical framework in describing factors influencing the presence of lake associations. These results offer guidance on how to better integrate the informal approaches of local institutions with more formal, regional government-based management approaches. By understanding where local institutions are likely to form and what issues they are best suited to address, state and federal government agencies can better work with local organizations to address the complexities of natural resource management. Results explaining variation in natural resource management success and the potential gains from an integrated model of presence and success are less robust and are constrained by limited available data describing management behavior and success.local institutions, natural resource management, institutional economics, lake associations, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Conservation, Conflict, and Community Context: Insights from Indian Tiger Reserves

Protected areas across the world have been established to preserve landscapes and conserve biodiversity. However, they also are crucial resources for nearby human populations who depend on them for subsistence and to fulfill social, economic, religious, and cultural needs. The contrasting ideologies of park use and conservation among diverse stakeholders (e.g. managers and local communities) make protected areas spaces of conflict. This mixed methods study aimed to gain a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of these complex conflicts and potential solutions by focusing on the social and ecological landscapes surrounding two Indian protected areas: Dudhwa National Park (DNP in Uttar Pradesh) and Ranthambore National Park (RNP, in Rajasthan). Both parks are important tiger habitats surrounded by numerous, dense park-dependent communties. Using a social capital framework, we assessed how intra-community relations (bonding capital among local residents) and extra-community relations (bridging capital with park managers) influence support for parks. Because both parks are tourism destinations, we also assessed communities perceptions of wildlife tourism and local residents’ beliefs about tourism impacts on their communities and parks and wildlife. And finally, as conflicts are known to impede park management and can seriously hamper relationships between stakeholders, we interviewed diverse stakeholders (e.g., local residents, park managers, NGO representations) to identify overarching sources of conflict around these parks. Collectively, this study sought to answer growing calls for developing and implementing community-based management strategies to improve conservation outcomes. Such efforts are particularly challenging in countries like India, where histories of exclusion and oppression impede participatory conservation efforts. Our analysis highlights the importance of social, cultural, and historic context in protected area management, and provides critical insights that should inform conservation strategies that promote community development while d protecting biodiversity

Engineered ecologies: addressing energy infrastructure impacts on wildlife habitat & movement

Master of Landscape ArchitectureDepartment of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community PlanningTimothy D. KeaneAs the worldwide demand for energy continues to grow, vast amounts of energy infrastructure are required to support the expanding energy production industry. This infrastructure, taking the form of high-voltage transmission lines, pipelines, and wind farm installations, threatens the movement patterns and native habitat of many terrestrial and avian wildlife species. By utilizing the concepts of Public/Private Partnerships (P3s) and Social Capital, this study aims to address the energy infrastructure-induced habitat degradation and movement impacts experienced by wildlife within Kansas, Oklahoma, and Northern Texas. Building upon the research, management strategies, and stakeholder structure of existing conservation-based public/private partnerships, this study asks two main questions: how can wildlife habitat within existing and proposed energy corridors and installations be better conserved to prevent wildlife habitat degradation and barrier effects? and how can public/private partnerships utilize stakeholders to form design guidelines and policies for the conservation of habitat within existing and proposed energy corridors and installations? A review of literature on successful conservation-based public/private partnerships suggested that, while the concept of social capital has been successfully applied in P3s concerned with wildlife habitat preservation, there has not been a direct application of social capital or public/private partnerships to energy infrastructure and installation design and management. Case studies conducted on three conservation-based P3s, the Sage Grouse Initiative, the Lesser Prairie Chicken Initiative, and the Wyoming Migration Initiative, revealed that many of the same conservation planning policies and stakeholder composition strategies used in wildlife habitat conservation P3s could be easily adapted to existing and proposed energy infrastructure and installations. Case study analysis of precedential P3s aimed at identifying stakeholder composition, structure, and innovative or successful use of conservation strategies led to the formation of a series of design guidelines and policies for existing and proposed energy infrastructure corridors and installations. In addition, conservation planning and management guidelines focused on education and training for design professionals, energy infrastructure maintenance personnel, and practicing ecologists, biologists, and conservationists were developed. To test the effectiveness and applicability of the newly developed design guidelines and policies, two test sites were chosen that clearly exhibited signs of wildlife habitat degradation and barrier effects on wildlife movement resulting from the presence of energy infrastructure or installations. These two sites, located in Northeastern Texas and Western Kansas, served as testbeds for projective site designs, where design guidelines and policies for existing energy infrastructure corridors and installations were applied at two different site scales, and with two different types of energy infrastructure present (below-grade pipeline and wind turbine arrays, respectively). The results of these projective site designs indicated that the design guidelines and policies developed during the course of this study were successful in creating additional wildlife habitat for two target avian species, the Lesser Prairie Chicken and Northern Bobwhite. Umbrella species, specifically Mule Deer, were able to indirectly benefit from habitat creation as well. Additionally, it was determined that the design guidelines and policies developed within this report were infinitely scalable, allowing many of the same guidelines and policies to be adapted to industries as large as worldwide transportation, or as small as the horizontal directional drilling utilities installation industry. It is suggested that additional future research be conducted toward developing design guidelines and policies specific to the extreme Eastern and Western portions of the United States, as many of the guidelines and policies within this report are best suited for the Midwestern grasslands of the U.S

Offset Banking in New Zealand: towards sustainable development, with insight from international models

Biodiversity loss is an important issue for New Zealand: for the domestic environment, economy and society, but also for New Zealand as a member of the international community. Biodiversity offset banking is making an important contribution to addressing such issues in a number of countries around the world. Developing the ability to participate and take advantage of possible benefits requires comprehensively understanding both the fundamental principles and varying concepts, and supports the analysis necessary for New Zealand to progress towards offset banking. New Zealand can learn much from observing and investigating overseas models and use them as valuable templates. California and New South Wales provide examples of potential policies and frameworks (both economic and social) to establish and operate successful offset banking systems. Discussions of offset banking, both in theory and practice, frequently concern the potential failings of the system. These issues can be conceptualised as various forms of risk. Considering offset banking as sustainable development, this thesis addresses such risks to reflect the tripartite biological, financial and social framework of sustainable development. Biologically, risk is in the potential biodiversity outcomes are inadequate, unexpected or undesirable. Scientific uncertainty underlies this, both inherently and from the limits of current scientific disciplines. Through expanding scientific knowledge and experience, measures for reducing or accommodating the risk of uncertainty are emerging. Financial risk represents concerns that individual banks may lack the monetary support to achieve the specific biodiversity conservation required for the site. Also the system of interacting banks, bankers and traders may fail to produce financial outcomes that support effective and efficient biodiversity conservation over the breath of the scheme. Social risk lies in the potential that societies’ individuals conduct themselves in ways that conflict with achieving biodiversity conservation through malfeasance or negligence. Additionally, there is social risk that an offset banking system fails to respond appropriately to broader society and human, such as equity and intergenerational justice. Here, deliberating these risks is primary to appreciating how design elements and emergent properties minimize risks. Given comprehensive understanding, components of a system can be designed and allow informed policy, regulations and rules to offer successful risk mitigation. For this reason policy, rules and regulations observed within California and New South Wales helps to discuss this and establish guidance for New Zealand offset banking design to draw upon. Californian systems are achieving promising conservation and continued growth; New South Wales’ Biobanking scheme is robustly designed and in its early stages. Each contrasts in design and carries varying criticisms. California has been observed as potentially shortcoming biologically, whereas New South Wales Biobanking has been questioned based on the strength and character of its economic underpinnings. In addition to these considerations, New Zealand has significant societal perspectives to incorporate given current popular, socio-democratic conservation modus operandi. Identifying the three forms of risk present highlights the importance of allocating appropriate consideration and expertise to the biological, economic and social components of offset banking. Successful sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and risk mitigation may be achieved through designing mechanisms, regulations and governing policy for offset banking. New Zealand may therefore expand the success and application of current offsetting by taking guidance from examples and analysis presented here

Ecology-based planning. Italian and French experimentations

This paper examines some French and Italian experimentations of green infrastructures’ (GI) construction in relation to their techniques and methodologies. The construction of a multifunctional green infrastructure can lead to the generation of a number of relevant bene fi ts able to face the increasing challenges of climate change and resilience (for example, social, ecological and environmental through the recognition of the concept of ecosystem services) and could ease the achievement of a performance-based approach. This approach, differently from the traditional prescriptive one, helps to attain a better and more fl exible land-use integration. In both countries, GI play an important role in contrasting land take and, for their adaptive and cross-scale nature, they help to generate a res ilient approach to urban plans and projects. Due to their fl exible and site-based nature, GI can be adapted, even if through different methodologies and approaches, both to urban and extra-urban contexts. On one hand, France, through its strong national policy on ecological networks, recognizes them as one of the major planning strategies toward a more sustainable development of territories; on the other hand, Italy has no national policy and Regions still have a hard time integrating them in already existing planning tools. In this perspective, Italian experimentations on GI construction appear to be a simple and sporadic add-on of urban and regional plans

The role of equity in small-scale fisheries management

Cristina Ruano-Chamorro explored the role of equity in small-scale fisheries co-management. She found that different equity types relate to various social characteristics, that fair decision-making relies on recognition, agency, process properties, and interpersonal treatment, and that equity positively relates to management and conservation

Uncertain Futures : Adaptive capacities to climate variability and change in the Lake Victoria Basin

The Lake Victoria basin (LVB) in East Africa can be considered a climate change hotspot because of its large rural population dependent on rain-fed farming. Drawing on extensive fieldwork (2007-2011) in rural communities along the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Tanzania, I explore adaptive capacities to climate variability and change and discuss how they interrelate in situ. Using multiple methods, tools and techniques, including survey and rainfall data, individual and group interviews, interactive mapping of seasonal calendars and a multi-stakeholder workshop, I locate the place-based effects and responses to a number of converging climate induced stressors on smallholder farmers’ wellbeing and natural resources. Research findings show that adaptive capacities to climate variability and change in the LVB are complex, dynamic and characterized by high location-specificity, thereby signifying the value of using an integrative and place-based approach to understand climate vulnerability. Specifically, the study demonstrates how increased unpredictability in rainfall causes chronic livelihood stress illustrated by recurring and worsening periods of food insecurity, growing cash dependency and heavy disease burdens. The study also reveals that food and income buffers increase when and where farmers, particularly women farmers, collectively respond to climate induced stressors through deliberate strategies rooted in a culture of saving and planning. Nevertheless, the study concludes that smallholders in the LVB are facing a highly uncertain future with discernible, yet differentiated adaptation deficits, due to chronic livelihood stress driven by unequal access to fundamental adaptive capacities such as land, health, cash and collective networks

The Role of Social Capital in Natural Resource Policy Development

Social capital is used as a framework to focus on the nexus of society and natural resources in three case studies in the Texas Coastal Bend, USA. Social capital incorporates diverse social phenomena such as trust and reciprocity, engagement and cooperation, common rules and norms, and social networks. Capital exists in the relations among actors and the resources embedded in them (e.g. information and influence) that provide valuable assets that can be leveraged for individual or collective gain. I examined social capital as a resource for potential community involvement in whooping crane management using qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews of 35 individuals. Community networks of reciprocity and trust formed bonding ties strengthened by active engagement; shared values and community identity; and institutions fostering leadership and service. Bridging ties offered opportunities for knowledge sharing and legitimacy. Social capital in this community provided a potential resource to save time and money in addressing ongoing efforts to protect this charismatic endangered species. A case study of collaborative modeling provided an opportunity for stakeholders to learn more about an estuarine system and strengthen network ties. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy, I demonstrated how this social learning process led to increased cognitive skills in understanding the estuarine system. Through engagement and networking, participants established social capital useful for addressing watershed issues. Affiliation network analysis of five water management groups over a ten-year period was based on meeting attendance records. I examined stakeholder heterogeneity within each group. Network density provided insight as to how actors are connected and the likelihood that groups function cohesively. Network measures of betweenness and eigenvector centrality indicated important individuals within the networks that serve as leaders within and bridges between groups. Important brokering roles within the networks, of connecting otherwise un-connected groups, were filled by regional water authorities and conservation organizations. Network visualization showed the differences and similarities, and integrity of all groups. Together, these studies demonstrated how social capital is an invaluable resource for successful management of natural resources in the Texas Coastal Bend