Browsing by Author "Cheng, Tony, committee member"
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Item Open Access Climate change adaptation on public lands: policy, vulnerability assessments, and resilience in the U.S. Forest Service(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Timberlake, Thomas, author; Schultz, Courtney, advisor; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Fernández-Giménez, María, committee member; Duffy, Robert, committee memberTo view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.Item Open Access Community-based rangeland management and social-ecological resilience of rural Mongolian communities(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Baival, Batkhishig, author; Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria, advisor; Sherman, Kathy P., committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Reid, Robin, committee memberThis research is an attempt to apply a resilience framework to understand how pastoral social-ecological systems respond to change, and the potential role of formal CBRM institutions in this process. The resilience principles of Folke, Colding & Berkes (2003): 1) learning to live with change and uncertainty, 2) nurturing diversity for reorganization and renewal, 3) combining different types of knowledge for learning and 4) creating opportunity for self-organization toward social-ecological sustainability were assessed in two pairs of adjacent herding communities with and without community-based rangeland management (CBRM) experience. The social-ecological systems in both CBRM and non-CBRM herding communities demonstrated that their capacities to respond to crisis and disturbances are deeply embedded in local knowledge, practices, and social networks. Community-based rangeland management communities have shown potentials to facilitate adaptation and resilience building if such organizations are based on and further develop existing cooperation of customary neighborhoods. Community-based rangeland management offers structures that contemporary pastoral society needs to have in place to stimulate new learning for constructive change. As part resilience building for Mongolian pastoral social-ecological systems, I propose linking the resilience framework to the meaningful local nutag wisdom or framework to inform national and international stakeholders about locally appropriate or nutag appropriate strategies and approaches to natural resource management and rural development.Item Open Access Demographic processes in forest trees in the Rocky Mountains(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Buechling, Arne, author; Martin, Patrick H., advisor; Bauerle, Bill, committee member; Brown, Peter M., committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee memberForests provide numerous ecological and economic services including regulation of biogeochemical cycles, fiber production, watershed protection, as well as less tangible aesthetic and recreational benefits. Forests are being substantially altered by a range of consumptive uses related to expanding human population and economies. Superimposed on other anthropogenic impacts is global climate change. Global circulation models unambiguously reveal the role of greenhouse gas forcings associated with industrial processes in driving global temperature trends (Hanson et al. 2005). Meteorological observations indicate that global mean temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 C over the past century relative to a base 1951 to 1980 period, with record high temperatures occurring in 2010. Paleoclimatic reconstructions based on proxy data indicate that modern rates of warming may be unprecedented in the context of the past 1000 years. Rates of warming are geographically heterogeneous. Temperature anomalies in the Rocky Mountain ecoregion, for example, are 2‒3 times higher than the global mean temperature increase. Some models and observational data suggest that temperature trends are elevation dependent with greater warming at high altitudes and with greater increases in daily minimum temperatures than maximum temperatures. Documented increases in minimum temperature is associated with earlier spring thaw events, driven by minimum temperatures that exceed 0 °C and a lengthening of the growing and fire seasons. In the Rocky Mountains, an altered climate system is projected to result in a higher frequency and intensity of drought events. Precipitation over the previous 100 years lacks clear trends across the region as a whole, but models of snow water equivalent (SWE) indicate declining moisture availability since the mid-20th century. Early spring snowmelt and warming driven increases in rates of evapotranspiration may correlate with reduced stream flow and declines in effective soil moisture late in the growing season. Warming temperatures and reductions in moisture availability have been associated with significant increases in area burned by wildfire in some forest systems, particularly at high elevations where climate variability rather than fuel conditions is the primary driver of fire activity. Changing climate may also be expanding the ranges and altering the dynamics of forest insects, such as the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), resulting in extensive tree mortality. The recent widespread acceptance of climate change has highlighted the need for regional and species specific adaptation strategies. However, a lack of reliable projections describing the responses of organisms and communities to climate change has been identified as a major impediment to the development and implementation of climate adaptation strategies within federal agencies. Potential vegetation responses include migration to track preferred habitats or adaptation through phenotypic or genetic plasticity. Heat stress and prolonged drought have been associated with rapid shifts in the range limits of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and in significantly elevated rates of background tree mortality for tree species and forest environments worldwide. Mortality events associated with physiological stress or environmental disturbances may accelerate changes in the distributions of long-lived tree species that might otherwise persist in sub-optimal environments. The distribution and abundance of plants are largely determined by physiological, life history, and ecosystem processes, and how these processes interact or respond to climate. A mechanistic understanding of these processes and their physiological thresholds is required to accurately predict forest response to climate change. The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group has argued that current predictive vegetation models are limited by a failure to adequately quantify relationships between climate, critical life history processes, and disturbance regimes. The main objective of this research is to quantify life history processes for select tree species in the Rocky Mountain ecoregion. Specifically, non-linear regression models will be developed to quantify variation in both tree fecundity and growth as a function of climate variables, edaphic gradients, and competition. Comprehensive field data will be used to train flexible functions in a maximum likelihood framework. Competing models representing alternative hypotheses will be evaluated using information theory. The overarching objective of this project is to provide detailed quantitative life history information that may subsequently be used to parameterize dynamic simulation models for the prediction of forest response to alternative future climate scenarios. An additional component of this research involves the reconstruction of historical temperatures in the southern portion of the Rocky Mountain ecoregion using chronologies of radial growth from several high elevation tree species occurring in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. Historical temperatures have been reconstructed for northern portions of the Rocky Mountain ecoregion. A comparable reconstruction for the southern portion of the region has not been developed. Global climate models predict that parts of the Rockies may experience future climates with no previous analogs. Historical temperature reconstructions based on proxy indicators will provide historical context for both modern climate variation and simulations of future conditions.Item Open Access Examining rangeland social-ecological system change and resilience through life-history narratives of ranching women in New Mexico and Arizona(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Wilmer, Hailey, author; Fernández-Giménez, María E., advisor; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Jennings, Louise, committee memberWomen ranchers are important but under-examined stakeholders in the rangeland systems of the Southwestern United States. This thesis addresses a gap in the social-ecological systems and rangeland science literatures as to how these stakeholders experience change and resilience in ranching. Rangeland researchers are increasingly interested in understanding rangelands as integrated social-ecological systems and in investigating the roles of humans as both drivers and subjects of ecological change. To address these needs, I carried out life-history interviews with 19 ranching women in the Southwestern U.S. and analyzed the resulting transcripts using narrative analysis to address two research questions: 1) how do ranching women experience change on rangelands over the course of their lifetimes? and 2) how do ranching women experience resilience in ranching? Each research question is addressed in a separate manuscript. Chapter 2 explores common themes in women's experiences with change in ranching. The results reveal the following eight common experiences of women ranchers, illustrating that ranching is a life-long learning process: 1) learning from older generations, 2) finding a personal career path, 3) operating livestock businesses, 4) breaking gender barriers, 5) leading communities, 6) aging and going on alone, 7) living close to the land, and 8) passing the ranching tradition to the next generation. These findings suggest that women contribute to social resilience in rangeland systems through their leadership and life-long career paths in ranching in the face of economic hardship and ecological challenges. Chapter 3 examines women ranchers' contradicting material and discursive ranching practices related to resilience. Material practices denote what people do and discourse denotes how people talk about what they should do. Material-discursive contradictions between women's ranching practices and ideologies of ranching culture include contradictions between ranching as a livelihood and financial hardship, between ecological disturbances and range management paradigms, and between gender discourses and women's material practices as ranchers. Discursive-discursive contradictions reveal conflicting ranching paradigms, epistemologies and discourses on the future of ranching. These contradictions demonstrate how women's ranching practices change in response to broader social, ecological and economic change events, and illustrate that assessment of social-ecological system (SES) resilience depends upon the perspective of the observer. Ranching women's narratives help us to understand which changes in material practices and discourse can be accommodated within the rangeland SES that they value, and which changes threaten the existence of that system. Material and discursive practices that appear to support resilience from an external (etic) view, may threaten resilience from an internal (emic) perspective. Analysis of ranching women's daily material and discursive practices can also help identify specific material and discursive changes--and adaptations--in ranching culture. This insight shows why it is critical for social-ecological systems scholars and practitioners to engage with social theory and methodology when studying resilience, and to broaden and deepen inquiry to understand the cultural, historical and gendered contexts of the decision-making processes of women and other stakeholders in rangeland systems.Item Open Access Governance approaches for scale mismatches in pre-wildfire planning and post-wildfire response and recovery(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Buettner, William Cole, author; Schultz, Courtney, advisor; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Scott, Ryan, committee memberWildfires in the western United States have become an increasingly complex management challenge. Increased fire extent and severity, longer fire seasons, housing development in the wildland-urban interface, jurisdictional complexities, and interactions between fire and other disturbances combine to exacerbate risks to different critical values. Managers have recognized the need for greater pre-wildfire planning by reducing wildfire risk through fuel treatments and contingency planning in anticipation of fire. Less explored, however, are how managers are responding to changing environmental conditions after wildfires and planning for long-term recovery efforts. Challenges in pre-wildfire planning and post-wildfire response and recovery share similar scalar mismatches that frustrate effective governance. Scale is the spatial, temporal, and functional dimensions used to measure and study any phenomenon, and mismatches arise from challenges within relationships between ecological and social systems. In this thesis, I explore different scale mismatches in pre-wildfire and post-wildfire management to derive an understanding of potential adaptation options in complex management systems. This thesis consists of five standalone chapters. The first chapter introduces the two primary studies and reviews relevant literature related to wildfire governance and tools used to facilitate adaptive management approaches. The second chapter is a peer-reviewed manuscript that investigates the use of Potential Wildfire Operational Delineations (PODs) for fire and fuel management. In collaboration with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, we filled gaps in PODs research by investigating how PODs are being utilized in non-incident management contexts to align forest and fire planning objectives with incident response tactics. We found that PODs help validate fuel treatment plans and support communication among agency staff, and with private landowners and collaborators. Challenges included lack of technical knowledge and skills, unclear leadership direction, potential misalignment with other forest management goals, and community and agency buy-in to using PODs. Recommendations from interviewees were to address knowledge gaps and capacity challenges. In our paper, we offer insights into how PODs are being utilized within our case studies and align these findings with the diffusion of innovation literature. This second chapter of my thesis has already been published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire as a Research Note. The third chapter, intended for a practitioner audience, explores the governance approaches to post-wildfire policies and programs following the Hermit's Peak-Calf Canyon Fire response and recovery efforts. Interviewees shared program and policy challenges, adding that policies did not incorporate local contexts, had prolonged treatment timelines, and federal staff were uneducated on program nuances. Facilitators of success were the Monsoon Taskforce and Lines of Effort Framework created by New Mexico State Agencies to allow for greater communication, coordination, and collaboration. Interviewees recommended an increase in workforce capacity and education, as well as legislative changes. The fourth chapter, intended for a peer-reviewed journal, aligns adaptive governance theory and literature on boundary organizations with the governance approaches following the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Wildfire. I found that adaptive governance arrangements are occurring in New Mexico and that boundary organizations are playing a significant role by facilitating information transfer and addressing knowledge gaps. In chapter five, I share concluding thoughts for both studies and suggestions for further inquiry and policy guidance.Item Open Access Investigating policy tools and variables to support collaborative governance and collective learning: a programmatic assessment of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) McIntyre, Kathleen B., author; Schultz, Courtney, advisor; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Fernández-Giménez, Maria, committee member; Duffy, Robert, committee memberCollaborative governance has increased in prominence as a potential policy tool to support natural resource management within forest contexts. Until recently, there has been little formal space within the governance regime to support collaboration. The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) was authorized by Congress in 2009 to facilitate large landscape restoration projects on federal forest lands through a focus on fire-adapted ecosystems, a mandate to monitor, and a mandate to collaborate throughout the lifetime of the project. In 2017, we conducted a third-party programmatic review of the CFLRP program to assess both theoretical and applied implications of this policy within the collaborative forest restoration context. This dissertation seeks to examine policy that supports collaboration and collective learning within US forest management contexts, and answer questions regarding whether collaborative policy innovations garner collaborative benefits. I also examine the challenges groups face, the factors that influence collaboration, and what types of collective learning activities occur under collaborative policy innovations. Using qualitative research methods including participant observation and interviews, I address these practical and theoretical research questions through three chapters (Chapters 2, 3, and 4). In Chapter 2, I assess to what extent the CFLRP program supported collaborative governance and seek to identify the variables that influence and support collaboration. This chapter reports on the theoretical research questions regarding collaborative benefits interviewees attributed to the program and the various top-down, structural and local, contextual variables that influence collaboration on projects. From these findings, I draw conclusions regarding policy tools and policy implementation to support collaborative governance in forest management. Chapter 3 addresses to what extent the CFLRP program supported collective learning activities and outcomes and the variables that may influence successful collective learning across the program. Collective learning is closely related to collaborative governance and critical to ensuring collaboration and adaptive governance are successful in terms of sharing lessons learned. We identify a variety of activities occurring on each project and then across projects that indicate a level of collective learning within the CFLRP program and ultimately a system of multi-level network governance. These findings have larger implications for building public-private partnerships in an era of decreasing agency budgets and staff capacity. Lastly, Chapter 4 addresses our more applied research objectives regarding the benefits and challenges reported under the CFLRP program. This chapter specifically seeks to identify the value-added and challenges of the program as reported by participants. I report on the practice and policy implications from the CFLRP program in terms of collaborative forest restoration policies within US natural resource governance contexts. The CFLRP program provided a unique opportunity to programmatically assess whether policy can effectively support collaboration, the various local, contextual and top-down, structural variables that were influential in terms of collaborative success, and whether the program was supporting collective learning activities and outcomes. This dissertation sought to fill these research gaps and contribute to the collaborative governance and forest management literature. Within my conclusion, I review the major themes across my chapters and propose future research directions and questions regarding forest management and collaborative governance. Ultimately, my chapters show that there are variety of variables both top-down, structural and local, contextual that both support and facilitate collective learning and collaborative governance, which has implications for crafting more effective natural resource policies. Our research indicates that the CFLRP program effectively supported collaboration and collective learning, and generated a variety of valuable benefits that contributed to the accomplishment of more holistic restoration work and indicated that collaboration can be a valuable policy tool for natural resource management in the future.Item Open Access Mapping the landscape of wildfire risk mitigation: understanding the links between equity, community assets, capacities, and collaboration(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Courtney, Karissa, author; Salerno, Jonathan, advisor; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Walker, Sarah, committee memberWildfire is a natural process that has shaped landscapes for millennia, but its exclusion since Euro-American settlement has had negative effects on forest health and composition, increasing the risk of large, high-severity wildfires. Many communities are grappling with this increased risk, as more people move into the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and climate change exacerbates hot, dry conditions that may help wildfires spread. Actions such as prescribed burning, hand or mechanical thinning, creating defensible space around structures, and home hardening can reduce communities' risk of wildfire but often require coordination with state, local, and federal partners, as well as time and money. Here, we explore community capacity to reduce impacts of wildfire. Collaboration, time and money are just a few indicators that make up a community's capacity reduce wildfire impacts, which can affect the strategies they are able to implement (i.e., communities with low capacity may be unable to carry out many programs). Previous work has identified that these indicators along with others that constitute community capacity, while additional studies have highlighted the connection between social vulnerability and wildfire risk. However, little work has been done to understand the link between community capacity and wildfire mitigation in specific areas and contexts. To address this gap in this two-part thesis, our objectives were: 1) to access and develop various spatial datasets for indicators of community capacity to visualize capacity for wildfire mitigation across Colorado, and 2) to understand the processes that link capacity to mitigation outcomes. For Chapter 1, we conducted a first-of-its-kind study in Colorado mapping indicators of community capacity to represent variation across the state and to identify communities where high wildfire probability co-occurred with low capacity. Our findings highlight the eastern plains, the northwestern part of the state, and San Luis Valley as areas with lower potential capacity. Further, areas within Weld, Las Animas, and Archuleta counties are places with lowest potential capacity but the greatest potential for wildfire. These findings also suggest that different communities have a variety of ways they build capacity and highlight the important role that funding plays in helping communities increase their capacity. In Chapter 2, we explored local nuances and processes that link capacity to mitigation negative outcomes from wildfire by conducting 11 group interviews across Colorado. Our findings suggest that several key pieces of the process can drive outcomes: inter-organizational collaboration, leveraging funds, prioritization and planning, having dedicated staff for wildfire mitigation, building community buy-in, and engaging with various stakeholders. Creative workarounds emerged as a unique way across communities to overcome common barriers to wildfire mitigation, suggesting policy and institutional processes to streamline mitigation work may have outsized benefits, particularly in communities with limited resources. Our results highlight a need to point back to the systems that make communities vulnerable in the first place.Item Open Access Old media, new media: is the news release dead yet? How social media are changing the way wildfire information is being shared(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Chambers, Mary Ann, author; Champ, Joseph, advisor; Seel, Peter, committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee memberThis qualitative study examines the use of news releases and social media by public information officers (PIO) who work on wildfire responses, and journalists who cover wildfires. It also checks in with firefighters who may be (unknowingly or knowingly) contributing content to the media through their use of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Though social media is extremely popular and used by all groups interviewed, some of its content is unverifiable. More conventional ways of doing business, such as the news release, are filling in the gaps created by the lack of trust on the internet and social media sites and could be why the news release is not dead yet. The roles training, friends, and colleagues play in the adaptation of social media as a source is explored. For the practitioner, there are updates explaining what social media tools are most helpful to each group. For the theoretician, there is news about changes in agenda building and agenda setting theories caused by the use of social media. Clues are found about the diffusion of this innovation as it applies to social media.Item Open Access Policy tools for carnivore reintroduction: lessons learned from past wolf reintroductions in the western United States(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Manzolillo, Brielle Rose, author; Schultz, Courtney, advisor; Teel, Tara, committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee memberIn November 2020, Colorado citizens passed a historic vote to reintroduce gray wolves to the state. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), the state wildlife agency, was tasked with creating management plans and policy. Wildlife managers and policy makers have the opportunity to consider different paths forward, drawing on the lessons of the past to lead to a successful wolf reintroduction program. Past reintroduction efforts in the western United States could provide valuable perspectives on the management and policy tools available to Colorado. In order to inform this process and use this opportunity to assess policy tools for addressing multi-jurisdictional conservation challenges like carnivore reintroduction, this thesis research had two primary objectives: analyze perspectives on policy tools utilized in past reintroductions, including the capacities needed for successful tool implementation; and synthesize specific suggestions and considerations for Colorado. In order to meet these objectives, I interviewed 42 individuals from state, federal and Tribal land and wildlife management agencies, and stakeholders from non-profit organizations and livestock associations. Interviewees were from past reintroduction areas of the Northern Rocky Mountains (i.e. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) and the Southwest (i.e. New Mexico, Arizona), and Colorado. This thesis consists of four chapters: a brief introductory chapter, a second chapter that is a practitioner report of my findings, a third chapter that is an article intended for submission to a peer-reviewed journal, and a conclusion chapter. The practitioner report is a document aimed for practitioner and stakeholder audiences and provides a robust overview of findings on interviewee perspectives of a variety of management and policy strategies, along with specific recommendations for Colorado. The intent of this chapter is to provide Colorado wildlife managers and policy makers a detailed overview of our research and findings. My findings emphasize the need for collaborative processes and relationship building with stakeholders, and the flexibility to tailor strategies to local needs. The second stand-alone chapter, which will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, offers a policy design perspective on carnivore reintroduction. This chapter provides a narrower range of our findings in the context of policy design literature. Findings contribute to existing literature and emphasize the need for a mixed tool approach to management in order to address the diversity of targets and policy goals, address issues of scale, and leverage capacity. Overall, insight from this research could help to inform Colorado decision-makers on ways to move forward with planning for future wolf reintroduction. This research also contributes to the growing body of literature on using a policy design perspective to inform and analyze complex wildlife management and conservation issues. Further research is still needed to better evaluate overall effectiveness of policy tool choices and tailor specific reintroductions according to temporal and spatial scales. Future research should also be done to provide a robust stakeholder analysis for Colorado, as it is important to incorporate stakeholder perspectives into policy decisions.Item Open Access Relating severity of a mountain pine beetle outbreak to forest management history(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Vorster, Anthony, author; Stohlgren, Thomas, advisor; Kumar, Sunil, advisor; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Evangelista, Paul, committee memberThe availability of remote sensing imagery before, during, and after the recent mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) epidemic in the southern Rocky Mountains presents exciting opportunities for assessing the current state of forests and how forest management in previous decades influenced outbreak severity across the landscape. I mapped outbreak severity at a 30-m resolution using integrative spatial modeling. I predicted that: 1) outbreak severity can be accurately predicted and mapped at Fraser Experimental Forest, Colorado using stand characteristics with a boosted regression tree model, Landsat imagery, geographic information system (GIS) data, and field data; and 2) forest stands that were unmanaged since the 1950s will have higher outbreak severity compared to stands that were treated since the 1950s. Outbreak severity, measured by the ratio of dead lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) basal area to the basal area of all trees, was mapped across Fraser Experimental Forest with a cross-validation correlation of 0.86 and a Spearman correlation with independently observed values of 0.64. The outbreak severity at stands harvested between 1954 and 1985 was lower than comparable uncut stands. Lessons learned about past treatments will inform forest management for future mountain pine beetle outbreaks.Item Open Access Scaling up collaborative governance for better fit and flexibility: a case study of the Two-Rivers Three-Watersheds Two-States (2-3-2) partnership(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Bruce, Lily Appleby Calfee, author; Schultz, Courtney, advisor; Cheng, Tony, committee member; Scott, Ryan, committee memberOver the past ten years, multiple place-based collaborative groups have partnered across jurisdictional divides to form a unique structure of nested collaborative groups, but little is known about what drives the formation of these umbrella collaborative groups or how they function. Due to the changing climate and a legacy of fire suppression, the United States Forest Services (USFS) and academic scholars have promoted the planning and implementation of forest restoration activities at larger geographic scales than has been typical in forest management. To achieve landscape-level restoration, efforts must be coordinated across jurisdictional boundaries. Collaborative governance arose as an alternative to the centralized and adversarial approaches that had dominated environmental policy since the passage of core environmental statutes in the 1970s. Collaborative groups seek to overcome conflict by facilitating cooperative decision-making between government and non-government actors to achieve ecological and community benefits, reducing the risk of uncharacteristic wildfires, and addressing watershed function. Collaborative groups that are focused on forest restoration operate at larger scales than ever before, filling gaps resulting from limited government capacity and addressing complex and multi-jurisdictional environmental challenges. In the last fifteen years, federal and state policies emerged to support landscape-level collaboration, including the 2009 Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP). An important question is how collaborative groups operate in response to such drivers that require scaling up when they typically have existed at smaller spatial extents of individual national forests or communities. In this thesis, I explore the formation of an umbrella collaborative group and the opportunities and challenges associated with collaborating at the multiple-watershed level. I use qualitative analysis of a series of interviews with partners of the Two Watershed-Three Rivers-Two States Cohesive Strategy Partnership (2-3-2), an umbrella collaborative, to understand opportunities for adaptation and adapting to a variety of scale-fit needs that arise for collaborative governance regimes. In forest policy, scale mismatch is the lack of fit between the temporal or spatial scales of policy mechanisms, collective action, and ecosystem processes. Scale mismatch is prevalent in natural resource management; perhaps a better way to conceive of this issue is the need to have flexibility to adapt to drivers or concerns that operate and vary across scales. Collaborative governance may improve scale fit, especially for ecological processes and federal-level policies that require restoration work across huge acreages, but we also know from research that the trust- and relationship-building required by collaborative processes work best at smaller scales. This thesis consists of four interrelated but independent chapters. Chapter 1 introduces my research and provides foundational concepts to understand collaborative and adaptive governance. Chapter 2 summarizes interview results and is intended as a practitioner paper for partners and leaders of the 2-3-2. I describe interviewee perspectives on the current priorities of the 2-3-2, the advantages and challenges of collaboration at the multi-watershed scale, and recommendations for further strengthening the efficacy of the 2-3-2. Chapter 3, intended for a peer-reviewed journal, discusses these results in the context of collaborative and adaptive governance theory to understand factors that drive the formation of umbrella collaborative groups, as well as how umbrella collaboratives allow for greater adaptiveness to different scale dynamics. Finally, in Chapter 4, I summarize and draw overarching conclusions from my separate analyses of the interview data and address the limitations of this research with a view to future research.Item Open Access Spent a little time on the mountain: backcountry ski touring in Utah and Colorado(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Miller, Alexander, author; Childers, Michael, advisor; Carr Childers, Leisl, committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee memberBackcountry skiing has continually grown as a recreational activity since alpine skiers began leaving developed ski area boundaries in the late 1930s. Placing individuals in a less managed, sometimes hostile, winter landscape creates a significant management issue for the U.S. Forest Service. This thesis examines this issue by looking back to the sport's emergence as a popular winter recreation activity. It asks how ski tourers from the 1960s through the 1980s understood the way they used land. To answer this question, it examines the development of avalanche research and growing avalanche awareness in the Mountain West, the experience backcountry skiers sought and the mentality that created, and how that mentality established an advocacy framework aimed at protecting access to the backcountry—the area outside ski resorts and away from signs of the "works of man." Through this investigation, it highlights how the U.S. Forest Service facilitated this new form of land use, what exactly it is backcountry skiers are using, and how this use informed environmental politics. Finally, it argues that through understanding how the growing backcountry skiing community used mountain landscapes in the past, skiers, land management agencies, and the broader outdoor recreation community, can begin to come to terms with the impacts of this use and how to mitigate them.Item Open Access The opposite of 'whole': groundwater dependence in a rural agricultural community in Colorado(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) MacIlroy, Kelsea E., author; Taylor, Peter L., advisor; Cross, Jeni, committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee memberAs the American West faces increasing water demands and decreased access and flows due to the effects of climate change, increasing populations, and pollution it is more important than ever to examine governance structures of common pool resources like groundwater. In the San Luis Valley of south-central Colorado, the community's dependence on this resource has been concealed by the hiddenness of groundwater, which also obscured its role in shaping agriculture, expansion in farmland, and social structure in the Valley. This unsustainable use of groundwater--the opposite of 'whole'--made a 'tragedy of the commons' possible. In response, a local water management organization spearheaded a groundwater management plan with a main goal to preserve as many livelihoods as possible. Similar to other natural resource dependent communities, subdistrict #1 provides a case study of how a community is responding to their overuse through collective action. Support and opposition for this plan stems from different perceptions among community members influenced by their legal, geographical and social relationships with water and ability to access it; perceptions of who bears the responsibility for solving the issue of overdraft; perceptions of the state of the local farming based economy and community; and perceptions of the future of agriculture in the Valley. This case study relies on in-depth interviews with 25 people and participant observation. Critiquing Ostrom's (1990) framework for behavioral choice, this study finds that social vulnerability is unevenly distributed and thus, in order to return the aquifer to a sustainable level, there cannot be just one solution to the problem.Item Open Access The selection of species of conservation concern under the USDA Forest Service's new planning requirements for wildlife(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Grimes, Summer Star, author; Schultz, Courtney, advisor; Noon, Barry, committee member; Cheng, Tony, committee memberIn 2012, the USDA Forest Service finalized a planning rule that represents the most significant change in federal forest policy in nearly 30 years. All 155 national forests (and 20 national grasslands) must eventually update their management plans in accordance with the new regulations, which have significant implications for wildlife conservation planning. The agency selected eight “early adopter” forests as the first to implement the new planning rule. Given the contentious history of wildlife planning on national forests, there is a high level of interest amongst many audiences in the implementation of the new rule’s language – specifically for a new category of species: “species of conservation concern” (SCCs). The new rule requires the agency to maintain the viability of SCCs on national forests; however, due to uncertainty regarding the new rule’s language, concern exists regarding the management of and planning for SCCs. This research investigated the process of policy implementation during the early stages of forest plan revision on three adjacent early adopter forests to provide insight into the factors that are likely to influence wildlife planning decisions for SCCs across all national forests. Approximately 20 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with agency staff and external environmental partners revealed that traditional challenges of policy implementation were a continued barrier to wildlife planning; however, interviews also revealed cautious optimism that the agency is experiencing a positive paradigm shift in how they address ecosystem management, enabling them to move beyond administrative borders and see forests as part of a broader ecosystem – potentially resulting in a more integrated approach to wildlife management and habitat conservation. This study provides valuable insight into early-stage procedural determinations for wildlife planning on national forests for at-risk species and can serve as a valuable source of ‘lessons learned’ for subsequent forest plan revisions.