Browsing by Author "Galvin, Kathleen, advisor"
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Item Open Access Africa's fuelwood footprint and the biome-level impacts of tree harvest(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Tredennick, Andrew T., author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisor; Hanan, Niall P., advisor; Coughenour, Michael, committee member; Leisz, Stephen, committee memberTo view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.Item Embargo Cultivating collaborative adaptability in public lands social-ecological settings: linking theory, practice, and evaluation across cases and contexts(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Beeton, Tyler Andrew, author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisor; Cheng, Antony, committee member; Schultz, Courtney, committee member; Snodgrass, Jeffrey, committee memberCollaborative and adaptive forms of governance have become increasingly common in environmental management as they are claimed to help reduce conflict over resource management issues and uncertainty, increase trust, support shared understanding and buy-in for management actions, and facilitate social learning. In the USDA Forest Service, legal, regulatory, and bureaucratic challenges, and the increased emphasis on ecosystem management has increased the demand for, and investment in, collaboration as a tool to meet forest and fire management goals. Collaborative governance and adaptability scholarship has documented the key drivers and external conditions that influence collaboration, the internal dynamics that cultivate or constrain collaboration, and the outputs and outcomes of collaboration. Still, a number of research gaps remain that, if addressed, could advance the theory and practice of collaborative governance. First, the ways in which groups adapt and remain resilient to inevitable internal and external changes remains underexplored. Second, despite over twenty years of research in this space, relatively little is known about the configuration of, and relationship between, factors that comprise collaborative governance and adaptability. Third, collaboration is dynamic. As groups evolve, they create value in different ways, and their needs and priorities change. Thus, there is a need for periodic and ongoing assessments of how collaboration is working in local contexts, current challenges, and what adaptations are needed to improve collaborative processes and progress. This dissertation starts to address these research gaps and needs. I situated this work within the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, a Forest Service-administered program first authorized in 2009 and reauthorized in 2019. The work presented in this dissertation was co-developed with the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes and the Forest Service Forest, Range Management, and Vegetation Ecology Program. Specifically, the work supported synthesis of lessons learned from the first 10 years of the CFLRP and the development of a standardized and longitudinal assessment of collaborative governance and adaptability for use in the CFLRP Common Monitoring Strategy. Broadly, my dissertation contributes to our understanding of the factors that facilitate or frustrate adaptation to inevitable change in collaborative settings. This is a critical line of inquiry given the increased and sustained investment in long-term collaborative environmental management in the United States and beyond. I employed a mixed-method analysis consisting of focus groups, program-wide surveys, and a systematic review, and I drew on the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance, collaborative adaptability and resilience literature, and organization theory to frame my analysis. In Chapter 2, I asked, how do collaborative governance regimes adapt to disruptions and what barriers constrained collaborative resilience? I found that collaboratives demonstrated the ability to mobilize social capital, learning, resources, and flexibility to respond to disruptions. Yet authority, accountability, and capacity complicated collaborative resilience. I conclude Chapter 2 with policy and practice recommendations to cultivate collaborative resilience moving forward. In Chapter 3, I developed and deployed a program-wide collaborative governance and adaptability assessment to all currently authorized CFLRP projects. I used a modified grounded theory approach to document and describe CFLRP project respondents' recommended actions and adaptations to improve collaborative processes and progress towards desired outcomes. Key recommendations included the need for: inclusive engagement throughout the process; institutional arrangements; resources and capacity; monitoring and social learning; trust, relationships, and commitment; external communication and outreach; and local autonomy in decision making. I discussed these findings in light of collaborative governance theory and practice and included relevant resources and actions that practitioners and funders of collaboratives and policy actors may consider to support collaboratives in working towards forest and fire management objectives. In chapter 4, I again used the program-wide CFLRP collaborative governance and adaptability assessment, and I used confirmatory factor analysis to test assumptions underlying the dimensional structure, reliability, and validity of measures thought to comprise collaborative governance and adaptability. I found that the components of collaborative governance and adaptability comprised six dimensions – principled engagement, shared motivation, leadership, resources, knowledge and learning, and institutional arrangements. As expected, several dimensions were significantly related, and the pattern of inter-factor relationships aligned with theoretical and empirical assumptions. We also found that the six dimensions represent statistically reliable, valid, and distinct measures that may be used to evaluate collaborative governance and adaptability. While our focus was on the CFLRP, the assessment can be adapted to other collaborative environmental governance contexts. Chapter 5 ends with a summary of findings, limitations of the work, and future research directions to address lingering questions about collaborative environmental governance.Item Open Access Culture, water, livelihoods and adaptation in the complex socio-ecological systems of Colorado, U.S.A.(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Even, Trevor Lee, author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisor; Ojima, Dennis, advisor; Waskom, Reagan, committee member; Boone, Randall, committee memberThis dissertation comprises the results of several years of mixed-methods qualitative research on the socio-ecological systems of the U.S. state of Colorado, with a particular focus on their ability to effectively manage natural resource and ecosystem-related challenges amid intensifying social, environmental, and climatic change. Located at the interface of the Great Plains and the Semi-Arid Western U.S., Colorado faces numerous significant challenges from current escalations of climate variability, future trends towards warming temperatures, intensified urban population growth trends, and growing demand for limited water resources. This work, comprised of the results of two distinct but interrelated projects, therefore asks, in the broadest terms, How are key livelihood and cultural systems in the state engaging with critical natural resource and climate-related risks? Taken to a more granular level, it investigates, 1) What are the most vulnerable components of the socio-ecological systems of Colorado in terms of local expressions of climate change and resource management; 2) How are these systems currently engaging with those vulnerabilities on a cultural level, and 3) How can the interdisciplinary scientific community and policy-makers better align themselves to serve their needs for adaptation? In Part I, titled "Changing Weather and Livelihoods in Rural Colorado," I attempt to answer these questions at a state-wide level. Here, I rely upon interviews with ranchers, farmers, recreational sector experts, and extensive secondary data gathering on the varied ways in which sensitive land-based livelihoods in the state have been impacted by drought, wildfire, flooding, extreme precipitation events, and related phenomena over the last two decades, doing so in order to chart out how leaders in these sectors are adapting to changing weather-related risk profiles. In this, I identify significant vulnerabilities within livelihoods central to rural economics and identity, as well as barriers to current and future adaptation efforts in the form of economic, policy, information access, and cross-cultural communication challenges. As part of this, water – both as a resource and as a site of cultural values – emerges as critical to nearly every future-oriented line of inquiry, as the state's physical and socially constructed patterns of water scarcity weave through nearly every aspect of both its vulnerabilities and its capacity to adapt to climate- and ecologically-driven challenges. In Part II, then, I ask, "How can the state's human-altered hydrological systems – i.e., socio-hydrological systems – approach a level of self-understanding that takes into account the wide range of diverse perspectives and livelihoods associated with water systems at the basin scale?" Titled "Conceptualizations and Valuations of Water in the South Platte Basin," it takes a more zoomed-in approach, examining cultures of water commodification, use, interaction, cultural connection, and risk management across six key viewpoints within the Colorado South Platte Basin's complex and multi-layered water management systems. In this, it attempts to bridge existing gaps within the varied literatures related to water resources management and the social-science investigation of human-water system interactions, aiming to advance understanding of how cultural systems within hydrological basins heavily influenced by human intervention influence contemporary and future dynamics of water management and socially-constructed water scarcity. Based on in-depth interviews with water managers, users, advocates, and consultants from around the region as well as a variety of secondary data, it attempts to sketch out a typology of water valuation and understand across four distinct levels of value and across six distinct viewpoints with implications for the water system's current operation and future capacity to adapt to increasing variability and extreme event risk. It finds significant diversity among different types of actor groups involved in the water decision-making systems of the region, as well as numerous innovative avenues toward bridging these gaps in the form of "hybridized" or "nexus" approaches to water infrastructure development, environmental protection, and flood risk mitigation that capitalize upon multiple value orientations as they enact manipulations of the region's water systems. Finally, I discuss several important gaps identified in the region's cultures of water, including the lack of a meaningful system-wide identity, and the lack of affirmative spaces for creatively imagining the future at the basin scale.Item Open Access Health-livelihoods-environment interactions: health and culture in livelihood decision-making and consequences for the environment in Indonesia(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Clarke, Melinda M., author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisor; Boone, Randall, committee member; Ojima, Dennis, committee member; Vaske, Jerry, committee memberThis research examines the role of perceived health status in the livelihood decision-making of rural households and associated impact on the environment. I drew on three social-ecological frameworks to conceptualize relationships between health, livelihoods, and environment. The primary hypothesis examined is that changes in health status result in livelihood strategies that depend on increased natural resource extraction. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in twelve villages of the Dumoga Valley, North Sulawesi, Indonesia from 2015 to 2016. These data were used to develop an agent-based model that acts as an experimental context to examine health-livelihood-environment over a longer timeframe than was captured through field data collection. Illegal, artisanal gold mining is the primary resource extraction activity included in livelihood strategies. A surprising effect identified in qualitative data analysis was that different ethnic groups in the study site display different responses to health status change and have distinct livelihood strategies. Quantitative data analysis demonstrates a relationship between landlessness and engagement in illegal gold mining, but no relationship between mining and health. Dynamics in the agent-based model suggest that health does affect both the number of miners and amount of land cleared. In addition, the model suggests that natural resources play an important role in short-term livelihood strategies developed in times of ill health.Item Open Access Human environment interactions and collaborative adaptive capacity building in a resilience framework(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Bruss, Peter T., author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisor; Banning, Jim, committee member; Boone, Randall, committee member; Reid, Robin, committee member; Thompson, Jessica, committee memberBeing firmly in the Anthropocene Era--a period in humanity's evolution where human behavior and dominance is significantly impacting the earth's systems, my research objective was in response to the concern and call of the National Science Foundation and of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change that humanity needs to develop new strategies to tackle complex anthropogenic issues impacting the global environment and that there should be a focus on human behavior to effect change. Through a collaborative tri-phase dual model research initiative in the back country of Burntwater, Arizona in the Houck Chapter on the Navajo Nation, a small group of Navajo, using a photovoice and artvoice technique, began an exploration into community issues and concerns. The outcome confirmed that illegal trash dumping was a serious matter to the community in need of attention. Through multiple community gatherings the illegal trash dumping issue was discussed and explored within the workings of a Participatory Social Frame Work of Action - Collaborative Adaptive Capacity Building (PSFA-CACB) conceptual model. Using data from my field site I was able to partially inform a theoretical agent-based model Taking Care of the Land - Human Environment Interactions (TCL-HEI). Using the TCL-HEI model I was then able to theoretically illustrate within a resilience framework a social-ecological system regime basin shift from an undesirable state to a desirable state. This shift resulted from a change in the system's stability landscape variables through the introduction of a combination of consultative behavior and economic incentive model parameters. The ultimate objective of the tri-phase dual-model approach was to show how local and regional sustainable entrepreneurial and cooperative action might change illegal trash dumping behavior through a recycling and waste-to-fuels processing program. I further show how the effect of such an initiative would result in mitigating environmental degradation by lessening illegal trash dumping sites and landfill deposits while creating jobs and empowering a local population. It is my hope that the ramifications of this study might be considered at the Chapter, Agency and Nation levels on the Navajo Nation to explore possibilities of contracting-out for the development of a clean-energy waste-to-fuels processing facility and program.Item Open Access Human health in western Serengeti: using three methodologies to better understand the interactions and impacts of conservation, culture, and poverty(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Knapp, Linda M., author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisor; Magennis, Ann, committee member; Coughenour, Michael B., committee memberSet in the famous ecosystem of one of the world's largest wildlife migrations, this anthropological research was conducted (in 2004-2007) in villages adjacent to Serengeti National Park. Using several different methodologies (nutritional analyses, archival data collection, and qualitative semi-structured interviews), this study seeks to answer the question: what is the health status of western Serengeti people? Particularly important is the emergence of three key themes: conservation, culture, and poverty and how each are correlated to various health indicators in this study. Overall, the combined methods demonstrate that western Serengeti people have relatively poor health (compared to the rest of rural Tanzanians) and simple (lowprotein) diets, a fact that is significantly correlated to low socio-economic status. The role of conservation upon human health is still somewhat unclear as nutritional data do not indicate an immediate negative correlation, yet interviewees' perceptions are that wildlife are harmful to their food security and well-being.Item Open Access Vulnerability to drought in the La Paz, Mexico watershed(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Haeffner, Melissa, author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisor; Betsill, Michele, committee member; Leisz, Stephen, committee member; Ojima, Dennis, committee memberThis study explores the relationship between drought vulnerability and migration in the ranchero community in the Sierras of the La Paz watershed in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Using household survey data, I examine how the various dimensions of vulnerability are related to migration as an adaptation strategy to drought. Contrary to what is predicted by environmental migration and climate vulnerability theory, drought exposed rancheros who had high sensitivity and low adaptive capacity did not use migration as an adaptation strategy in the last severe drought (2006-2012), despite migration being a central part of their traditional culture. This dissertation shows how rural upstream households are constrained in traditional adaptation options (including migration options) while new options have become available (including sedentary options) - because of other social changes in the same watershed, specifically, the expansion of urban services. Taking a closer look at watershed dynamics, I find that urban services have both positive and negative impacts on ranchero drought vulnerability. On the one hand, urban services diversify ranchero water sources in normal seasons; on the other hand, access to urban services does not remain consistent in severe drought. I conclude with a new conceptualization of drought responses with a discussion of the implications of these findings for future research and public policy that includes a need for broader stakeholder inclusion.Item Open Access Western Serengeti people shall not die: the relationship between Serengeti National Park and rural household economies in Tanzania(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Knapp, Eli J., author; Galvin, Kathleen, advisorThis research examined the relationship between Serengeti National Park and rural household economies living near (within 18 kilometers) its western borders in Tanzania. The study was based upon semi-structured household interviews with a general sample (N = 722), acknowledged poachers (N = 104), households with park-related employment (N = 50) and key informants (N = 15) in three two administrative regions and three districts. Interviews generated information about four primary social-ecological interactions which included crop destruction by wildlife, illegal hunting, park-related employment, and wildlife depredation on livestock. A cost-benefit analysis revealed that the average household generates a net profit of USD $13 from these interactions. Despite this, 84 percent of households were found to be food insecure for maize, the region's primary food crop. Moreover, 78 percent of households were found to be significantly over-budget over the preceding 12 months. These findings suggests that most households next to Serengeti National Park are generally impoverished and are lacking adaptive capacity to deal with severe environmental or socio-ecological changes. The first component of the research provided the context for western Serengeti. Significant findings included the importance of secondary education for increasing income to household economy and showed the level of dependence that households have on local natural resources. Households draw more heavily (often illegally) from the National Park with the advent of severe crop failures which were found to occur with a ten year periodicity. The second component revealed that neither crop damage nor wildlife depredation on livestock is distributed evenly. Rather, they are heavily localized with few effects on some households and severe effects on others. Although the effects of wildlife on crops and livestock generally decreased with distance from the Park, losses were particularly large for households within three kilometers of a boundary. The third component examined illegal bushmeat hunting and sales. Findings from respondents and extensive court documents suggested that fines and imprisonment had little effect on curbing illegal hunting behavior. The fourth component consisted of a synthesis of the cost-benefit analysis with a focus on food security and its effects on adaptive capacity. Implications of these findings are made for the resilience of the coupled socio-ecological system in western Serengeti.