Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Estimating Landscape Quality And Genetic Structure Of Recovering American Marten Populations In The Northeastern United States, Cody Michael Aylward

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The American marten (Martes americana) is an endangered species in Vermont and a Regional Species of Greatest Conservation Need in the northeastern United States. Though historically widespread in northeastern forests, their range presumably contracted to northern Maine and the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks by the early 1900s. Regionally, populations appear to be in recovery. Natural recolonization is believed to have occurred in New Hampshire, northeastern Vermont and the western Adirondacks. A reintroduction effort in southern Vermont that was originally declared unsuccessful is now believed to be the source of a recently detected population in the area. However, our …

Master's Project: An Ecological Assessment Of The Atlas Timberlands, Vermont, Hannah B. Phillips

Rubenstein School Masters Project Publications

Vermont's second-largest timber holding will soon be sold. Flanking the remote summits of the northern Green Mountains, the Atlas Timberlands comprise nearly 26,000 acres of forest, which, for the last twenty years, have been owned by the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Originally acquired from the Atlas Plywood Corporation in an effort to maintain large forested blocks managed with ecological forestry principles, VLT and TNC will now sell the lands to a new generation of land stewards. Although the land will change hands, the ecologically significant sites will remain protected under conservation easements.

In preparation for …

Management By Crisis: Land Trust Conservation Engagement And Methods In Vermont, Louise Sopher Lintilhac

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Planning a future for the landscapes we live in can be a daunting challenge for many communities in Vermont. Conservation initiatives affect the quality of life for all community members and can be difficult if not impossible to change in the event of poor planning. Through examining stakeholder relationships with land trusts I have explored the complexities of planning processes used by land trusts in Vermont for conservation initiatives

The study involved one statewide land trust, the Vermont Land Trust, and two community land trusts, the Stowe Land Trust and the Duxbury Land Trust. I used qualitative methods including document …

The Impact Of Ecosystem Services Knowledge On Decisions, Stephen Mark Posner

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The need to protect diverse biological resources from ongoing development pressures is one of today's most pressing environmental challenges. In response, "ecosystem services" has emerged as a conservation framework that links human economies and natural systems through the benefits that people receive from nature. In this dissertation, I investigate the science-policy interface of ecosystem services in order to understand the use of ecosystem service decision support tools and evaluate the pathways through which ecosystem services knowledge impacts decisions. In the first paper, I track an ecosystem service valuation project in California to evaluate how the project changes the social capacity …