Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons^™

Exploring Visitor Perceptions And Behaviours Related To Ticks And Lyme Disease Risk In An Ontario Protected Area, Ryan Brady

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne zoonosis in North America and over the past decade, reported cases of the disease have been rapidly increasing in many regions throughout Canada. The relative novelty of this public health threat presents nature-based tourism and recreation organizations with a range of policy and management challenges. Currently, there is a limited understanding of public perceptions and behaviours associated with tick and Lyme disease risk, especially within a Canadian parks and protected areas visitation and visitor experience context. To address this practical and scholarly knowledge gap, this study utilized in-situ surveys to explore visitor perceptions, …

Urban Flood Response Planning: Building Urban Resilience In Calgary And Toronto, Sarah Asrat

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Flooding is an increasing environmental concern for many Canadian cities. There is increasing awareness of climate change and its impacts on precipitation behavior and flooding in urban areas. Knowledge gaps were identified in the literature concerning urban flood response planning, uncertainty and preparedness planning. This study examines and compares urban flood response measures and resilience building for natural disasters in the Cities of Toronto and Calgary. Non-structural measures for flood risk reduction that include policies, decision-making and community engagement were examined by conducting a literature review and semi-structured interviews of individuals from six groups: provincial government, municipal government, conservation authority, …

Extraction And Empowerment: The Application Of Traditional Knowledge Within The Development Of The Nwt Bhp Ekati Diamond Mine, Daniel Vanclieaf

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Biodiversity Conservation Effectiveness And Evaluation In The National Protected Areas Systems Of Tropical Islands: The Case Of Jamaica And The Dominican Republic, Suzanne Mae Camille Davis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Island conservation theory and practice with regard to conservation of tropical terrestrial biodiversity in protected areas systems has yet to be adequately addressed in conservation literature. This knowledge gap is identified as a key contributor to the adoption of scientific principles for in situ biodiversity conservation, and “universal” conservation and protected area management paradigms that are unsuitable for island contexts and geographical scale. The underlying assumption is that “universal” concepts of biodiversity conservation, protected areas management, and evaluation of their effectiveness are transferable to the ecological and socio-economic contexts of tropical islands. The expected outcome of this knowledge transfer is …

Toward A More Holistic Approach To The Conservation Management Of Southern Ontario’S Small Protected Areas, Wilfred Gregory Tschirhart

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Within Southern Ontario’s highly fragmented greater natural ecosystem, there remain numerous relatively small scattered areas which bear at least some resemblance to their former pre-European/Canadian settlement natural ecosystem. In their present state they serve as reservoirs of their particular ecoregion’s indigenous plant and animal species. In proportion to their limited spatial areas, degree of isolation, existing ecological integrity, and long-term ecological carrying capacity they are stores of natural capital, which is beneficial to both nature and society. They co-exist with Southern Ontario’s well developed socioeconomic/cultural system, on whose stewardship their long-term integrity is becoming increasingly dependent, which creates increased environmental …

A Critical Examination Of Sustainability Considerations In Yukon Environmental Assessment—Past And Present, Louisa M. Clementino

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Northern regions of Canada, as a result of landscape characteristics and political and cultural dynamics, present unique challenges and opportunities for meeting sustainability goals through environmental assessment (EA) processes. In order to understand the significance of the EA process in the North and its applicability to fulfilling sustainability goals, the past and present EA regimes of the Yukon are evaluated adopting a sustainability-focused framework. Unique changes to the Yukon EA process, as a result of land claim agreements and devolution have created innovative structures and processes, reflective of the environmental, socio-economic, cultural and political circumstances of the region. The …

An Analysis Of Social Aspects Of Forest Stewardship Council Forest Certification In Three Ontario Case Studies, Melanie Venne

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Forest certification is a market-based tool whereby forest management is evaluated against a set of standards that consider environmental, economic and social elements of sustainability. Certificiation is therefore a means of providing customers with the assurance that forest products are originating from sustainability managed forests. It grew out of the ideal of sustainable forest management (SFM) and pulls from its predecessor the concept of multiple dimensions of sustainability. The focus of this project was the international forest certification scheme Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

A comparative case study approach was used to examine the social implications of certification in three FSC …

Local And Regional-Scale Societal Dynamics In Grizzly Bear Conservation, Douglas Andrew Clark

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Conserving grizzly bear populations is a significant challenge for wildlife managers throughout North America. Much fruitful research has been conducted on the biology of grizzlies, but the human dimensions of bear management remain poorly understood. This imbalance has created conflicts between management agencies and local inhabitants that can jeopardize ecosystem management and planning programs in which grizzlies often feature as key components. Broadly, the goal of this study was to understand how and why such conflicts occur. Qualitative data analysis methods and the policy sciences' interdisciplinary problem analysis framework, along with insights from adaptive governance and co-management concepts, resilience theory, …

An Evaluative Framework For Assessing Information Management In Watershed Management: The Case Of The Grand River Conservation Authority (Ontario), Robert Scott Brown

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Watershed management has been rapidly evolving over the last 50 years. The current focus has been adaptive and ecosystem-based approaches to watershed management, redefining roles, responsibilities, and relationships of watershed organizations. While entire management models need to be heavily scrutinized, the practices and policies surrounding information are fundamentally important. Information forms the understanding and knowledge for watershed decision-making. Watershed organizations need to be critical of the policies and practices affecting their collection, storage, processing, analysis, monitoring, and reporting of data and information. Among the Conservation Authorities, the GRCA has developed a proficiency at information management, doing it as well as …

Regional Planning And British Columbia's Agricultural Land Reserve: A Case Study Of Land Use, Development And Policy Impacts In The Central Okanagan Valley, Danielle H. Noble

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In North America, farmland is commonly targeted as the site of urbanization, because it is often the most easy to develop. British Columbia has been no exception. But British Columbia is unique in North American planning because it has imposed a comprehensive agricultural land reserve (ALR), now over thirty years old, to respond to agricultural land loss. Such an instrument can have important implications for land-use planning and for planning practice. This research documents some of the impacts of the ALR on planning while focusing on the Central Okanagan Valley as a case study region. The lessons of the Okanagan …

The Contribution Of Stewardship To Park Planning And Management In Ontario: A Study Of Bruce Peninsula And Georgian Bay Islands National Parks, Felicitas Egunyu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Parks Canada has adopted ecosystem-based management as a means of maintaining ecological integrity. However, ecosystems often extend beyond park boundaries. Where parks share boundaries with other government-protected areas, arrangements have often been made for cooperation. These arrangements usually result in mutual benefits for the protected areas involved. Where parks share boundaries with privately owned land, stewardship is one of the methods being used to implement conservation-based practices. This study investigated the extent to which stewardship contributes to park planning and management in Ontario using the Georgian Bay Islands and Bruce Peninsula National Parks as case studies. Results show that stewardship …

Forest Fires, Woodland Caribou And Land Use Policies In Northwestern Ontario (Rangifer Tarandus), Brian Frederick Kutas

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) are a threatened species in Ontario's boreal forest. Caribou require habitat that supports appropriate forage, including large areas of lichen rich forests. This research examines two dynamics that influence woodland caribou habitat in northwestern Ontario. These dynamics are forest fires and land use policies. The effects of forest fires are assessed quantitatively at both the ecosite and landscape scales within Woodland Caribou Provincial Park. Land use policy and management activities are evaluated using a case study and a policy analysis of protected area and forest management approaches to woodland caribou conservation in this region. Forest …

The Management Of Complex Sociobiophysical Systems: Ecosystem-Based Management And The Chesapeake Bay Program, Daniel Dennis Mccarthy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

There are an entire class of entities for which conventional scientific understanding is necessary but not sufficient to comprehend. These entities are too complex for analysis and yet too organized for statistics. They exist in a dynamic balance between the ordered and the disordered. They are ecosystems and human institutions. They are complex systems. There is an emerging body of theory that is providing insight into the structures and dynamics that underlie such entities. Under the rubric of complex systems theory, catastrophe theory, chaos theory, hierarchy theory and the interrelated theories of self-organization have profound implications for the way understand …

Killbear Provincial Park: The Beach And Dunes, Their Use And The Implications For Management (Ontario), Kathryn Ann Parlee

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Beaches, and in particular sand dunes, are extremely fragile environments, easily altered by human activities. Intensive use of the beach/dune complex at Killbear Provincial Park near Parry Sound, Ontario may have led to the severe degradation of its dune system within Kilcoursie Bay. At present the dunes have been degraded back to an embryonic state, and as a result it is necessary to consider the development of management strategies before the system is completely destroyed. In order to develop effective management strategies however, it is necessary to understand how the natural process of the system work and the specific effects …

Identifying Areas Of Concern For Regional Cumulative Effects Assessments In And Around Northern National Parks In Canada (Yukon), Jennifer L. Lenton

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis uses a literature review of protected areas selection, park management, comprehensive regional land use planning, and cumulative environmental effects and assessment to develop a methodology that identifies areas with concentrations of social and/or ecological values in and around northern national parks. The proposed methodology involves two stages. First, a database of values is developed by taking an inventory of social and ecological values through exxtensive literature reviews, interviews, and consultation with the public. This database is then used in the second step to determine areas with concentrations of social and/or ecological values, or “value hotspots”, using a series …

The Growth And Distribution Of The Green Alga Cladophora At Presqu'ile Provincial Park: Implications For Management (Ontario), Dolf Craig Dejong

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Green alga genus Caldophora is one of the most abundant kinds of algae worldwide, found in both freshwater and marine environments. It prefers nutrient-rich waters and requires a rocky substrate and water movement for growth. When water temperatures reach 22 to 26 C, the alga dies and washes into shore in large mats. Dead Cladophora produces a terrible odour, reduces property values and can alter the taste of drinking water. At Presqu’ile Provincial Park, maximum Cladophora sloughing occurred July 22 1999, the same time as peak summer park visitation begins. This results in the fouling of the Park’s beaches …

Issues Surrounding The Valuation Of A Park: Applying Commission For National Parks And Protected Area Guidelines To Awenda Provincial Park, Ontario, Tatania E. Stroud

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The goals of this project are to apply and assess the applicability of the World Conservation Union (1 UCN) Commission for National Parks and Protected Area Guidelines for Economic Assessment of Protected Areas to Awenda Provincial Park, and to compare the results with existing studies on valuing protected areas. This project explores the value of tourism and recreation at Awenda Provincial Park, and the expression of the value of natural areas in economic terms through the application of the CNPPA Guidelines. This project is an initial inquiry into the applicability of the CNPPA guidelines, and is based on data from …

Regional Ecology Of The St. Elias Mountain Parks: A Synthesis With Management Implications (British Columbia, Yukon, Alaska), Ryan Kenneth Danby

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The St. Elias region of North America occupies portions of British Columbia, Alaska, and the Yukon Territory and comprises a network of public lands and protected areas managed by a variety of agencies. This thesis characterizes and analyzes the broad- scale, or regional, ecology of these lands and provides an assessment of the implications this has for ecosystem-based management—particularly as it relates to intergovernmental cooperation. A multi-stage, map-based, multidisciplinary process is used to synthesize information on the region’s physical, biological, and institutional environments. The fields of conservation biology and landscape ecology provide theoretical foundations for analysis. The ecological synthesis and …

Natural Disturbance And Land Cover Patterns In A Mountainous, Sub-Arctic Environment (Yukon), A. Bruce Wurtele

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The dynamics of landscape pattern and disturbance were studied in the ‘green belt’ area of Kluane National Park, Yukon. White spruce montane forests and various sub-alpine and alpine vegetation communities dominate the study area, adjoining the Kluane Ranges of the St. Elias Mountains. Combining theory on landscape structure and function, the relationships of disturbance regimes and landscape pattern are examined. The landscape mosaic was mapped from classification of multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery. Landscape pattern was measured using quantitative indices of patch, class, and landscape attributes. Natural disturbance regimes, important to land cover development in the region, include fire, insect …

Land Transformation, Highly Governed Landscapes And Landscape Health: A Case Study Of The Lower Piave Area Of Northeastern Italy, Pietro Bertollo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the issue of biophysical landscape health. Its primary objective is to produce an interpretation of biophysical landscape health for the highly governed landscapes of the Lower Piave area of northeastern Italy. Highly governed landscapes are considered to be those which are highly controlled by humans to an even greater degree than normal cultural landscapes. An example is reclaimed agricultural landscapes such as those of the northeastern Italian coastal belt, from which the Lower Piave case study is drawn. These landscapes are highly governed because without constant human intervention, they would revert back to their former marsh state. …

An Approach To Defining Greater Park Ecosystems And Its Application To Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland), Karl Keough

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Ecosystem management is an integrative, cooperative, adaptive approach to resource management that has evolved in response to the growing number of environmental and resource problems over the past several decades. One such problem, the threat to the world’s biodiversity, may be attributed to the destruction, degradation, and fragmentation of habitat resulting from the expanding human population, and the inability to set aside in strict nature reserves, sufficient habitat for wide-ranging mammals and fully functioning ecosystems. The Greater Park Ecosystem concept may be seen as the embodiment of ecosystem management in national parks and a response to the threat to biodiversity. …

Stakeholder Attitudes As A Resistance Toward Long-Range Management Of A Threatened Landscape: A Case Study Of Aggregate Use In The Township Of North Dumfries (Ontario), Kim Margaret Horrigan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Township of North Dumfries is located in the rapidly expanding Municipality of Waterloo. This Township is in close proximity to Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Hamilton, and is halfway between London and Toronto, with the primary east-west Highway 401 running through the Township. It is an unique area in that it is characterized by an abundance of prime agricultural lands, Environmentally Sensitive Policy Areas, and wetlands. In addition, the Township is underlain with a large quantity of good quality glacially derived aggregate materials. Land use conflicts have increased as a result of aggregate developers’ pressures on the resources of this …

Protection Of Wetlands In The Grand River Watershed From Non-Point Source Pollution (Ontario), Marsha Lynn Paley

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the municipal official plans to protect provincially evaluated wetlands from activities causing non-point source pollution within the Grand River watershed. An integrated framework for policy analysis involving both an evaluative and normative approach assists in determining the value of wetland protection policies and recommends future actions to guide decision-making on development adjacent to wetlands. Specifically, the objectives include (a) to locate, identify and measure the total wetland area, class and number of wetlands in the Grand River watershed on an upper- and lower-tier municipal basis; (b) to …

Small Mammals Of Point Pelee National Park: Protecting Biodiversity In Small Reserves (Ontario), Julie Ann Spicer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Habitat destruction, fragmentation and degradation have been widespread throughout southern Ontario with devastating effects on wetlands. Small reserves are all that in this highly agricultural/urban landscape to protect the biodiversity of Great Lakes Marsh and Carolinian Forest ecosystems. Small reserves are vulnerable to species loss through a host of problems related to size and as a result, the value of small reserves to conservation strategies has often been questioned. Indicator species can be used as a means of studying the conditions of complex ecosystems. In this research, small mammals were sampled in the wetlands of Point Pelee National Park as …

An Ecosystem Approach To Wildlife Management In Wilderness Areas: A Case Study Of The Greater Kluane Region, Lori Katherina Krebs

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research examines the implications of an ecosystem approach to planning and management for sustainable wildlife populations within a wilderness setting. Kluane National Park Reserve and the surrounding region are the focus of the study, providing a relatively unaltered ecosystem in which to explore certain questions regarding ecosystem-based wildlife management. The ever increasing human population and constant surge of development are placing more and more pressure on remaining natural resources. Wilderness areas and wildlife habitat are disappearing rapidly, and the north is receiving unprecedented activity in the search for remaining resources. Management strategies must be created which will be capable …

Opportunities For Integration In Institutional Arrangements For Water Management In The Yukon, Patrick James Dooling

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The history of water resources management in the Yukon has been characterized by conflict. This problem is due to the failure to address the interrelationships between water and land resources. Although many parts of the Yukon remain largely undisturbed wilderness areas, development pressures place increasing demands on Territorial water resources. To ensure these stresses do not degrade Yukon waters to the extent common in many Canadian regions, a reevaluation of the legal and administrative arrangements for water management in the Yukon is required. A majority of the legislation pertaining to water management in the Yukon was introduced in the 1970s …

The Incorporation Of Environmental Perception Information Into Wilderness Park Safety Planning, Thomas Craig Waldichuk

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The park safety planning process currently in use limits users’ inputs to accident statistics. It would be better to more accurately anticipate accident-prone locations and to take preventative measures. A planning methodology is proposed which integrates the safety perceptions of park users into the decision-making for locating facilities and services: the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) serves as a systematic planning guide for such decision-making and is compatible with park policy and objectives. Applications to Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia, and statistical and cartographic analyses of 273 questionnaires returned from there, indicate that park users’ perceptions can be advantageously incorporated into …

Environmental Reconstruction In The Orangeville Moraine, John R. Nephew

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Primary sedimentary structure of topographic features in a selected portion of the Orangeville Moraine is examined for the purpose of deriving paleoenvironmental conditions existent during the formation of that feature. Five different environments could be recognized: 1. Sub-glacial tunnel, 2. Pro-glacial outwash, 3. Lacustrine, 4. Sub-glacial, and 5. Pro-glacial sub-aerial outwash.

Sub-glacial tunnels were represented topographically by discontinuous ridges and sinuous depressions, and sedimentologically by massive matrix-supported gravels. Pro-glacial outwash was represented typographically by elongated hills and ridges, and sedimentologicallyby various sediment complexes that revealed both rapid downstream reductions in flow competency, and a downstream change from fluvial to lacustrine …

Spatial Context And Temporal Aspects Of The Sensitive Area Concept In Ontario, Barbara Elizabeth Anderson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The term “sensitive area” is a product of planning initiatives which have developed within the province of Ontario since the early nineteen seventies. As there are a number of closely related terms utilized the sensitive areas concept generally is defined as the creation of a reserve or the removal of land from unfettered commercial development or intense human use. The concept has been associated with a broad range of environmental concerns such as, the protection of wildlife habitat, maintenance of ecological function, retention of scenic areas and preservation of historic sites. Similar initiatives across North America are surveyed and the …

An Analysis Of Conservation Authority Decision Making As To The Acquisition And Development Of Open Space Resources, James C. Johnston

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.