Sustainability Commons^™

A Tale Of Two Working Landscapes, Sage C. Sutcliffe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Catch My Drift? Perceptions And Experiences Of Pesticide Contamination Of Organic Crops In Montana, Sarah Rodgers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Pesticide drift and inadvertent contamination pose particular risks to organic production. Some organic producers have lost their crops, certification, and/or organic markets because of contamination events. Through this thesis research, I explain the perceptions and experiences that certified organic farmers in Montana have about drift and inadvertent pesticide contamination. I conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven certified organic farmers from various regions of Montana. Along with one-on-one interviews with organic farmers, interviews with industry and regulatory officials were conducted to better understand the policies and procedures that control what happens when drift occurs at the state level. Industry and regulatory official …

An Exploration Of Zero Waste Policies And Recommendations For Missoula, Sarah Blyth Lundquist

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

“Zero Waste” is a concept and community goal that has arisen to challenge the current consumerist economic system and offer solutions for a number of environmental issues. In adopting this goal, individuals and communities pledge to reduce and divert at least 90% of their waste in a certain number of years. These goals can be reached by employing policies, programs, and other intervention tactics which establish Zero Waste infrastructure, ensure equitable and widespread access to Zero Waste services, and provide educational outreach and resources to the community. Missoula adopted a Zero Waste goal in 2016 and created a Zero Waste …

Sediment Dynamics In The Magdalena River Basin, Colombia: Implications For Understanding Tropical River Processes And Hydropower Development, Luke H. Fisher

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Magdalena River Basin of Colombia has a globally relevant sediment flux, however, studies of the sediment regime in the basin are limited in scope. This knowledge gap limits application of understanding of sediment dynamics to hydropower decision making. To close this gap, we implemented a sediment budget framework to quantify the impacts of hydropower development in a 118,000 km² portion of the Magdalena River basin. We informed this framework with analysis of background erosion rates derived from ¹⁰Be cosmogenic nuclides and modern sediment fluxes derived from monitoring and optical remote sensing. We standardized these data to spatially …

Understanding And Measuring Net Positive Business Strategies, Luke Ruffner Robinson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Despite their attempts to mitigate ecological impacts through sustainability initiatives, businesses are a major cause of the world's ecological problems. Some progressive businesses are attempting to move beyond “net zero” in terms of achieving neutral environmental impacts and instead are now pursuing a goal of net positive. Net positive refers to the idea that business activities could contribute value-added benefits to earth’s ecological systems, for example, by using technologies that sequester and store carbon. However, except for a handful of high-profile corporate case studies, little is known about how companies are developing their strategies to become net positive and …

Community-Centered Sustainable Conservation And Ecotourism Planning In The Bossou Forest Reserve, Guinea, West Africa, Destina Samani

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ecotourism management has evolved over the years towards responsible conservation of the natural environment, sustaining the well-being of local people, enriching personal experiences and increasing environmental awareness. The development of a forest reserve is characteristic of the management–visitor–host community interface and the attendant competing interests in the face of new challenges, ideas and theories. In particular, host community participation in the conservation of the forest space tends to breakdown under weak ecotourism management, partly evident by the imbalanced exploitation of ecosystem services resulting in wildlife and society’s inability to cope effectively with the changes (Walker et al., 2016).

The Bossou …

Understanding The Food Water Nexus: Characterizing The Impact Of Climatological Anomalies On Agrosystems, Patrick M. Wurster Jr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate variability at global and regional scales is escalating with increased atmospheric carbon and is expected to magnify the intensity and duration of meteorological extremes, especially droughts. From the many environmental stresses that diminish crop production (e.g., soil salinity, frost, soil erosion) drought is one of the most prevalent. This study focuses on the sensitivity of three key crops produced in the northwestern United States to climatological anomalies, while controlling for attribution using anomalies in price. The study differs from similar studies in that we focus on variability in production which captures both yield (tonnes/ha) and cropping area (ha), as …

Meat Reimagined: The Ethics Of Cultured Meat, Valan Anthos

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this paper I explore a relatively new technology that is being developed to try and solve some of the major issues with modern animal agriculture called cultured meat. I cover the short history of this technology and where it is at currently before addressing two different ways of evaluating the ethics of cultured meat. Responding to much of the praise for cultured meat based on consequentialist ethics, I lay out reasons for skepticism and how some of these estimates might be overblown due to those people advocating for it being situated in the ideology of ecomodernism. I argue that …

Social Justice In Social-Ecological Systems: Resilience Through Stakeholder Engagement, Frederick I. Lauer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Successful management of social-ecological systems (SES) is predicated on quality collaborative exchanges between project stakeholders and management. The Southwest Crown of the Continent Collaborative (SWCC) Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) provided an opportunity to explore landscape scale collaborative management and SES outcomes. Global change and future uncertainty of landscapes prompted the SWCC to employ restoration treatment alternatives throughout 1.4 million acres of forests, most of which are publicly held. The SWCC currently monitors environmental and economic variables, with plans to monitor social variables. This thesis formalizes a proposed framework to investigate SES resilience, and explores public engagement as an …

Adaptation On A Budget: How Vietnamese Innovators Are Trying To Design Their Way Out Of Climate Change, Shanti R. Johnson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the rapidly developing Mekong Delta of Vietnam, young innovators are facing a challenge far greater than simply trying to catch up with the wealthier world. In a growing trend, the next generation of Vietnamese is acting under a common understanding: climate change is real, it’s here and the time to respond is growing short.

For over a decade, Southern Vietnam has consistently been ranked by international organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as one of the most vulnerable places in the world to the impacts of climate change. That vulnerability is heightened by the fact that the …