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Spatio-Temporal Dynamics Of The Dual-Purpose Cattle Value Chain In The Colombian Amazonas, A. Leinert, S. Burkart Feb 2024

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics Of The Dual-Purpose Cattle Value Chain In The Colombian Amazonas, A. Leinert, S. Burkart

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The cattle sector plays an important role in the economy of the Caquetá department, located in the Colombian Amazon. However, the predominantly extensive production system is associated with low productivity and negative environmental impacts, such as land degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, and deforestation. Efforts to introduce improved practices (e.g., improved forages or silvopastoral systems) have been made over the last decades, but adoption rates remain low. Though several studies have analyzed the cattle value chain (VC) to enhance the understanding of adoption barriers, the heterogeneity of farmers has been considered only marginally when trying to explain their adoption behavior. To …


Joint Global Responsibility Fund For Climate, Conservation, And Communities: A Proposed Innovative Tax-Based Funding Mechanism, Tamar Ron Nov 2023

Joint Global Responsibility Fund For Climate, Conservation, And Communities: A Proposed Innovative Tax-Based Funding Mechanism, Tamar Ron

New England Journal of Public Policy

Nature-based solutions address biodiversity loss, climate change, and societal challenges at the local, national, regional, and global levels. The costs of their conservation, however, are mostly local and national in nature. Confronting the rolling dual crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change requires us to recognize nature’s intrinsic value. Moreover, we must find practical ways for their monetary valuation to be channeled as payment for the services of conservation custodians. It is suggested here to translate the value of natural assets and the understanding of the local costs and global benefits of their conservation, into an innovative and ambitious funding …


Could A More Limited Environmental Goods Agreement Resolve Continued Issues In Cities Compliance?, Andrew Coccoli Oct 2022

Could A More Limited Environmental Goods Agreement Resolve Continued Issues In Cities Compliance?, Andrew Coccoli

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Note will adopt an economic perspective while advocating for the most sustainable practices in natural resources management. It will first conduct a series of case studies of natural resources for which there is transnational or international demand, but unsustainable management. While CITES-listed resources will be considered with particular attention, unlisted and more conventional resources will also be considered. In its second part, this Note will consider mechanisms currently available in international trade to accommodate environmental progress, then will set forth various new measures the WTO could adopt to incentivize sustainable management of the Part I resources. Part III will …


Covid-19 Pandemic Effects On The Environment, Ken Overway, Phillips Lane Apr 2022

Covid-19 Pandemic Effects On The Environment, Ken Overway, Phillips Lane

Chemistry Faculty Scholarship

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been a constant in everyone’s lives for almost the past three years now and has embedded itself into basically every part of global society and norms. The main areas where this is evident are in the major disruptions in the economic, social, and public health sectors of the world. There is one other area that has been affected by this prolonged pandemic in a multitude of ways, the environment. Our environment, both globally and regionally, has seen both positive and negative effects throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in a variety of different areas. …


The Global Impact Of Covid-19 And Tourism On Conservation Rangers' Guardianship Capabilities, Zachary Bockler Jan 2022

The Global Impact Of Covid-19 And Tourism On Conservation Rangers' Guardianship Capabilities, Zachary Bockler

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted wildlife rangers with an emphasis on the influences of tourism rates. Two sets of data are used: one is a survey of rangers around the world and the other looks at global governmental tourism data. While coming from a routine activities perspective, the problem of decreased capable guardianship becomes apparent in the form of massively decreased tourism arrivals and troubling ranger perceptions. This data allows for the establishment of tourism trends and changes during COVID. The findings of this thesis link the downturn in tourism with impacts on formal and informal …


Global Forces Of Change: Implications For Forest-Poverty Dynamics, Priya Shyamsundar, Laura Aileen Sauls, Jennifer Zavaleta Cheek, Kira Sullivan-Wiley, J.T. Erbaugh, P. P. Krishnapriya Dec 2021

Global Forces Of Change: Implications For Forest-Poverty Dynamics, Priya Shyamsundar, Laura Aileen Sauls, Jennifer Zavaleta Cheek, Kira Sullivan-Wiley, J.T. Erbaugh, P. P. Krishnapriya

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

This article examines global trends likely to influence forests and tree-based systems and considers the poverty implications of these interactions. The trends, identified through a series of expert discussions and review of the literature, include: (i) climatic impacts mediated through changes in forests, (ii) growth in commodity markets, (iii) shifts in private and public forest sector financing, (iv) technological advances and rising interconnectivity, (v) global socio-political movements, and (vi) emerging infectious diseases. These trends bring opportunities and risks to the forest-reliant poor. A review of available evidence suggests that in a business-as-usual scenario, the cumulative risks posed by these global …


Social And Environmental Issue Of Deforestation In Papua, Indonesia, Briantama Asmara Aug 2021

Social And Environmental Issue Of Deforestation In Papua, Indonesia, Briantama Asmara

English Language Institute

This poster aims to cover social and environmental impacts of deforestation in Papua. This research was based on literature review from various authors.


Advancing Applied Research In Conservation Criminology Through The Evaluation Of Corruption Prevention, Enhancing Compliance, And Reducing Recidivism, Jessica S. Kahler, Joseph W. Rivera, Zachary T. Steele, Pilar Morales-Giner, Christian J. Rivera, Carol F. Ahossin, Ashpreet Kaur, Diane J. Episcopio-Sturgeon Jan 2021

Advancing Applied Research In Conservation Criminology Through The Evaluation Of Corruption Prevention, Enhancing Compliance, And Reducing Recidivism, Jessica S. Kahler, Joseph W. Rivera, Zachary T. Steele, Pilar Morales-Giner, Christian J. Rivera, Carol F. Ahossin, Ashpreet Kaur, Diane J. Episcopio-Sturgeon

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Concomitant with an increase in the global illegal wildlife trade has been a substantial increase in research within traditional conservation-based sciences and conservation and green criminology. While the integration of criminological theories and methods into the wildlife conservation context has advanced our understanding of and practical responses to illegal wildlife trade, there remain discrepancies between the number of empirical vs. conceptual studies and a disproportionate focus on a few select theories, geographical contexts, and taxonomic groups. We present three understudied or novel applications of criminology and criminal justice research within the fields of fisheries, forestry, and wildlife conservation. First, we …


Effects Of Land Use In Nebraska On Insect Biodiversity And Eastern Monarch Populations, Carina Olivetti Jan 2021

Effects Of Land Use In Nebraska On Insect Biodiversity And Eastern Monarch Populations, Carina Olivetti

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

How are Nebraska land use decisions affecting eastern monarch butterfly decline? What are the driving factors causing monarch decline? What are the challenges of insect monitoring and data organizing? The purpose of this exploratory research project was to investigate these questions and simultaneously illustrate the importance of insect biodiversity, focusing largely on the monarch butterfly. The eastern population of the monarch butterfly has declined 80% over the past two decades. The state of Nebraska lies within their migratory path and is therefore critical to their survival. The hypothesis is that monarch populations are declining because of the combined impacts of …


Species Selection And Plantation Management In Enrichment Planting With Native Timber Species In The Panama Canal Watershed, Abigail A. Marshall Jan 2021

Species Selection And Plantation Management In Enrichment Planting With Native Timber Species In The Panama Canal Watershed, Abigail A. Marshall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Large areas of the Panama Canal Watershed have been converted to monocultures of teak (Tectonia grandis), a non-native timber species that is generally not providing hoped-for economic and ecological benefits of Forest Landscape Restoration. Enrichment planting offers a potential strategy for revitalizing these underperforming plantations through the addition of high-value, native species to the understory, but more information is needed to guide implementation and management in this region and other tropical areas. I assessed the performance of six promising native species (B. crassifolia, D. retusa, D. oleifera, H. alchorneoides, P. pinnatum, T. amazonia) as an enrichment …


Artificial Intelligence For Social Impact: Learning And Planning In The Data-To-Deployment Pipeline, Andrew Perrault, Fei Fang, Arunesh Sinha, Milind Tambe Dec 2020

Artificial Intelligence For Social Impact: Learning And Planning In The Data-To-Deployment Pipeline, Andrew Perrault, Fei Fang, Arunesh Sinha, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the maturing of artificial intelligence (AI) and multiagent systems research, we have a tremendous opportunity to direct these advances toward addressing complex societal problems. In pursuit of this goal of AI for social impact, we as AI researchers must go beyond improvements in computational methodology; it is important to step out in the field to demonstrate social impact. To this end, we focus on the problems of public safety and security, wildlife conservation, and public health in low-resource communities, and present research advances in multiagent systems to address one key cross-cutting challenge: how to effectively deploy our limited intervention …


Exploring Embodied Carbon Within Smith College Construction: Utilizing The New Neilson Library As A Case Study, Larissa Holland, Rebecca Miller, Lydia Sheyda May 2020

Exploring Embodied Carbon Within Smith College Construction: Utilizing The New Neilson Library As A Case Study, Larissa Holland, Rebecca Miller, Lydia Sheyda

Other Student Projects

According to the Carbon Leadership Forum, the built environment contributes to almost 40% of CO2 emissions worldwide each year. While much of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted from structures is a result of the energy required to operate the lighting, heating, and cooling of existing buildings, it has been calculated that embodied carbon will be responsible for roughly half of the total new construction emissions between now and 2050. At an institutional scale, Smith College has made great progress in improving the energy and structural efficiency of building operations and expanding renewable energy initiatives. However, with construction being responsible for …


Improving Smallholder Livelihoods: Dairy Production In Tanzania, Edward Ulicky, Jackson Magoma, Helen Usiri, Amanda Edward Apr 2020

Improving Smallholder Livelihoods: Dairy Production In Tanzania, Edward Ulicky, Jackson Magoma, Helen Usiri, Amanda Edward

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Tanzania is primarily an agro-based economy, characterized by subsistence agricultural production that employs more than 80% of the population and contributing up to 45% of the GDP (2005). This country is endowed with a cattle population of 21.3 million, composed mainly of indigenous Zebu breed and about 680,000 improved dairy animals. About 70% of the milk produced comes from the traditional sector (indigenous cattle) kept in rural areas, while the remaining 30% comes from improved cattle mainly kept by smallholder producers. In Northern Tanzania and particularly in Hai district of Kilimanjaro region, some dairy farmers organize themselves into small producer …


Abstraction Techniques In Security Games With Underlying Network Structure, Anjon Basak Jan 2020

Abstraction Techniques In Security Games With Underlying Network Structure, Anjon Basak

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In a multi-agent system, multiple intelligent agents interact with each other in an environment to achieve their objectives. They can do this because they know which actions are available to them and which actions they prefer to take in a particular situation. The job of game theory is to analyze the interactions of the intelligent agents by different solution techniques and provide analysis such as predicting outcomes or recommending courses of action to specific players. To do so game theory works with a model of real-world scenarios which helps us to make a better decision in our already complex daily …


Can Farmers And Bats Co-Exist? Farmer Attitudes, Knowledge, And Experiences With Bats In Belize, Hannah G. Shapiro, Adam S. Willcox, Mallory Tate, Emma V. Willcox Jan 2020

Can Farmers And Bats Co-Exist? Farmer Attitudes, Knowledge, And Experiences With Bats In Belize, Hannah G. Shapiro, Adam S. Willcox, Mallory Tate, Emma V. Willcox

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Bats (Chiroptera) are often viewed negatively by the public. Negative public perceptions of bats may hinder efforts to conserve declining populations. In Belize, the presence of vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus and Diphylla ecaudata) exacerbates the potential for conflicts with humans because of the increased rabies transmission risks. To mitigate these risks, the Belize government provides farmers with assistance to trap and remove vampire bats. In June 2018, we surveyed farmers (n = 44) in and adjacent to the Vaca Forest Reserve in Belize to learn more about their attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with bats. This information may …


Internet Of Things For Sustainable Community Development: Introduction And Overview, Abdul Salam Jan 2020

Internet Of Things For Sustainable Community Development: Introduction And Overview, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

The two-third of the city-dwelling world population by 2050 poses numerous global challenges in the infrastructure and natural resource management domains (e.g., water and food scarcity, increasing global temperatures, and energy issues). The IoT with integrated sensing and communication capabilities has the strong potential for the robust, sustainable, and informed resource management in the urban and rural communities. In this chapter, the vital concepts of sustainable community development are discussed. The IoT and sustainability interactions are explained with emphasis on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and communication technologies. Moreover, IoT opportunities and challenges are discussed in the context of sustainable community …


Internet Of Things For Sustainable Forestry, Abdul Salam Jan 2020

Internet Of Things For Sustainable Forestry, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

Forests and grasslands play an important role in water and air purification, prevention of the soil erosion, and in provision of habitat to wildlife. Internet of Things has a tremendous potential to play a vital role in the forest ecosystem management and stability. The conservation of species and habitats, timber production, prevention of forest soil degradation, forest fire prediction, mitigation, and control can be attained through forest management using Internet of Things. The use and adoption of IoT in forest ecosystem management is challenging due to many factors. Vast geographical areas and limited resources in terms of budget and equipment …


Mammal Species Inventory Using Various Trapping Methods In Zone 4 Of Billy Barquedier National Park, Belize During Rainy Season, Mersady Redding Dec 2019

Mammal Species Inventory Using Various Trapping Methods In Zone 4 Of Billy Barquedier National Park, Belize During Rainy Season, Mersady Redding

Animal Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Belize is a small country, but it is extremely ecologically diverse. Based on the few studies conducted in Belize, the abundance of mammals is low but diversity is high. Particular findings note the number and identity of species differed between four sites in the Maya Mountains of Belize, indicating that a data set from a single site is not representative of the Neotropical region. Insufficient data is available to estimate current species richness of many areas in Belize, including Billy Barquedier National Park (BBNP). The objective of this study was to explore trapping and documentation methods of terrestrial mammals in …


Drought Impacts Assessment In Brazil - A Remote Sensing Approach, Denis Mariano Aug 2019

Drought Impacts Assessment In Brazil - A Remote Sensing Approach, Denis Mariano

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Climate extremes are becoming more frequent in Brazil; studies project an increase in drought occurrences in many regions of the country. In the south, drought events lead to crop yield losses affecting the value chain and, therefore, the local economy. In the northeast, extended periods of drought lead to potential land degradation, affecting the livelihood and hindering local development. In the southern Amazon, an area that experienced intense land use change (LUC) in the last, the impacts are even more complex, ranging from crop yield loss and forest resilience loss, affecting ecosystem health and putting a threat on the native …


Women In Conservation: A Study Of Effective Community-Based Conservation And The Empowerment Of Women In Tanzania, Ruby Krietzman Apr 2019

Women In Conservation: A Study Of Effective Community-Based Conservation And The Empowerment Of Women In Tanzania, Ruby Krietzman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The subject of this study is women involved in Community-Based Conservation (CBC) from areas surrounding Lake Manyara National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and Mount Kilimanjaro National Park. CBC is a participatory process between people and organizations who have responsibilities affecting conservation. Communities surrounding protected conservation areas tend to experience high levels of poverty and marginalization due to exclusive conservation policies and the lack of co-management principles. Although tourism revenue is abundant in these locations, the benefits rarely impact local community members that disproportionately experience the effects of conservation. This is especially true for women who hold the responsibilities of collecting …


Lepidopteran Diversity And Abundance Across Five Different Indigenously Managed Land Use Zones In The Naso-Teribe Territory, Bocas Del Toro Province, Panama, Eli Dotson Apr 2019

Lepidopteran Diversity And Abundance Across Five Different Indigenously Managed Land Use Zones In The Naso-Teribe Territory, Bocas Del Toro Province, Panama, Eli Dotson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Lepidopterans, the order that includes both moths and butterflies, are among the best-known insects taxonomically and ecologically due to the relative ease of monitoring them in comparison to other groups of insects. Their distribution follows that of other insects and forms of life, as around 90% of species have a tropical distribution. This incredibly speciose group of animals fills many vital roles in the ecosystems they inhabit, including herbivores in their larval stages, prey for a variety of predators in all life stages, and pollinators for many plant species as adults. In some circumstances, certain species may also serve as …


Primitive Palms: A Density Study On The Impacts Of Harvesting Natural Materials For Construction Purposes On Sumak Allpa Of The Amazon Rainforest, Zachary Bull Apr 2019

Primitive Palms: A Density Study On The Impacts Of Harvesting Natural Materials For Construction Purposes On Sumak Allpa Of The Amazon Rainforest, Zachary Bull

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In an effort to better understand how rural construction techniques affect a surrounding environment, this study combines a density test of the natural building materials used in the construction of a school on Sumak Allpa island of the Orellana Province in the Amazon basin of Ecuador. The focus of the study measures the density of the bamboo species Guadua angustifolia and the Panama hat plant Carludovica palmata on the island while noting a comprehensive compilation of the techniques and materials used in the building process. Using a mix of plots and transects, a comparison of harvested material to remaining material …


The Cost Of Forest Preservation In The Brazilian Amazon: The “Arc Of Deforestation”, Felipe De Figueiredo Silva, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Richard Perrin Jan 2019

The Cost Of Forest Preservation In The Brazilian Amazon: The “Arc Of Deforestation”, Felipe De Figueiredo Silva, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Richard Perrin

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

We estimate the trade-off between agricultural production and forest preservation for the municipalities in Brazil’s agricultural frontier, the so-called “arc of deforestation,” using census and deforestation data for 2006. We use a nonparametric directional output distance function that allows us to identify the gradients of the production possibility frontier, which are the trade-offs of interest. We found that, on average, $979 is forgone in annual livestock, timber, and grain revenues to conserve 1 hectare of forest. This translates, ceteris paribus, to an average present value of costs to permanently sequester CO2 of $16.36/t, higher than most previous estimates.


Translating Global Nature: Territoriality, Environmental Discourses, And Ecocultural Identities, José R. Castro-Sotomayor Aug 2018

Translating Global Nature: Territoriality, Environmental Discourses, And Ecocultural Identities, José R. Castro-Sotomayor

Communication ETDs

In this study, I explore environmental discourses circulating among Indigenous transboundary organizations working on environmental initiatives at the border between Ecuador and Colombia. I focus on three global environmental discourses –sustainability, development, and climate change– as they are at the core of the global environmental governance vernacular. La Gran Familia Awá Binacional (GFAB), one of the few transboundary Indigenous organizations working along the binational border, utilizes these global concepts to frame their environmental initiatives and projects. I use a critical and interpretive qualitative approach to investigate, deconstruct, and rearticulate global environmental discourses circulating among and translated by two of the …


Stackelberg Security Games: Looking Beyond A Decade Of Success, Arunesh Sinha, Fei Fang, Bo An, Christopher Kiekintveld, Milind Tambe Jul 2018

Stackelberg Security Games: Looking Beyond A Decade Of Success, Arunesh Sinha, Fei Fang, Bo An, Christopher Kiekintveld, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Stackelberg Security Game (SSG) model has been immensely influential in security research since it was introduced roughly a decade ago. Furthermore, deployed SSG-based applications are one of most successful examples of game theory applications in the real world. We present a broad survey of recent technical advances in SSG and related literature, and then look to the future by highlighting the new potential applications and open research problems in SSG.


Assessing Bald Cypress (Taxodium Distichum) Tree Dynamic Change In Usf Forest Preserve Area Using Mixture-Tuned Matched Filtering And Multitemporal Satellite Imagery, Yujia Wang Jun 2018

Assessing Bald Cypress (Taxodium Distichum) Tree Dynamic Change In Usf Forest Preserve Area Using Mixture-Tuned Matched Filtering And Multitemporal Satellite Imagery, Yujia Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wetlands are the most important and valuable ecosystems on Earth. They are called “kidneys of the Earth”. Vegetation change detection is necessary to understand the condition of a wetland and to support ecosystem sustainable management and utilization. It has been a great challenge to estimate vegetation (including bald cypress trees) coverage of the wetland because it is difficult to access directly. Satellite remote sensing technology can be one important feasible method to map and monitor changes of wetland forest vegetation and land cover over large areas. Remote sensing mapping techniques have been applied to detect and map vegetation changes in …


Mineral Warfare: The Dark Side Of Technology And International Mediation, Priyanka Basnyat May 2018

Mineral Warfare: The Dark Side Of Technology And International Mediation, Priyanka Basnyat

Master's Theses

Conflict surrounding the extraction and trade of natural resources is not an uncommon phenomenon. Especially in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has historically suffered from the negative impacts of the resource curse since their mineral wealth was first discovered by their Colonial administrators. The importance of Congo’s minerals has fluctuated over the years but has peaked during recent times, as their use in technological advancements are becoming more vital. The global demand for these mineral ores have sky rocketed and consequentially, the largely informal trade has benefitted certain rebel groups, playing a pivotal role in …


Towards Quantifying Relevant Land Cover Change: A Case Study In The Central Flyway Of The Monarch Butterfly, Hanna Lenee Ford May 2018

Towards Quantifying Relevant Land Cover Change: A Case Study In The Central Flyway Of The Monarch Butterfly, Hanna Lenee Ford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past 20 years notable decreases in monarch butterfly populations have led researchers to begin evaluating the landscape for changes and seeking out opportunities for enacting conservation programs to better support their survival. The monarch butterfly has recently come under consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act which has created a need for a more informed view of the landscape through which the migrate and breed, the central United States. In this research three spatially-explicit models are explored using the most applicable datasets currently available to address pressing policy and land manager decisions regarding monarch butterfly and pollinator …


Sosiel: A Cognitive, Multi-Agent, And Knowledge-Based Platform For Modeling Boundedly-Rational Decision-Making, Garry Sotnik Feb 2018

Sosiel: A Cognitive, Multi-Agent, And Knowledge-Based Platform For Modeling Boundedly-Rational Decision-Making, Garry Sotnik

Dissertations and Theses

Decision-related activities, such as bottom-up and top-down policy development, analysis, and planning, stand to benefit from the development and application of computer-based models that are capable of representing spatiotemporal social human behavior in local contexts. This is especially the case with our efforts to understand and search for ways to mitigate the context-specific effects of climate change, in which case such models need to include interacting social and ecological components. The development and application of such models has been significantly hindered by the challenges in designing artificial agents whose behavior is grounded in both empirical evidence and theory and in …


Mixed-Weight Open Locating-Dominating Sets, Robin M. Givens Jan 2018

Mixed-Weight Open Locating-Dominating Sets, Robin M. Givens

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The detection and location of issues in a network is a common problem encompassing a wide variety of research areas. Location-detection problems have been studied for wireless sensor networks and environmental monitoring, microprocessor fault detection, public utility contamination, and finding intruders in buildings. Modeling these systems as a graph, we want to find the smallest subset of nodes that, when sensors are placed at those locations, can detect and locate any anomalies that arise. One type of set that solves this problem is the open locating-dominating set (OLD-set), a set of nodes that forms a unique and nonempty neighborhood with …