A Road Map For Place Based Collaboration For Conflict Reduction, Joseph L. Zecher

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.

Cultivating Access: The Benefits And Challenges Of Using Community Land Trusts To Preserve Farmland And Support Farmers., Meghan Daly

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Agricultural land protected by community land trusts (CLTs) is more likely to remain in active production due to the CLT’s ability to enforce land use practices and select tenants committed to farming. While land tenure approaches vary among CLTs, protected agricultural lands typically utilize long-term leases with affordable rents (Ela and Rosenberg, 2020). Such leasing arrangements enable farmers to access land at prices unaffected by escalating land values (Schwartz et al., 2013). The CLT model not only safeguards farmland but also promotes active agricultural production, thereby ensuring local food supply and providing economic opportunities for farmers.

Despite the promising potential …

A Tale Of Two Working Landscapes, Sage C. Sutcliffe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Investigating Intellectual Diversity: A Critical Examination Of Academic Publishing Practices And Their Effects On Wildlife Conservation, Madeline M. Damon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Academic publishing processes and standards play a fundamental role in communicating, reviewing, and expanding scientific knowledge in wildlife conservation. However, various publishing biases privilege some research perspectives and worldviews while limiting others. These biases directly impact intellectual diversity, or differences in ontology, axiology, and epistemology. This study aims to quantify intellectual diversity in the field of wildlife conservation and identify how publishing biases affect knowledge available to researchers and decision-makers worldwide.

The study employed a sample of 50,000 articles published between 2018 and 2022, collected from the Web of Science database. To analyze the vast amount of article records, natural …

The Links To Cancer: How Golf Became Dangerous And What We Can Do To Save The Game, Meredith Boos

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This study is a comprehensive meta-analysis on health claims linked to exposure to golf courses, more specifically the chemicals used to maintain their appearance. It provides a brief history of the golf industry and how its growth exacerbated the environmental impact as well as an explanation of the legal landscape that will affect golf course management. Golf courses can disrupt local ecologies, contaminate ground water, rivers, lakes and streams with run-off, and be responsible for the bioaccumulation of chemicals which remain dangerous for decades. Despite the adverse effects of golf courses on the environment, there remains an opportunity to transform …

"Our Loons": Participant Attachments And Motivations Within A Community-Based Monitoring Program, Taylor Tewksbury

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Organizations can benefit from understanding person-place relationships and volunteer motivations as they recruit and sustain involvement in their community-based monitoring (CBM) programs. Place attachment, or the bond between people and their meaningful environments, is one lens through which to explore these relationships. Past studies have associated place attachment with environmentally responsible behaviors (ERB), such as CBM involvement. However, few studies have explored the relationship between place attachment and CBM in the context of volunteers’ attachment to the species of study.

The purpose of this research study was to explore the place-based relationships and motivations among volunteers of the Loon Preservation …

Federal Funding Statutes And State-Federal Wildlife Authority: Did Congress Demonstrate A Preference For State Wildlife Management Authority With Pittman-Robertson And Dingell-Johnson?, James Vaughan Branch

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 now known as Pittman-Robertson and Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act of 1950 now known as Dingell-Johnson are federal statutes which stand as the original and perhaps most significant federal funding statutes supporting state wildlife conservation and management. Congress’s decision to pass these statutes may be argued to be a prima facie endorsement of state wildlife agencies (SWA) as the primary managers of wildlife since each statute dedicated substantial federal excise revenue to SWAs. We hypothesized we would find consistent evidence in favor of primary state management authority over wildlife. …

The Relationship Between Food Retailers And Distributors, Madison Seigler, Julia Anderson, Aidan Morton, Cassandra Williams, Victoria Bloomgren, Jacob Tutty

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Our understanding of the science of anthropogenic climate change and its immediate and indirect impacts has grown within the last decade.Alongside anincrease in concern for the inequities within the industrialized food system, climate change is impacting agriculture and the communities that depend on it in myriad ways. These challenges have catalyzed investment in sustainable agriculture, “eat local” food movements, and rethinking of all aspects of food systems, including consumers, producers, retailers, and distributors. The body of literature on food systems primarily focuses on the connection between consumers and retailers; however, there is a notable absence of literature on the relationships …

Re-Storying Grant Creek: A Case Study Of Relational Dynamics On A Degraded Montana Stream, Seamus Rucci Land

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration began in 2021, and after a history of contentious ethical debates, ecological restoration is increasingly portrayed as a viable framework for combating environmental degradation and supporting more healthy and stable social-ecological systems. The proposed ecological restoration of Grant Creek, a degraded stream near Missoula, Montana, offers an opportunity to connect a restoration site to the broader, rapidly growing field of restoration practice. It also allows the opportunity to forward the ‘relational turn’ proposed by many in the sustainability sciences as an ontological and methodological means to move beyond positivist portrayals of social-ecological systems, which …

Looking To The Future Of Wildlife Conservation: Durable Wildlife Policy For The 21st Century, Charlie R. Booher

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wildlife conservation in the United States was built by the dollars of consumptive users. Monies from the sale of hunting licenses, as well as excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and archery tackle through the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (PR), currently fuel a complex system of wildlife conservation via multiple levels of government. However, the number of hunters in this country is rapidly declining, the sale of firearms and ammunition is increasingly unrelated to hunting, and contemporary consumers tend to express different values than traditional hunters. These changes pose significant challenges of relevancy and funding to state and …

Keeping What You Sow: Intellectual Property Rights For Plant Breeders And Seed Growers, Paulina B. Jenney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Over the last 150 years, the food system in the present-day United States has undergone a transformational restructuring, from a diversified, decentralized, network of farmers and seed growers, to one in which the majority of crop production is controlled by a few industrial corporations. The consolidation of power has been under-girded by the application of intellectual property rights (IPR)—especially utility patents—to plant varieties and genetic traits, which are leveraged to exclude small-scale seed growers from accessing quality germplasm. Patents and restrictive licensing agreements recapitulate colonial structures by appropriating common and traditionally community-held resources for profit, and by creating reliance on …

Collaborative Conservation And Backcountry Weed Control: A Case Study Of The Great Burn Proposed Wilderness, Christopher James Prange

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Noxious weeds have become a management priority on public lands in the United States. Managing invasive weed populations in natural areas with complex ecosystems presents issues that need a systems-wide approach over long temporal and spatial scales. This broad-scale problem increasingly demands collaborative efforts. While collaborative conservation has become a tool in natural resource management during the 21^st century, it is less commonly applied in weed control in backcountry wilderness areas. Programs that have been initiated are understudied. Accordingly, this research was conducted through semi-structured interviews to gather perspectives of weed professionals involved in a collaborative backcountry weed program …

Remote Sensing Approaches To Predict Forest Characteristics In Northwest Montana, Ryan P. Rock

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Remote sensing can be utilized by land management organizations to save money and time. Mapping vegetation using either aerial photographs or satellite imagery and the applications for forest management are of particular interest to the Montana Department of Natural Resources. In 2018, the organization began a pilot program to test the incorporation of raster analysis of remotely sensed data into their inventory program and had limited success. This analysis identified two areas of improvement: the selection method of inventory plots and the imagery used for classification and metrics. This study found that selecting inventory plots using a generalized random tessellation …

"A Pressure Not To Be Resisted Or Evaded": Military Occupation, Reform, And The Incorporation Of Northern Montana, 1879-1916, Hayden Nelson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores Fort Assinniboine’s role as an extension of the federal government’s military arm in the Northern Plains. It argues that the military occupation of northern Montana served to incorporate the northern borderland region and peoples into the American mainstream as a part of the national reconstruction processes following the Civil War into the twentieth century. In a period of half a century, north-central Montana transformed from a Native American common hunting ground lacking any major white settlement to a rapidly developing agricultural region. Fort Assinniboine played a central role in this transformation, hastening the economic collapse of the …

Protecting Biodiversity On National Forests: The Evolution And Implementation Of Forest Planning Regulations, Anna Wearn

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2012, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) promulgated new forest planning regulations that significantly altered national forest management. One of the most controversial and important advancements was the inclusion of what were meant to be stronger biodiversity protections. An analysis of USFS’s rationale in revising the biodiversity regulations provides insights into how to interpret the substantively and procedurally new ecosystem and species protections. Examining this regulatory history reveals three key changes to the manner in which national forests are required to manage and monitor biodiversity: 1) a greater reliance on science to inform planning, 2) a new emphasis on ecological …

Comparing Fence Modeling And Mapping Approaches To Support Wildlife Management And Research In Southwest Montana, Simon Albert Buzzard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fences pose significant challenges to wildlife movement, but their effects are difficult to quantify because fence location and fence type data are lacking on a global scale. We developed a fence location and density model in southwest Montana, USA to provide data to researchers and managers, and test whether previous models could be applied to a new region and retain suitable levels of statistical accuracy. Our model used local expert opinion to inform how road, land cover, and ownership spatial layers interacted to predict fence locations. We validated the model against fence data collected on random 3.2 km road transects …

Hear Me Roar, Abigail R. Seethoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hear Me Roar, a compilation of personal essays interspersed with short forms, grapples with the nuances of compliance versus autonomy in the context of the male gaze, beauty standards, and pop culture. The collection also explores what it means to treasure something—another person, an object—and how to express and deepen that affection.

Utilization Of Various Methods And A Landsat Ndvi/Google Earth Engine Product For Classifying Irrigated Land Cover, Andrew Nemecek

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Methods for classifying irrigated land cover are often complex and not quickly reproducible. Further, moderate resolution time-series datasets have been consistently utilized to produce irrigated land cover products over the past decade, and the body of irrigation classification literature contains no examples of subclassification of irrigated land cover by irrigation method. Creation of geospatial irrigated land cover products with higher resolution datasets could improve reliability, and subclassification of irrigation by method could provide better information for hydrologists and climatologists attempting to model the role of irrigation in the surface-ground water cycle and the water-energy balance. This study summarizes a simple, …

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 …

Through The Eyes Of Locals: A Changing Climate In Bolivia, Jacob D. Rex

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Deforestation and Agricultural Land-Use Change in Bolivia as a Function of Socio-Economic Realities.

This research combines semi-structured interviews of key informants and local participants, as well as field observations, which were conducted between January and April of 2019 in the Departments of Santa Cruz & Chuquisaca.

Eating Insects: A Community Action Toolkit, Lily X. Chumrau, Charlotte Langner, Freya Sargent, Ellen Sears, Mary Mccormick

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The world’s human population has risen exponentially over the last 100 years and is expected to reach nine billion by 2050. Ensuring food security and resource sustainability is of global concern. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization endorses insect farming as an alternative to cattle, pork, sheep, and poultry industries because of their higher food conversion rate. Insect farming requires less arable land, less water, and produces less greenhouse gases than traditional livestock. The practice of eating insects, known as entomophagy, is not a new idea as two billion people around the world include insects in their diets. Unfortunately, …

Recovering Our Roots: The Importance Of Salish Ethnobotanical Knowledge And Traditional Food Systems To Community Wellbeing On The Flathead Indian Reservation In Montana., Mitchell Rose Bear Don't Walk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis provides a culturally-comprehensive review of the plants utilized for food in the Bitterroot Salish tribe of northwestern Montana. As part of the larger Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CS&KT) of the Flathead Indian Reservation, the Bitterroot Salish historically utilized hundreds of plants for food, medicine and hygiene. This thesis aims to highlight food plants and their important cultural components. The information herein is a combination of history, ethnography, linguistics, ethnobotany, and first-hand experience with the current Salish community to provide a holistic framework of understanding traditional food plants today. A comprehensive plant list is provided with Latin, Salish …

Adaptation Under The Canopy: Coffee Cooperative And Certification Contributions To Smallholder Livelihood Sustainability In Santa Lucía Teotepec, Oaxaca, Meghan C. Montgomery

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The collapse and reorganization of global coffee markets associated with the “coffee crisis” have had profound, negative impacts on smallholder producer livelihoods throughout the world. In Mexico, the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) coincided with withdrawal of government support for agriculture, which devastated producers dependent on coffee for their livelihoods. Smallholders responded by shifting livelihood strategies to diversify income, migrating, and converting primary forest cover to subsistence crops and pasture to support household livelihood security. In some instances, producers also joined or formed cooperative organizations to access specialty certifications that offer higher priced markets, extension information, and other …

Cognitive Impacts Of Age Based Stereotype Threat In Older Adults, Cali Caughie

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The present study examined the effects of age-based stereotype threat (ABST) exposure on cognitive performance in older adults. Forty-nine community volunteers age 65 and older were stratified by age and gender and then randomly assigned to either an ABST group or a Control group. The ABST group read a paragraph describing the expected negative effects of age on cognition and the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in older adults. Participants in the Control group read a neutral paragraph of similar length and difficulty. It was hypothesized that individuals in the ABST group would perform worse on neuropsychological testing than individuals in …

Watered Down: The Challenges Of Managing Water Resources In Montana, Beau E. Baker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Like much of the American West, Montana sits in the cross hairs of climate change. State drought resiliency projects and cooperative watershed management are on the rise in the face of decreased snowpack, early runoff, precipitation variability and lower seasonal stream flows. Population growth, land use practices, recreation and tourism all contribute to pressures on state water supplies.

Montana is faced with the arrival of invasive species that threaten the ecological health of its lakes, rivers and streams. State budget constraints and depressed agency capacity are hurting our ability to fend off these threats. There’s a lack of public education …

Impacts Of Elephant Crop-Raiding On Subsistence Farmers And Approaches To Reduce Human-Elephant Farming Conflict In Sagalla, Kenya, Sophia Weinmann

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As human and elephant populations grow in Kenya, elephants increasingly leave parks to eat farmers’ crops while foraging, which creates epicenters of human-elephant conflict (HEC). This conflict compromises farmers’ food and economic security, impedes elephant conservation initiatives, and threatens the safety of humans and elephants. In recent years, the situation has been exacerbated by drought and national-level infrastructure development that bisects key elephant habitat. Although researchers have widely studied elephant populations, few have examined the cultural, economic, and emotional effects of HEC on subsistence farmers. This project utilized a mixed methods approach to address this knowledge gap and understand the …

Zoning And Complementary Incentives To Protect Farmland: A Case For Missoula County, Kaitlin Mccafferty

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Urban sprawl reflects an inefficient use of land that diminishes both rural landscapes and quality of life turning farms, ranches and open space into siloed suburban communities. This results in less walkable cities with more traffic and air pollution, among other negative consequences. Farmland constitutes a particularly important resource that often faces degradation or loss due to sprawl. Higher quality agricultural soils are particularly desirable for development because they are flat and well-drained. Farmland is also important for urban communities concerning food security, environmental health, and economic well being. As American cities continue to grow, farmland around urban areas has …

Poison In Pink, Sydney V. Cook

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Humans slather, spray, mist, and cleanse their bodies with personal care products like lotion, hairspray, cologne, and shampoo every day. Our cupboards are stocked full of them, but few of us understand what is in those jars and bottles. We trust that if it’s on the shelf at the store, it’s safe. However, this is not always the case, and many personal care products contain chemicals that are harmful to human and environmental health.

My multi-disciplinary Environmental Studies thesis project combines evidenced-based research, interviews, nonfiction narrative, and science communication to create part of a book manuscript intended to educate general …

Ancient Dna Extraction From Stone Tools, Clare Super

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Proteins and DNA can be trapped in the microcracks on the surface of stone tools, which can then be extracted and analyzed to aid in inferring the use of the tool (Shanks et al. 2001; 2005). This nondestructive method involves the use of sonication to release DNA from the microcracks, then amplification of regions of mitochondrial DNA that are species specific. This technique was applied to stone tools from the Bridge River site in British Columbia by researchers at UMT’s Ancient and Modern Molecular Anthropology labs. Bridge River archaeologists have designated the tools as used in “food processing or tool …

Sms Parent Action Intervention (Span): A Pilot Study To Assess The Feasibility Of Using Text Messaging To Promote Child Health On An American Indian Reservation, Julia M. Malich

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract

Purpose: Childhood obesity and its associated health risks are widely recognized as a major public health crisis in the United States (Johnson & Johnson, 2014; Proctor, 2008; Rogers et al, 2013; Vinci et al, 2016) and worldwide (Elías-Boneta, Toro, Garcia, Torres, & Palacios, 2015). Among children in low-income families, American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) children have the highest prevalence of obesity (21.1%) compared to other racial/ethnic groups (14.74% overall) (Pan et al, 2015). Parents play an important role in introducing healthy foods and encouraging physical activity in young children (Birch & Ventura, 2009; Lindsay et al., 2006; Natale et al., …