Environmental Studies Commons^™

Embera Drua: The Impact Of Tourism On Indigenous Village Life In Panama, Amy Lethbridge

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This case study examines the experience of residents of the Indigenous village of Embera Drua, Panama with 20 years of tourism. It addresses the lack of Indigenous voices in tourism literature by telling the story of Embera Drua through the lens of the villagers themselves. The study uses a mix of ethnographic observation and narrative inquiry and finds that the experience of Embera Drua mirrors the experience of other Indigenous villages offering tourism around the globe, particularly the impact of lack of community capacity on management and growth of such tourism initiatives. Findings of this study are relevant to the …

Opportunities For Conversion To More Sustainable Practices By Houses Of Worship Through Team Performance Enhancing Strategies That Include Leadership With Facilitative Skills, Carolina Del Carmen Saiz

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research focused on assessing the performance of teams of volunteers in Houses of Worship (HOWs) in the State of Massachusetts that are successfully planning, advancing and completing sustainable initiatives. The sustainable initiatives included solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, city public parks cleaning projects, efficient windows installations, efficient lighting fixtures installations, and building insulation improvements. The goal of this research was to assess the dynamics of a total of eight successful teams, including the relationships among team members and their leaders with facilitative skills that they perceived were instrumental to their effective and efficient performance. The role of team leadership was …

Piglets And Perspectives: Exploring Sustainability Communication Through Participatory Filmmaking, Dyanna Innes Smith

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The goal of this research was to conduct a qualitative study applying narrative theory to participatory video methodologies in order to better understand how the process of filmmaking can be used to create a method of sustainability communication. To do this, the study collaborated with individuals who are currently practicing different types of sustainable agriculture on small farms in southern New Hampshire. A group of five farms participated in a new method of filmmaking designed to blend specific elements of participatory video technique with principles of narrative theory. This method included camera training, filmed personal interviews, participants filming their own …

Environmental Influences On Elite Sport Athletes Well Being: From Gold, Silver, And Bronze To Blue Green And Gold, Aoife Donnelly, Tadhg Macintyre, Nollaig O'Sullivan, Giles Warrington, Andrew Harrison, Eric Igou, Marc Jones, Chris Gidlow, Noel Brick, Ian Lahart, Andrew Lane

Articles

This paper considers the environmental impact on well-being and performance in elite athletes during Olympic competition. The benefits of exercising in natural environments are recognized, but less is known about the effects on performance and health in elite athletes. Although some Olympic events take place in natural environments, the majority occur in the host city, usually a large densely populated area where low exposure to natural environments is compounded by exposure to high levels of air, water, and noise pollution in the ambient environment. By combining methods and expertise from diverse but inter-related disciplines including environmental psychology, exercise physiology, biomechanics, …

Climate Change And Social Work: Our Roles And Barriers To Action, Tina Cumby

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative research project was conducted using a grounded theory research methodology and was approached with the theoretical underpinnings of social constructivism and pragmatism. The purpose of this research was to assess what role, if any, that social workers can play in dealing with environmental issues such as climate change and what barriers, if any, they will likely experience as they engage with these issues. It is important to explore these roles and barriers because social work is a profession that is well equipped to mitigate environmental issues like climate change, yet there is virtually no social work presence in …

Modeling Animal Behavior In A Changing Environment, Shandelle M. Henson, James M. Cushing, James L. Hayward

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Behavioral Ecology And Population Characteristics Of Striped Skunks Inhabiting Piper Plover Nesting Beaches On The Island Of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Luanne Johnson

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

We studied coastal striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA to gather information on the population characteristics of this mesopredator on Atlantic coast beaches with nesting piping plovers (Charadrius melodus). From 2004 – 2008, we captured and marked 138 skunks and fitted 51 adults with VHF radio-collars. Capture rates ranged from 1 – 7 individuals/100 trap nights (TN) in the spring and 4 – 21 individuals/100 TN in the fall. Spring capture rates were highest at Dogfish Bar (DB), a beach with abundant wrack in the intertidal zone in close proximity to low-density housing, where …

Enhancing The Resilience Of Vulnerable Groups Through Participatory Climate Change Adaptation Planning: A Case Study With The Elderly Community Of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Jason L. Rhoades

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Recent reports highlight the vulnerability of the elderly to climate change. Unfortunately, a lack of research incorporating the perspectives of the elderly on this topic could cause their needs to go unrecognized and unaddressed. To promote adaptation planning that is responsive to the concerns of the elderly, this dissertation presents the results of a participatory research and adaptation planning process conducted in partnership with the elderly community of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The process combined a five-step climate change adaptation planning model with a community-based action research approach that placed the elderly participants as key drivers in the research and planning processes. …

Designing For Online Collaborations And Local Environmental Action In Citizen Science: A Multiple Case Study, Ruth Kermish-Allen

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Traditional citizen science projects have been based on the scientific community’s need to gather vast quantities of high quality data, neglecting to ask what the project participants get in return. How can participants be seen more as collaborative partners in citizen science projects? Online communities for citizen science are expanding rapidly, giving participants the opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities, from monitoring invasive species to identifying far-off galaxies. These communities can bring together the virtual and physical worlds in new ways that are egalitarian, collaborative, applied, localized and globalized to solve real environmental problems. There are …

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (Mcda) For Agricultural Sustainability Assessment, Byomkesh Talukder

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Multi Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT), Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) and Elimination methods of Multi-Criteria Decision analysis (MCDA) are tested to assess and compare the sustainability of different agricultural systems. Indicators and composite indicators are derived from data gathered using the agricultural sustainability categories of Productivity, Stability, Efficiency, Durability, Compatibility and Equity (PSEDCE).

Agricultural systems around the world face challenges from current agricultural practices, over-exploitation of natural resources, population growth and climate change. As a result, understanding agricultural sustainability has become a global issue. Assessment is a first step in benchmarking and tracking agricultural sustainability and …

Assessing The Use Of Food Waste Biochar As A Biodynamic Plant Fertilizer, Rachel Mazac

Departmental Honors Projects

Biochar is a charcoal-like substance produced from plant material such as food waste. Converting food waste into a useful product would mitigate environmental damage through reduced landfill inputs, reduced greenhouse gas production, and increased benefits to soils. I asked (1) if biochar improved plant growth and (2) if the effects of biochar varied among different samples of mixed food waste (batches) and between different biochar preparation times (treatments). Four independent batches of biochar were prepared with assorted, uncooked food waste collected from a university dining facility. Each batch was dried then placed in a covered ceramic pot at 260℃ for …

Environmental Dimensions Of Colonial Settlement: A Palynological Investigation Of La Cienega, New Mexico, Kyle W. Edwards

Graduate Masters Theses

Using palynological data, this project explores how changing land use practices associated with successive waves of colonial settlement shaped local environments in La Cienega, New Mexico. This is accomplished by linking collected pollen data to known historic occupations beginning with pre-colonial Puebloan populations and continuing through the present day, encompassing both Hispanic and Anglo-American colonial occupations. The data were collected from a single sediment core taken at a small pond located within La Cienega. Pollen from 12 samples was analyzed, providing a 600-year record of changes within local plant communities. The collected data are interpreted in relation to known archaeological …

Brooklyn Trash Problems, Christina Diaz

Capstones

Walk through the streets of New York and at some point you’ll inevitably pass by a wafting smell of garbage, but residents of North Brooklyn are handling more than their share of the smelly load and they’re tired of getting dumped on.

A newly formed coalition of neighbors and environmental activists has begun a turf war against Brooklyn Transfer LLC, a waste transfer station located on Thames Street in East Williamsburg, which handles private commercial waste through ­­­­­­­­­­­­­Five Star Carting.

Link to Map: https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1769408

Fish Landings At The World’S Commercial Fishing Ports, Tim Huntington, Fiona Nimmo, Graeme Macfadyen

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

In 2009, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) adopted the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing (PSMA). Countries that ratify the treaty commit to exert greater control at ports over foreign-flagged vessels to detect IUU catch before it is offloaded from vessels, and prevent the ill-gotten catch from entering the world’s markets. The PSMA, when effectively implemented globally, will be a major deterrent to IUU fishing. A major challenge to selecting ports for enhanced controls has been the lack of data on which ports are the world’s largest …

Which Came First, People Or Pollution? A Review Of Theory And Evidence From Longitudinal Environmental Justice Studies, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

A considerable number of quantitative analyses have been conducted in the past several decades that demonstrate the existence of racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of a wide variety of environmental hazards. The vast majority of these have been cross-sectional, snapshot studies employing data on hazardous facilities and population characteristics at only one point in time. Although some limited hypotheses can be tested with cross-sectional data, fully understanding how present-day disparities come about requires longitudinal analyses that examine the demographic characteristics of sites at the time of facility siting and track demographic changes after siting. Relatively few such studies …

The Role Of The State, Multinational Oil Companies, International Law & The International Community: Intersection Of Human Rights & Environmental Degradation Climate Change In The 21st Century Caused By Traditional Extractive Practices, The Amazon Rainforest, Indigenous People And Universal Jurisdiction To Resolve The Accountability Issue, Marcela Cabrera Luna

Master's Theses

Local, national and international conventions that protect indigenous sovereignty and their territories, where many of the resources are extracted from by multinational corporations (MNCs) particularly oil, the number one commodity of the world and cause of climate change, continue to be jeopardized because of the lack of a clear international legal framework that can protect them and potentially hold multinationals accountable for their actions. These practices are causing not only environmental issues to the indigenous and surrounding communities, but climate change is in fact, the real human rights issue of the 21^st century and it affects everyone. By using …

Restoring The Mississippi River Delta In Louisiana Ecological Tradeoffs And Barriers To Action, Alison Maulhardt

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the Louisiana 2012 Coastal Master Plan’s ability to reconcile conflicting economic and ecological demands on coastal resources. The Louisiana Coastal Master Plan was unique in combining flood control and coastal restoration under one authority. However, the objectives of flood control and coastal restoration can be in conflict. The plan was also unique in its approach of restoration from a working coast perspective. However, the objectives of ecological restoration and economic productivity do not always agree. By conducting semi-structured interviews with major coastal stakeholders, this research will explore how the planning process has accommodated the views and values …

Impact Of Executive Order 13211 On Environmental Regulation: An Empirical Study, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

Publications and Research

A great deal has been written about the Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempting oil and gas operations using hydraulic fracturing from the purview of certain federal environmental laws. Far less attention has been paid to George W. Bush’s Executive Order 13211 (EO 13211), entitled “Actions Concerning Regulations that Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution or Use.” The executive order requires federal agencies to evaluate the impact of federal regulations on “supply, distribution and use of energy.” This study examined the impact of EO 13211 on United States environmental and conservation regulations proposed and promulgated by federal agencies. The study found …

The Validity Of The Environmental Kuznets Curve For The European Union, Connor L. Kasten

Honors College Theses

This research empirically explores the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for the European Union. Data for CO₂ emission per capita, GDP per capita, population density, and fossil fuel consumption percentage was gathered for the 28 countries within the European Union for years 1990-2010 and regression analysis was conducted in order to see if the EKC relationship held true. However, under this analysis, that result is inconclusive. As GDP per capita increases, CO₂ increases to a certain point and then, instead of having a negative relationship, it continues to increase but at a lesser rate. The coefficients …

Keeping Sabbath During The Week, Michael E. Cafferky

Faculty Works

Would Sabbath-keeping be less meaningful if, on the other six days, our work disrupted human well-being or otherwise failed to honor the Sabbath Giver? This article is an abridged version of the longer peer-reviewed article "Sabbath: The Theological Roots of Sustainable Development" published in the Journal of Biblical Integration in Business available at http://cbfa-jbib.org/index.php/jbib/article/view/108/108 .