2003 Summer Institute Participant Abstracts

• Reed L. Wadley - "Linking Land-Use and Land-Cover Change, Economic Crisis, and Cross-Border Trade in West Kalimantan, Indonesia."
• Lea Berrang - "Environmental Change and Infectious Disease: Mapping Sleeping Sickness in Southeastern Uganda."
• Luis A. Arriola - "Integrating Spatial-Generated Data with Ethnographic Information: Toward a Preliminary Model of Land-Use Change at the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Petén, Guatemala."
• Lydia Breunig - "Nature Conservation and Neoliberal Reform: Landscape Transformations in Rural Northern Mexico."
• Ariel Alain Arias Toledo - "Conditions and Uses of Forestry Ecosystems Considered as Areas Critical to Conservation in Santiago Comaltepec, Ixtlán of Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico."
• Eric Perramond - "Land Tenure and Environmental Change in Mexico: Examples from the State of Guanajuato."
• Elizabeth Torres - "Landscape Assessment of the "Arroyo Chivo" Microwatershed, San Juan Lalana, Oaxaca."
• Shubhayu Saha - "Impact of Socioeconomic Heterogeneity on Collective Action: Case Study of Joint Forest Management in West Bengal, India."
• Birendra Karna - "Exclusion Isn't Easy: Lessons from a Leasehold Forest."
• Juan M. Pulhin - "Climate Change and Watershed Communities: Methodologies for Assessing Social Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation."
• Roxanne T. Ornelas - "Achieving Native American Environmental Justice Through Consultation."
• Qing Xiang - "Causes and Effects of Land-Use Change in Upper Yangtze River in China."
• Laura Ediger - "Land-Use Change on the Margins: Transitions from Shifting to Fixed Field Agriculture."
• Niels Schulz - "Society's Metabolism in Laos PDR."
• Kristen Conway - "Human Use of River Turtles (Podocnemis Spp.) in Eastern Lowland Bolivia."

Thursday, May 22, 2003, 10:20 a.m.

Reed L. Wadley, "Linking Land-Use and Land-Cover Change, Economic Crisis, and Cross-Border Trade in West Kalimantan, Indonesia."

Abstract

The research proposed in this presentation aims to investigate the dynamic interconnections between land-use and land-cover change, trade in natural resource products across international borders, and economic crisis in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Three primary factors appear to affect land use and land cover following the Asian economic crisis of 1997-expansion and contraction of pepper smallholdings, increased commercial (largely "illegal") logging, and variations in community demography (especially population density, household cycling, and wage labor opportunities), with pepper, timber, and labor flowing across the border into Malaysia. The research will employ household-level and remote-sensing/GIS methods to study three Iban communities near the border with Sarawak, Malaysia. The proposed study sites possess relevant, contrasting human and geographical characteristics such as differing population densities, ratios of cultivated land to forest, and involvement with cross-border markets.
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Thursday, May 22, 2003, 10:50 a.m.

Lea Berrang, "Environmental Change and Infectious Disease: Mapping Sleeping Sickness in Southeastern Uganda."

Abstract

Human health and environmental management are experiencing concurrent emergences as global political and social priorities. The overlap of these two fields is the basis of research into the effects of environmental change on infectious disease. Research into sleeping sickness in Uganda provides a practical study focus for environmental epidemiological research. The influences of land-use change, population pressure, urbanization, and political instability have profoundly affected the social and physical ecology of the country, as well as the development of public health and disease distributions. My doctoral research examines the specific role of resource management, land-use change, and socioeconomic instabilities in the regional distribution of sleeping sickness risk over space and time in southeastern Uganda. The theoretical approach will focus on identifying those driving forces of risk that act at the regional level, and how environmental change and management practices influence disease risk. Risk maps will be developed for southeastern Uganda using archival data, historical maps, and satellite imagery. The research is expected to reveal that environmental and socioeconomic changes have been the driving forces affecting the regional risk of sleeping sickness risk in southeastern Uganda over the past 50 years.
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Thursday, May 22, 2003, 11:20 a.m.

Luis A. Arriola, "Integrating Spatial-Generated Data with Ethnographic Information: Toward a Preliminary Model of Land-Use Change at the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Petén, Guatemala."

Abstract

In 1990, one-third of Petén province, in northern Guatemala, was designated a biosphere reserve. Close to 12,000 km2 of a mostly forested, lowland, territory fell under this category, establishing the largest protected area in the country. During the past 13 years, the western flank of the Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR) has undergone heavy intervention. Uncontrolled migration into the area, a weak institutional framework for conservation, and lack of resources to advance effective preservationist policies are turning the MBR into a paper conservation unit. This research focuses on the type of human territoriality that has been established in a 16-mile-long corridor connecting two national parks, both part of the MBR. The aim of integrating ethnographic data and remote-sensing-produced imagery is to establish a rudimentary framework for understanding changes in land-use patterns over the past 15 to 20 years in a location that until very recently was a remote hinterland with primary forest cover. Set in the context of a larger work dealing with the social history of northwestern Petén's borders and frontiers, this effort explores the question of how land-use change reflects, and is a result of, the contending relationship between the complex process of development and a (superimposed) conservation agenda.
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Friday, May 23, 2003, 10:20 a.m.

Lydia Breunig, "Nature Conservation and Neoliberal Reform: Landscape Transformations in Rural Northern Mexico."

Abstract

From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, Mexico created an unprecedented size and number of natural protected areas (NPAs). These areas reinforce specific definitions and regulations regarding "appropriate resource use." During the same period, Mexico began to pursue neoliberal policies that have rearranged economic, political, and social relationships across geographic scales in ways that have stimulated rural landscape transformations. Although these two programs are inextricable, management of NPAs tends to focus exclusively on "the local" as the site of enacting environmental change without engaging with the multiscalar processes that also contribute to landscape transformations. As a result, small-scale local resource users in and around NPAs often disproportionately bear the responsibility for resource degradation. The purpose of my research is to look at conservation efforts in a multiscalar perspective by examining landscape transformations that have occurred as the result of the recent establishment of NPAs in the context of neoliberal reforms. I use primarily ethnographic methods to understand how these multiscalar processes play out in the everyday decisions and language of local resource users.
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Friday, May 23, 2003, 10:50 a.m.

Ariel Alain Arias Toledo, "Conditions and Uses of Forestry Ecosystems Considered as Areas Critical to Conservation in Santiago Comaltepec, Ixtlán of Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico."

Abstract

The project proposes to work in a region of Oaxaca that has been defined by the Instituto de Ecología (of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) and SEMARNAT (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources) as "areas critical to the conservation of biological diversity." The project focuses on the district of Ixtlán, located in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, and in particular on the indigenous community of Santiago Comaltepec. In this region one observes a number of different resource management practices, including commercial forestry management activities that have been carried out since the 1950s. Since the beginning of the 1980s, these practices have been carried out by the communities themselves. In many cases, such forestry operations have favored community-based institutional and organizational development for the management and conservation of their communal forest areas.

This research looks to evaluate increases and reduction in the forest areas of each of the different ecosystems present in the region. As such, it will ascertain and categorize physical-biological environmental indicators and their relationship to resource-use practices, with the goal of making an overall evaluation of the state (conservation or deterioration) of the forest ecosystems and linking these findings to the resource practices that have been developed by the local community in question. This research will develop a methodology that allows for in-situ verification of field data generated by satellite images. In addition, interviews will be carried out regarding local patterns of resource use and the pressures that these place on the forest resource base. Another important element to analyze will be the relationship that exists between social capital present in the community and local forestry management activities, both of which act as factors determining the state of forest resources.
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Friday, May 23, 2003, 11:20 a.m.

Eric Perramond, "Land Tenure and Environmental Change in Mexico: Examples from the State of Guanajuato."

Abstract

There are now broad and focused efforts to understand and predict the human dimensions of environmental change in Latin America. In the case of Mexico, however, it could be argued that it is critical to understand and document the changing institutions regulating or structuring environmental changes at the local level. This paper compares and contrasts the changing circumstances of institutions in two different states of Mexico: Sonora and Guanajuato. Corporate communal control over resources is fracturing into a variety of institutional arrangements with the dissolution of the traditional ejido system, a by-product of the Mexican Revolution. Ejidos are now responding opportunistically to the presence, or notable dearth, of government programs or initiatives. This research is illustrating both the changing grounds for decision making in specific environments, as well as the biophysical resources themselves. Examples from a continuum of ejidos in both states are provided to illustrate the complexity of this process. In ejidos that have decided to pursue privatization, land managers have generally intensified cultivation and decreased fallow periods or field sizes, and there has been a notable increase in sheet erosion. Interviews, questionnaires, and volumetric field measurements of soil erosion are illustrating the shifting mosaic of land use and environmental change spurred on by institutional restructuring.
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Friday, May 23, 2003, 11:50 a.m.

Elizabeth Torres, "Landscape Assessment of the "Arroyo Chivo" Microwatershed, San Juan Lalana, Oaxaca."

Abstract

The results of a landscape assessment in four communities of the municipality San Juan Lalana, Oaxaca, Mexico will be presented. The purpose of the study was zoning of the area in order to propose conservation and sustainable-use practices. Four main geoformations were determined with the use a digital elevation model and satellite imagery interpretation. Then a land-use and vegetation map was developed on which 14 different main classes were determined. By overlapping the landscape and vegetation maps, 110 environmental management units were identified. These units were evaluated using the indicators of altitude, slope, hydrological affinity and ecological quality. Furthermore, the management units were prioritized and recommendations for each were made.
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Monday, May 26, 2003, 9:00 a.m.

Shubhayu Saha, "Impact of Socioeconomic Heterogeneity on Collective Action: Case Study of Joint Forest Management in West Bengal, India."

Abstract

In the developing world, people living beside forests are typically economically impoverished and derive crucial sustenance from various goods and services provided by the forests. Their stake on the sustainable flow of these benefits, spatial advantage to monitor resource-use patterns, and adherence to social norms governing collective behavior were reasons that propelled advocacy for community-based management systems. However, results from experiments with devolution of responsibilities of forest governance to communities have not been unanimously in favor of this new paradigm. Evolution and persistence of cooperation between members in a resource user group becomes more uncertain when we take into account the social and economic heterogeneities among individuals comprising the group. Forming consensus and generating trust become difficult when the importance of the forest resource varies across individuals responsible for its management.

This presentation attempts to explain how heterogeneity among resource users affects collective action in the context of joint forest management in India. Using data collected over 58 Forest Protection Committees in the state of West Bengal, I find that collective action is higher in committees with members belonging to the same caste and with low differences in agricultural and off-farm income. An interesting observation is that a higher level of collective action is noticed both in relatively poor as well as rich committees, though their dependence on forest resources is on subsistence and agricultural complements respectively. This indicates the necessity of prior assessments of these communities to design more synergistic conservation and economic development policies.
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Monday, May 26, 2003, 9:30 a.m.

Birendra Karna, "Exclusion Isn't Easy: Lessons from a Leasehold Forest."

Abstract

Nepal's Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project (HLFFDP) is a livelihoods-through-forestry approach to addressing the needs of the poorest in Nepal. Objectives for the leasehold forestry project are rural-household poverty alleviation and ecological restoration of degraded forests based on the assumption that forest degradation and associated resource depletion is the major constraint in poverty alleviation. Through institutional analysis of a single leasehold forest case study, we argue that exclusion by small groups is difficult, especially for the poorest of the poor. Because access to forest resources is so important for all household in rural Nepal, creating a new situation such as leasehold forestry, where only certain people's forest use and access is considered legitimate, may be untenable.
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Monday, May 26, 2003, 11:30 a.m.

Juan M. Pulhin, "Climate Change and Watershed Communities: Methodologies for Assessing Social Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation."

Abstract

The Working Group I Report of the IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, concludes, "inter alia, that the globally averaged surface temperature has increased by 0.6 ± 0.2Cº over the 20th Century." The same report indicates that the globally averaged surface temperature is projected by models to warm 1.4 to 5.8Cº by 2100 relative to 1990 and that globally averaged sea level is projected by models to rise 0.09 to 0.88 m by 2100. The projections have important implications: (1) the warming would vary by region and be accompanied by increases and decreases in precipitation; (2) there would be changes in the variability of climate and changes in the frequency and intensity of some extreme climate phenomena; and (3) the general features of climate change act on natural and human systems, and both systems are vulnerable.

Despite the anticipated adverse impacts of climate change on both the natural and human systems, there exists a knowledge gap in terms of methodology and tools for integrated assessment of climate change particularly in watershed areas. Even less developed is the application of appropriate social science methodologies, particularly participatory research techniques, in conducting integrated assessment of climate change impacts to watershed communities including their vulnerability and adaptation strategies.

Drawing from the social sciences, my presentation will focus on some participatory research techniques being used by our research team in conducting integrated assessment of climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation among watershed communities in the Philippines. Our research is part of the Assessment of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change (AIACC) Project, an international research project funded by the Global Environmental Facility. My presentation will be divided into three parts. The first part will provide a brief overview of our project. I will discuss in the second part the different research questions and the different participatory research techniques we are using for assessing the impacts and vulnerability of watershed communities to climate variability and extremes, including their adaptation strategies. I will then provide a brief conclusion regarding the value of using participatory techniques in conducting integrated assessments of climate change.
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Monday, May 26, 2003, 12:00 p.m.
TBA
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003, 11:30 a.m.

Roxanne T. Ornelas, "Achieving Native American Environmental Justice Through Consultation."

Abstract

The preservation of indigenous tribal cultural resources is a goal of Native American environmental justice. Tribal cultural resources include the land, human remains, funerary objects, tribal cultural objects and items, medicinal plants, wildlife, sacred sites, and architecture, as defined by the Native American Graves Protection & Repatriation Act of 1990. Through such mechanisms as those provided by Presidential Executive Orders, and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the United States federal government can begin to address environmental injustices that underrepresented populations historically have endured. The consultation process can provide government with significant information about indigenous tribal cultural resources, an issue that has historically received little attention. Native American environmental justice can be addressed through the effective utilization of consultation procedures.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003, 12:00 p.m.
TBA
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Wednesday, May 28, 2003, 11:30 a.m.

Qing Xiang, "Causes and Effects of Land-Use Change in Upper Yangtze River in China."

Abstract

The objectives of my project include: (1) developing the economic model within a spatially explicit framework to identify the causes of land-use change in Upper Yangtze River in China; (2) examining the extent of ecological deteriorations based on the changes of land use and other relevant geographic/topographic information; (3) projecting future land use dynamics and the associated ecological conditions; and (4) assessing the impacts of institutional, social, and economic factors, and making policy recommendations for land management.

Depletion of forest and other vegetative covers in the upper Yangtze River Basin, in conjunction with water runoff, soil erosion, flooding, and other environmental problems, has caused tremendous economic and ecological damage to the middle and lower reaches and constituted a real treat to the Three-Gorges Dam. Realizing the seriousness of environmental issues, the Chinese government has initiated the Natural Forest Conservation Program and Sloping Farmland Reversion Program. Hence, studying land-use change in the upper Yangtze River basin has not only great scientific merit but also major policy significance.

In my project, I will first trace out the historic changes of land use in the region, including land-cover degradation, deforestation, farming and grazing expansion, with a focus on the reduced ecosystem capacity of water regulation and soil protection. Next, I will develop one economic model of land-use decisions to relate the identified land-use changes with demographic, socioeconomic, and institutional patterns in the region, and then examine the ecological deteriorations. At this step, analyses will be conducted at both household and county levels. The county-level analysis will focus on the aggregate changes of land use and the evolution of ecological conditions, and their linkages with complete series of socioeconomic data. The household-level analysis will relate the household status and behavior of decision makers with land-use changes to demonstrate the specific causes and effects of land-use change at a finer scale. Finally, based on examination of causes and influences of land-use changes, the future land-use dynamics and the associated ecological conditions will be projected. So, this project is expected to demonstrate a better understanding of land-use change in the upper Yangtze River basin and provide more feasible and effective policy recommendations on land management.
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Wednesday, May 28, 2003, 12:00 p.m.

Laura Ediger, "Land-Use Change on the Margins: Transitions from Shifting to Fixed Field Agriculture."

Abstract

Traditional agriculture in southwest China includes both intensive paddy field cultivation and extensive shifting cultivation. In recent decades, agriculture continues to transition away from shifting cultivation to both paddies and other permanent agriculture including agroforestry. Shifting cultivation is a controversial ecological and political issue, and an understanding of this process requires investigation of social, economic, political, and environmental influences. My research will examine transdisciplinary concepts of agricultural and social change, as well as the effect of varying spatial scales on research outcomes.
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Thursday, May 29, 2003, 11:30 a.m.

Niels Schulz, "Society's Metabolism in Laos PDR."

Abstract

This paper is applying the concept of the 'metabolism of society' to describe the interaction between social and environmental systems. It follows a systems approach to account for the sum of exchanges of material and energy between the physical compartment of society (its population, livestock, and infrastructure) and the surrounding ecosystems. A method to empirically examine society's metabolism is 'material and energy flow accounting (MEFA)' which is performed on a national scale in an increasing number of countries as a component of environmental bookkeeping. A innovative approach to environmental accounting within the MEFA framework is to analyse the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP). It aims to link the flows of biomass (caused by various driving forces, such as arable and pastoral land use, demand of firewood, commercial logging, urbanization, etc.) to changes in the production ecology of ecosystems. HANPP is an aggregate measure of the effect of land-cover change and socioeconomic harvest on ecosystem productivity (NPP) and can be accounted in a spatially explicit manner on various scales. This paper presents an account of HANPP for the case of Laos PDR (Southeast Asia) in 1996. HANPP demonstrates the relationship between society's energy system and land use. It is an attempt to quantify the degree of human domination of the production ecology of terrestrial ecosystems.
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Thursday, May 29, 2003, 12:00 p.m.

Kristen Conway, "Human Use of River Turtles (Podocnemis Spp.) in Eastern Lowland Bolivia."

Abstract

Centuries of harvest of both adults and eggs have left remaining populations of two species of Amazonian freshwater turtles, Podocnemis unifilis and P. expansa, seriously reduced throughout their ranges. Today, these turtles remain important wildlife resources for riverine communities in and near National Park Noel Kempff Mercado in the Bolivian Amazon in subsistence and market consumption terms. This study is an investigation into the impact of contemporary socioeconomic factors driving hunting pressure coupled with an ecological assessment to establish differences in turtle abundance.

Socioeconomic data collected give a detailed description of two human communities. Analyses reveal differences between these two communities in subsistence and market forms of turtle consumption. Among the socioeconomic characteristics measured, wealth plays the most significant role in differentiating groups. Basking counts at three sites, two adjacent to human communities and one adjacent to an abandoned human community, give a potential measure of the impact of hunting pressure on turtle abundance. Analyses indicate greater turtle abundance at the abandoned human community than at the sites around currently inhabited human communities. This is thought to be a result of greater hunting pressure at the latter. These findings have implications for the effects of increased access to cash income from the turtle resource in this area of Bolivia as well as community-based conservation and management in these subsistence agriculture-based communities.
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