Doctoral Dissertation Research: Managing Ecological and Cultural Value on Rural Lands

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Rural land management has always been an important topic in the United States as the Federal Government and other landowners have sought to balance economic value of rural lands and resources with the preservation of our natural and cultural heritage. These issues have only grown more significant and complex because of conflicting understandings about the environmental and heritage value of rural lands as well as increased participation of non-profits and the public in land management practices. This project, which trains a student in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, asks how land managers balance these myriad priorities to improve processes of public involvement in land management planning. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology, the project would enhance scientific understanding by broadly disseminating its findings to organizations invested in discovering more effective means of navigating land management, improving policies and practices, and promoting environmental, cultural, and economic sustainability. Doctoral student Julia Sizek, supervised by Dr. Daniel Fisher at the University of California-Berkeley, will explore what factors influence shifts in land management policies and practices on rural lands. Research conducted in Southeastern California's Mojave Desert, an area gaining increasing visibility as both a place of ecological value and a site of Native American, homesteading, and military history. This region is currently in the process of land management planning for two new national monuments (Mojave Trails National Monument and Castle Mountains National Monuments, established 2016), but also contains a contentious National Park Service unit: the Mojave National Preserve, established in 1994. By studying how members of environmental and Native American organizations participate in land management planning and understand the value of the desert, this research will reveal the cultural and ecological value of desert lands as understood today, and how this affects land management priorities. This research will also follow land managers on privately and publicly-held conservation lands, seeing how land management practices (e.g. use regulations, fence-building, trail-building, reseeding, signage) are changing in the desert as understandings of desert ecology and the extent of historical and cultural research are becoming more accurate. Data about understandings of the desert and scientific advances will be collected through interviews with relevant experts, analysis of environmental events aimed at public participation in planning processes, and site visits to areas of ecological restoration and desert protection. The project will advance theoretical debates about land and governance under conditions of environmental uncertainty, and the effects of heterogeneity in land conservation practices. Research results will be relevant to landscape-scale environmental planning processes happening in the Mojave Desert and elsewhere, and will also show how perceptions of the environmental value of the desert are shifting and with what effects for land management. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.