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On California's Mediterranean rangelands, cattle ranching supports the conservation of threatened and endangered species; however, ranchers are generally not compensated for providing this ecological service or beneficial natural process. Instead, the provision of ecological services, including species conservation, relies on livestock production-- primarily beef cattle production-- to sustain beneficial grazing and rancher stewardship. Poor economic returns, production losses from weather, fire, or other causes, loss of access to forage, and conflict from the demands of a growing population put livestock ranching at risk in California. To understand how beef production can be sustained to provide ecological services, it must be understood as a social-ecological system (SES), where people and their activities work within and use nature. In three research studies, I used mixed methods and qualitative research methods to examine key aspects of the social-ecological system framework that describe ranching in California and the San Francisco Bay Area. First, using document review, I studied ranching activities or the SES interactions that impact species conservation. Second, through interviews, survey, direct observation, and big data analysis of all recorded cattle movements in the state over two years, I considered the SES actors by examining the function of the production system that support ranching or rancher-livelihood requirements. In a final study, I conducted spatial analysis to document the role of grazing land in species conservation. I also examined case studies of exacted easements to assess impacts of a governance strategy for land protection increasingly impacting SESs on grazing lands. Overall, the research revealed that land sharing, a conservation strategy for conservation in concert with agricultural production, is demonstrated on California's grazing lands. However, relationships between conservation, livestock production, and the people involved in more...

This dissertation examines the drivers and socioeconomic process of the conversion of rangeland to irrigated crops in Janos County, Chihuahua since 1970. The research was motivated by a desire to understand why irrigated agriculture was expanding in this site when there were no such expansions in adjacent regions. I analyze the historical roots of agricultural expansion as well as the contemporary social and economic dynamics that propel it today. Data came from 166 interviews with landowners, ex-landowners, laborers, and local officials, as well as from historical land records. Results reveal the importance Mexico’s national land reform (~1920-1992) in breaking up large ranches and creating opportunities for small farms to become established, even if many of those small farms—especially on ejidos—ultimately failed. I attribute the majority of rangeland-to-cropland conversion to Mennonites, whose commodity farms have proliferated through both in-migration and capitalist investment of agricultural profits. My research contributes to the wide-ranging literature on Mexico’s ejido system through the analysis of dynamics on the arid lands ejidos in Janos County. The Janos ejidos differ from the preponderance of cases in the literature in that they were founded through very different mechanisms and have seen far higher rates of land sales and consolidation. I contribute to the literature on agricultural frontiers by discussing agricultural expansion in arid rangelands rather than in tropical forests, where most of the literature is centered. The contrast between stagnating agriculture on the ejidos and expanding agriculture by Mennonites reveals both the importance of capital access in desert farming and the prominent role that social and cultural capital play in improving access to agriculture. In Janos, addressing the ‘agrarian question’ entails a close examination of capital access as well as intragroup social dynamics. Commercial cattle grazing has been the dominant l more...

This dissertation examines the drivers and socioeconomic process of the conversion of rangeland to irrigated crops in Janos County, Chihuahua since 1970. The research was motivated by a desire to understand why irrigated agriculture was expanding in this site when there were no such expansions in adjacent regions. I analyze the historical roots of agricultural expansion as well as the contemporary social and economic dynamics that propel it today. Data came from 166 interviews with landowners, ex-landowners, laborers, and local officials, as well as from historical land records. Results reveal the importance Mexico’s national land reform (~1920-1992) in breaking up large ranches and creating opportunities for small farms to become established, even if many of those small farms—especially on ejidos—ultimately failed. I attribute the majority of rangeland-to-cropland conversion to Mennonites, whose commodity farms have proliferated through both in-migration and capitalist investment of agricultural profits. My research contributes to the wide-ranging literature on Mexico’s ejido system through the analysis of dynamics on the arid lands ejidos in Janos County. The Janos ejidos differ from the preponderance of cases in the literature in that they were founded through very different mechanisms and have seen far higher rates of land sales and consolidation. I contribute to the literature on agricultural frontiers by discussing agricultural expansion in arid rangelands rather than in tropical forests, where most of the literature is centered. The contrast between stagnating agriculture on the ejidos and expanding agriculture by Mennonites reveals both the importance of capital access in desert farming and the prominent role that social and cultural capital play in improving access to agriculture. In Janos, addressing the ‘agrarian question’ entails a close examination of capital access as well as intragroup social dynamics. Commercial cattle grazing has been the dominant l more...

Ecological restoration has become a large enterprise driven by regulatory policies and by public and private initiatives. Regulatory agencies and ecologists call for use of propagules that are adapted to project sites, compatible with other species, and genetically diverse. This project uses a native California grass, Stipa pulchra, to ask whether the cost-management practice of collecting seeds from dense stands of target species can have unintended selective effects on species used in restoration. Absolute cover, standing biomass, species composition, and S. pulchra density and culm count were recorded on plots in three central California sites. S. pulchra seeds from these plots were sown in pots allocated to two watering groups and three temporal blocks. Pot-study plants grown from seed collected from plots with greater absolute cover and S. pulchra density had significantly higher basal diameters, tiller counts, and root: shoot ratios. Plants derived from less-competitive plots reproduced earlier and gave rise to more culms. These results indicate that distribution of S. pulchra genoypes in the field may reflect a competition: colonization pattern, with more fecund S. pulchra plants inhabiting less-competitive patches than those occupied by their more-competitive conspecifics. Other aspects of pot-study plant growth appeared to reflect background vegetation of the field plots. Although plants grown from seeds collected at the three sites were significantly different, there was no evidence that ecological distance reflected geographic distance. Plants receiving more water had relatively greater aboveground growth and lower root: shoot ratios. Statistical interactions of blocking and watering treatments with site may reflect plant adaptation to climate and soil at the various sites. Implications of these results apply to environmental restoration and extend to ecological research, where nonrandomly collected propagules are often used to represent genetic character more...

Ecological restoration has become a large enterprise driven by regulatory policies and by public and private initiatives. Regulatory agencies and ecologists call for use of propagules that are adapted to project sites, compatible with other species, and genetically diverse. This project uses a native California grass, Stipa pulchra, to ask whether the cost-management practice of collecting seeds from dense stands of target species can have unintended selective effects on species used in restoration. Absolute cover, standing biomass, species composition, and S. pulchra density and culm count were recorded on plots in three central California sites. S. pulchra seeds from these plots were sown in pots allocated to two watering groups and three temporal blocks. Pot-study plants grown from seed collected from plots with greater absolute cover and S. pulchra density had significantly higher basal diameters, tiller counts, and root: shoot ratios. Plants derived from less-competitive plots reproduced earlier and gave rise to more culms. These results indicate that distribution of S. pulchra genoypes in the field may reflect a competition: colonization pattern, with more fecund S. pulchra plants inhabiting less-competitive patches than those occupied by their more-competitive conspecifics. Other aspects of pot-study plant growth appeared to reflect background vegetation of the field plots. Although plants grown from seeds collected at the three sites were significantly different, there was no evidence that ecological distance reflected geographic distance. Plants receiving more water had relatively greater aboveground growth and lower root: shoot ratios. Statistical interactions of blocking and watering treatments with site may reflect plant adaptation to climate and soil at the various sites. Implications of these results apply to environmental restoration and extend to ecological research, where nonrandomly collected propagules are often used to represent genetic character more...

Ecological restoration has become a large enterprise driven by regulatory policies and by public and private initiatives. Regulatory agencies and ecologists call for use of propagules that are adapted to project sites, compatible with other species, and genetically diverse. This project uses a native California grass, Stipa pulchra, to ask whether the cost-management practice of collecting seeds from dense stands of target species can have unintended selective effects on species used in restoration. Absolute cover, standing biomass, species composition, and S. pulchra density and culm count were recorded on plots in three central California sites. S. pulchra seeds from these plots were sown in pots allocated to two watering groups and three temporal blocks. Pot-study plants grown from seed collected from plots with greater absolute cover and S. pulchra density had significantly higher basal diameters, tiller counts, and root: shoot ratios. Plants derived from less-competitive plots reproduced earlier and gave rise to more culms. These results indicate that distribution of S. pulchra genoypes in the field may reflect a competition: colonization pattern, with more fecund S. pulchra plants inhabiting less-competitive patches than those occupied by their more-competitive conspecifics. Other aspects of pot-study plant growth appeared to reflect background vegetation of the field plots. Although plants grown from seeds collected at the three sites were significantly different, there was no evidence that ecological distance reflected geographic distance. Plants receiving more water had relatively greater aboveground growth and lower root: shoot ratios. Statistical interactions of blocking and watering treatments with site may reflect plant adaptation to climate and soil at the various sites. Implications of these results apply to environmental restoration and extend to ecological research, where nonrandomly collected propagules are often used to represent genetic character more...

Privately owned land accounts for significant areas of land internationally, nationally, and in California. In the U.S. and elsewhere, private land tends to support high levels of biodiversity because land with more productive natural resources was settled and privatized first. These lands, which are integral to conservation goals, are often the most vulnerable to habitat degradation and loss through changes in land-use and fragmentation. In 1930, Aldo Leopold encouraged the development of an incentive scheme to better conserve private lands in the U.S. where hunters would pay landowners for access to conserved wildlife habitat and game populations that could be sustainably harvested. Although a wide body of literature has discussed this approach, much of the research is either theoretical or limited to particular regions and these studies have rarely tested for an explicit connection to whether conservation is ultimately improved as a result of paid hunting. The goal of this dissertation is to evaluate the economic, conservation and management aspects of hunting on private land internationally, nationally, and in California. The first chapter uses a case study approach to explore the environmental and economic issues surrounding hunting in the context of Spain and California. The study found that increased game management rights in Spain appears to yield improved economic return, but at an environmental cost. The second chapter evaluates the scale, distribution and conservation aspects of spending to access private land for fishing, hunting, and wildlife-watching in the United States. This study found that that approximately 440 million acres of private land, an estimated 22% of the contiguous land area of the U.S. and 33% of all private land in the U.S., are either leased or owned for wildlife-associated recreation. Much of these lands are private rangelands and forestlands. Land utilized for hunting accounted for 81% of that total, while land utilized for fishing more...

Privately owned land accounts for significant areas of land internationally, nationally, and in California. In the U.S. and elsewhere, private land tends to support high levels of biodiversity because land with more productive natural resources was settled and privatized first. These lands, which are integral to conservation goals, are often the most vulnerable to habitat degradation and loss through changes in land-use and fragmentation. In 1930, Aldo Leopold encouraged the development of an incentive scheme to better conserve private lands in the U.S. where hunters would pay landowners for access to conserved wildlife habitat and game populations that could be sustainably harvested. Although a wide body of literature has discussed this approach, much of the research is either theoretical or limited to particular regions and these studies have rarely tested for an explicit connection to whether conservation is ultimately improved as a result of paid hunting. The goal of this dissertation is to evaluate the economic, conservation and management aspects of hunting on private land internationally, nationally, and in California. The first chapter uses a case study approach to explore the environmental and economic issues surrounding hunting in the context of Spain and California. The study found that increased game management rights in Spain appears to yield improved economic return, but at an environmental cost. The second chapter evaluates the scale, distribution and conservation aspects of spending to access private land for fishing, hunting, and wildlife-watching in the United States. This study found that that approximately 440 million acres of private land, an estimated 22% of the contiguous land area of the U.S. and 33% of all private land in the U.S., are either leased or owned for wildlife-associated recreation. Much of these lands are private rangelands and forestlands. Land utilized for hunting accounted for 81% of that total, while land utilized for fishing more...

This dissertation focuses on fire history reconstructed from select coast redwood stands in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California based on the fire scar record in specimens collected between 2008 and 2013. The research is one component of a larger multidisciplinary examination of indigenous burning practices in the Central California Coast region (Lightfoot et al. 2013). Research presented herein exhibits concordance with results from related studies, including analyses of soil phytolith content (Evett and Cuthrell 2013), faunal assemblages (Gifford-Gonzalez et al. 2013), and microscopic pollen and charcoal evidence (Cowart and Byrne 2013). Fire history research was conducted in three coastal watersheds in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, California using standard dendroecological techniques, as well as a novel statistical approach developed to address undated, floating chronologies.A total of 103 coast redwood samples were collected from 95 sample trees in 19 plots within the study area. The fire return intervals recorded from the dated redwood samples in this study were relatively frequent. Fire information was estimated for three focal management eras: the native and ranching eras (1600-1850), intensive commercial logging (1850-1950), and the modern fire suppression/sustainable harvest era (1950-2013). Results from dated fire scars indicate that fires were less frequent in the native and ranching period (mean FRI 7.6 years; range 1-29) than the intensive logging period (mean FRI 3.1 years; range 1-11), as well as the modern period (mean FRI 4.6 years; range 1-12).However, use of a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) on undated, floating chronologies indicated that the probability of fire may have been quite high in the earlier period, and that three independent variables were significant predictors in assessing the annual probability of the occurrence of fire in the study area: physiographic zone; position on slope; and linear distance to pre-colonial, native more...

This dissertation focuses on fire history reconstructed from select coast redwood stands in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California based on the fire scar record in specimens collected between 2008 and 2013. The research is one component of a larger multidisciplinary examination of indigenous burning practices in the Central California Coast region (Lightfoot et al. 2013). Research presented herein exhibits concordance with results from related studies, including analyses of soil phytolith content (Evett and Cuthrell 2013), faunal assemblages (Gifford-Gonzalez et al. 2013), and microscopic pollen and charcoal evidence (Cowart and Byrne 2013). Fire history research was conducted in three coastal watersheds in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, California using standard dendroecological techniques, as well as a novel statistical approach developed to address undated, floating chronologies.A total of 103 coast redwood samples were collected from 95 sample trees in 19 plots within the study area. The fire return intervals recorded from the dated redwood samples in this study were relatively frequent. Fire information was estimated for three focal management eras: the native and ranching eras (1600-1850), intensive commercial logging (1850-1950), and the modern fire suppression/sustainable harvest era (1950-2013). Results from dated fire scars indicate that fires were less frequent in the native and ranching period (mean FRI 7.6 years; range 1-29) than the intensive logging period (mean FRI 3.1 years; range 1-11), as well as the modern period (mean FRI 4.6 years; range 1-12).However, use of a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) on undated, floating chronologies indicated that the probability of fire may have been quite high in the earlier period, and that three independent variables were significant predictors in assessing the annual probability of the occurrence of fire in the study area: physiographic zone; position on slope; and linear distance to pre-colonial, native more...

Restoration has important ecological work to do, particularly maintaining biological diversity and repairing impaired ecological functions. In addition, many people anticipate and hope that restoration will also produce changes in and provide benefits to human communities. Although these expectations are widespread, relatively little is known about how well restoration projects achieve their goals generally, and even less about the social and cultural consequences of restoration work.This dissertation draws on the experiences of two communities in northwestern California--the American Indians and non-Indians who are part of the United Indian Health Services (UIHS) and the resource managers, scientists, and landowners who work together to implement restoration projects throughout Humboldt County--to explore the impact of ecological restoration on human communities that undertake, use, or are home to restoration projects. I used qualitative interviews along with a review of historical and contemporary documents to develop an understanding of restoration goals and outcomes that is grounded in the experiences of UIHS community members and members of the broader Humboldt County restoration community.UIHS community members share a vision of restoration that is rooted in cultural understandings of the relationship between people and the environment and in historical changes to the local landscape and American Indian communities that have affected their ability to enact this relationship and to apply key cultural values. In the contemporary cultural landscapes of northwestern California, UIHS community members' access to culturally significant places and natural resources is restricted. Restoration offers one way to restore a role for American Indians in the landscape through active management, traditional activities, and applications of cultural knowledge. I find that the process of restoring and using the Ku' wah-dah-wilth Restoration Area has had at least six outcomes th more...

"Sustainable" or "green" technologies for the global poor have been proposed as solutions to the difficult problem of how to improve the lives of the world's poorest without contributing to climate change or other environmental catastrophes. While such technologies were once the domain of non-profit and government funded initiatives, theyare now increasingly developed and deployed through market mechanisms. Using improved biomass cookstoves as a representative technology, this dissertation seeks to assess the social and technological effects of this shift to market-based approaches for development and dissemination of sustainable technologies for the poor.Chapter 2 uses a Science and Technology Studies theoretical framework to follow the coproduction of the material form of improved biomass cookstoves and the cookstove movement from the 1960s to the present. The chapter shows that during the 1980s, particular conceptions and articulations of the problem that cookstoves were meant to solve led to a definition of technological "improvement" that included fuel efficiency, consistency of performance, and ability to scale quickly. This particular type of cookstove was much more compatible with mass-production than traditional artisanal production, creating social organizations that could mass-produce cookstoves, which then encouraged commercial approaches in order to recover costs. The move to a market-based approach was in part driven by and in part the cause of a particular kind of technology, demonstrating the mutual coproduction of the social and technological.Chapter 3 takes one market-based tool, intellectual property, and analyses the effect of deploying it in the realm of green technologies for the poor. Using the contrasting cases of UV Waterworks and the Berkeley-Darfur Stove the chapter identifies some of the salient social and technical characteristics that determine whether such effect is positive. The complex social arrangements involved in developing techn more...

Restoration has important ecological work to do, particularly maintaining biological diversity and repairing impaired ecological functions. In addition, many people anticipate and hope that restoration will also produce changes in and provide benefits to human communities. Although these expectations are widespread, relatively little is known about how well restoration projects achieve their goals generally, and even less about the social and cultural consequences of restoration work.This dissertation draws on the experiences of two communities in northwestern California--the American Indians and non-Indians who are part of the United Indian Health Services (UIHS) and the resource managers, scientists, and landowners who work together to implement restoration projects throughout Humboldt County--to explore the impact of ecological restoration on human communities that undertake, use, or are home to restoration projects. I used qualitative interviews along with a review of historical and contemporary documents to develop an understanding of restoration goals and outcomes that is grounded in the experiences of UIHS community members and members of the broader Humboldt County restoration community.UIHS community members share a vision of restoration that is rooted in cultural understandings of the relationship between people and the environment and in historical changes to the local landscape and American Indian communities that have affected their ability to enact this relationship and to apply key cultural values. In the contemporary cultural landscapes of northwestern California, UIHS community members' access to culturally significant places and natural resources is restricted. Restoration offers one way to restore a role for American Indians in the landscape through active management, traditional activities, and applications of cultural knowledge. I find that the process of restoring and using the Ku' wah-dah-wilth Restoration Area has had at least six outcomes th more...

"Sustainable" or "green" technologies for the global poor have been proposed as solutions to the difficult problem of how to improve the lives of the world's poorest without contributing to climate change or other environmental catastrophes. While such technologies were once the domain of non-profit and government funded initiatives, theyare now increasingly developed and deployed through market mechanisms. Using improved biomass cookstoves as a representative technology, this dissertation seeks to assess the social and technological effects of this shift to market-based approaches for development and dissemination of sustainable technologies for the poor.Chapter 2 uses a Science and Technology Studies theoretical framework to follow the coproduction of the material form of improved biomass cookstoves and the cookstove movement from the 1960s to the present. The chapter shows that during the 1980s, particular conceptions and articulations of the problem that cookstoves were meant to solve led to a definition of technological "improvement" that included fuel efficiency, consistency of performance, and ability to scale quickly. This particular type of cookstove was much more compatible with mass-production than traditional artisanal production, creating social organizations that could mass-produce cookstoves, which then encouraged commercial approaches in order to recover costs. The move to a market-based approach was in part driven by and in part the cause of a particular kind of technology, demonstrating the mutual coproduction of the social and technological.Chapter 3 takes one market-based tool, intellectual property, and analyses the effect of deploying it in the realm of green technologies for the poor. Using the contrasting cases of UV Waterworks and the Berkeley-Darfur Stove the chapter identifies some of the salient social and technical characteristics that determine whether such effect is positive. The complex social arrangements involved in developing techn more...

The Mexican national Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs pay rural landholders for hydrological services, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and improvement of agroforestry systems. The initial design of these programs was decidedly neoliberal, from their emphasis on the superior efficiency of market vs. state led environmental solutions, the attempt to institutionalize new property rights, and the explicit goal of commodifying ecosystem functions. My dissertation examines how the neoliberal notions of the programs' designers were hybridized at four distinct sites of articulation: 1) the federal politics of poverty alleviation in Mexico; 2) the institutional and cultural context of the ecosystem services being commodified; 3) rural social movements with distinct conceptualizations of `conservation' and `development'; and 4) the grounded environmental and political realities of rural Mexico. This analysis is based on a multi-sited ethnography conducted with program participants, intermediary organizations, and designers. It draws on recent literature in geography on neoliberal environmental governance and theories of hybridity to examine why and how the Mexican national PES program was hybridized at multiple scales, from the halls of the executive branch to the farmer's field, and in multiple forms, from the rhetoric of political speeches to the specific elements of the policy's design and from the theoretical tinkering of neoclassical economists to the quotidian practices of rural environmental managers. more...

The Mexican national Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs pay rural landholders for hydrological services, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and improvement of agroforestry systems. The initial design of these programs was decidedly neoliberal, from their emphasis on the superior efficiency of market vs. state led environmental solutions, the attempt to institutionalize new property rights, and the explicit goal of commodifying ecosystem functions. My dissertation examines how the neoliberal notions of the programs' designers were hybridized at four distinct sites of articulation: 1) the federal politics of poverty alleviation in Mexico; 2) the institutional and cultural context of the ecosystem services being commodified; 3) rural social movements with distinct conceptualizations of `conservation' and `development'; and 4) the grounded environmental and political realities of rural Mexico. This analysis is based on a multi-sited ethnography conducted with program participants, intermediary organizations, and designers. It draws on recent literature in geography on neoliberal environmental governance and theories of hybridity to examine why and how the Mexican national PES program was hybridized at multiple scales, from the halls of the executive branch to the farmer's field, and in multiple forms, from the rhetoric of political speeches to the specific elements of the policy's design and from the theoretical tinkering of neoclassical economists to the quotidian practices of rural environmental managers. more...