Princeton University Library Catalog
- Author/Artist:
- Hewitt, Abigail [Browse]
- Format:
- Senior thesis
- Language:
- English
- Advisor(s):
- Dobson, Andrew [Browse]
- Department:
- Princeton University. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology [Browse]
- Class year:
- 2013
- Description:
- 97 pages
- Restrictions note:
- Walk-in Access. This thesis can only be viewed on computer terminals at the Mudd Manuscript Library.
- Summary note:
- A key challenge for successfully establishing a protected area is to determine
how the surrounding region’s ecological, economic, and social dynamics could
impact conservation goals. While numerous studies in the field of ecological
economics have attempted to determine the monetary capital provided by each of
these dynamics, several issues exist for adequately capturing the potential tradeoffs
that exist between these complex and interacting factors. This study proposes a model
for quantitatively and qualitatively assessing the relationship between ecological,
economic, and social success (EESS) measures in order to formulate context-specific
recommendations for balancing these forces within a study area. Corcovado National
Park (CNP) on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula is used as a case study for this approach
due to the combination of its incredible biological diversity value, along with its local
population’s history of natural resource dependency. Main findings include the
mutually beneficial relationship between ecological and economic success in rural
areas, while the dynamics are inversely related in the region’s urban area. Social
success demonstrates a weakly negative relationship to ecological success and no
significant relationship to economic success. From the results, recommendations are
formulated with the goal of maximizing the positive trend between ecological and
economic success and creating a positive trend between these dynamics with social
success. While the findings and recommendations are context-specific to this study
region, the EESS approach methodology can be applied to any community
surrounding a protected area. This will be especially useful in light of increasing
population sizes and growing economic pressures on developing countries globally.
