Dissertation Research: Household Ecology of Family Ranchers in the Eastern Sierras

范围的恶化，包括荒漠化、非源水污染和生物多样性的丧失，是美国西部最紧迫的环境问题之一。虽然大量的牧场导致环境退化，但许多牧场场主努力确保环境保护。在适当的条件下，家庭牧场主可以作为有效的牧场管理者，保护开放空间和农业景观。目前，导致保护而不是管理不善的条件还没有得到很好的理解，对于如何通过家庭牧场上的家庭行动来实施政策也知之甚少。本论文项目由一名文化人类学研究生进行，旨在了解当前土地管理的过程，其中多种经济变量和牧场主对土地的传统知识被转化为家庭行为。该项目将提供一个家庭决策过程模型，从而产生影响加州东塞拉走廊环境可持续性的观察范围管理战略。每年，塞拉利昂东部的家庭牧场主都必须利用他们对土地、经济、政治和牲畜的了解，制定牧场管理策略，既要在经济上为家庭提供帮助，又要确保牧场的稳定性和连续性。结合对牧场社区的参与性观察、结构化的深度和家族史访谈、环境状况调查、决策过程建模和牧场管理策略替代简单模型的开发，学生将确定家庭牧场主如何理解多重经济和生态约束，并通过牧场管理实践进行协商。对牧场管理及其对环境和社会的影响有多方面的了解。更广泛的影响：除了有助于博士生的教育外，本研究将提供一个促进家庭牧场经济稳定和环境可持续性的必要因素的模型，以及一个家庭牧场如何通过资源管理实践在实地执行政府政策的模型。这一新知识对于寻求有关牧场土地管理和保护的更有效政策的规划者将是重要的。

The deterioration of the range, including desertification, non-source water pollution, and loss of biodiversity, is one of the most urgent environmental issues in the western United States. While significant numbers of ranches contribute to environmental degradation, many ranchers work to ensure conservation. Under the right conditions, family ranchers can serve as effective range managers, preserving open space and the working agricultural landscape. Currently, the conditions that lead to conservation rather than mismanagement are not well understood and little is known about how policy is implemented through the actions of households on family ranches. This dissertation project, conducted by a graduate student of cultural anthropology, will seek to understand current processes of land management in which multiple economic variables and ranchers' traditional knowledge of the land are transformed into household actions. The project will provide a model of household decision-making processes that produce the observed range management strategies that impact environmental sustainability in the Eastern Sierra corridor of California. Each year, family ranchers in the Eastern Sierra must use their knowledge of the land, economy, politics, and livestock to devise range management strategies that will provide for the household economically and yet also ensure stability and continuity of the ranch. Using a combination of participant observation in ranching communities, structured in-depth and family history interviews, environmental status surveys, decision-making process modeling and the development of simple models of alternative range management strategies, the student will determine how multiple economic and ecological constraints are understood by family ranchers and negotiated through range management practices, contributing a multifaceted understanding of range management and its environmental and social effects. Broader Impact: Aside from contributing to the education of a doctoral student, this research will provide a model of the necessary factors promoting family ranch economic stability and environmental sustainability, as well as a model of how family ranches implement government policy on-the-ground through resource management practices. This new knowledge will be important to planners seeking more effective policies concerning range land management and conservation.