Doctoral Dissertation Research: Out-Migration, Environmental Change, and Rural Livelihoods in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes

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The environment is commonly invoked as an underlying cause of human migration in the developing world, both in the human-environment literature and in the publications of conservation and development organizations. Despite the frequency of these claims, few studies have systematically investigated migration-environment relationships, particularly for widespread forms of gradual environmental and landscape change like soil degradation and deforestation. These changes are known to threaten the sustainability of rural livelihoods, including smallholder agriculture and wild product collection. This doctoral dissertation research project will apply a multi-method approach to investigate these relationships in an important center of out-migration and environmental change in the southern Ecuadorian Andes, asking the core question: What are the connections between environmental change, out-migration, and resource-dependent livelihood strategies? The doctoral candidate predicts that environmental change stimulates out-migration, particularly from agrarian households and towards rural destinations, and that it does so by reducing the productivity of smallholder agriculture. Data collection will include a survey of a sample of communities and households from the study area. The student also will use qualitative methods and spatial analytic approaches, drawing on advances in the field of population-environment research. The subsequent analysis will use multilevel regression models to estimate the effects of environmental variables at both household and community scales on (1) individual out-migration and (2) household participation in resource-dependent livelihood strategies, while controlling for other effects at these scales. Interpretation of these results will be informed by the qualitative data collection. This approach will provide insight into the complex interactions of human livelihoods and the physical environment in rural landscapes of the developing world.This project will address two key processes of rural transformation in the developing world: out-migration, which is leading to population decline in many rural areas, and environmental and landscape change, which is eroding local biodiversity and the sustainability of rural livelihoods. The interaction of these processes has been claimed to displace millions of "environmental refugees" each year, but the real dimensions of this problem are unknown. These issues are of immediate concern to community members in the study area, where soil degradation and droughts have paralleled rapid out-migration to international, urban, and frontier destinations. This project will address these concerns in a new, systematic, and interdisciplinary way that will inform the actions of governmental and non-governmental organizations working for conservation with development. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.