Doctoral Dissertation Research: Determinants of Livelihood Strategies in a Marine Extractive Reserve.

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This doctoral dissertation research project examines how the establishment of marine extractive reserves (MER) affects livelihood strategies of resource users and investigates how livelihood strategies are lived as compared with the way such strategies were framed by MER institutional frameworks. As a type of community-based conservation strategy, the establishment of marine extractive reserves aims to protect biodiversity as well as traditional communities and their livelihoods. By considering the case of the Cassurubá MER in northeast Brazil, the institutions of the MER and the processes and territorial practices surrounding its establishment will be examined through a combination of an analysis of planning and management documents, household surveys, and interviews with key actors. This mixed methods approach will illuminate how resource users have used livelihood strategies to contest or adjust to what was expected in the institutional construction of the MER, and by extension, of this type of community-based conservation strategy. This research has the potential to inform conservation initiatives and policy. MERs are being widely implemented in places throughout the world where traditional livelihoods and conservation need to coexist. It will also inform scholarship and research, likely suggesting that a more flexible approach in the institutional framing of extractive reserves will permit a closer alignment with the actual livelihood practices of resource users. The household livelihood data will be used to create a 'Livelihoods Teaching Module' to be implemented in an undergraduate course at Texas A&M University. Through the engagement with this model students will discover the processes that influence the livelihoods of small-scale resource users in Latin America and elsewhere. The research findings will be shared with the resource users of the MER, local key actors, and will be broadly disseminated via scientific conferences and publications. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.