Doctoral Dissertation Research: Changing Labor and Land-Use Regimes in Market-Based Ecosystem Services Projects

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This doctoral dissertation research project examines how urban-based Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs change rural land-use practices. PES, a market-based mechanism for conservation, compensates local communities and households in or around targeted ecosystems to change their land-use practices for the conservation of targeted natural resources. In addition to paying for the natural resource, PES schemes require individuals, households, and communities living in and around targeted resources to produce and maintain the ecological service with their own labor. This project advances research on market-based conservation programs by examining labor processes, and thus value production within them. Specifically the project will focus on (1) how PES schemes develop interventions; (2) how PES schemes enroll communities, and thus, workers; (3) the characteristics of households engaging with PES interventions; and (4) and how labor requirements for PES schemes influence individual and community land-uses. The doctoral student will examine a well-established PES water program in the Andean highlands using multiple methods, including participant observation, key informant interviews, document collection, household surveys, and labor and land-use mapping walking tours. Data analysis will focus on the processes of labor mobilization and the reorganization of labor within communities and households.This project examines a PES program that serve as models for other watershed projects throughout the Americas. As such, this research will benefit broader society by informing sound policy decisions on PES conservation programs. The research will be conducted in collaboration with a local non-governmental organization (NGO) with which educational and dissemination activities are planned in both English and Spanish. Research results and data will be incorporated into teaching and learning modules for undergraduate courses in human and regional geography in the US. 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.