Evaluating natural resource governance and policy in highly fragmented regions

The Midwest region of the United States is one of the most heavily modified regions on earth. Because of this, obtaining regional conservation goals and creating sustainable use of natural resources is extremely challenging. In order to sustainably manage these natural resources, there needs to be an understanding of the social-ecological systems in which they reside. Various actors within social-ecological systems can impact natural resources through various activities and actions. Examining how these actors work within the different governance structures and the policy mechanisms they utilize is key to creating sustainable systems. However, creating these sustainable systems can be additionally difficult in areas where there is little public land and most of the property resides in private ownership. This dissertation works to advance our knowledge of conservation in highly fragmented regions by investigating governance, private land conservation, and access to natural resources in the US Midwest.The first study aims to examine conservation stakeholders’ views of working within polycentric governance systems to understand the informal interactions of protecting natural resources. This study uses 23 semi-structured interviews with those that work on conservation within the Iowa Great Lakes region, then analyzes their responses within McGinnis and Ostrom (2014)’s SES-Framework. The results indicate that there are a variety of environmental pressures impacting these Lakes. This study also highlights the difficulty of mitigating environmental pressures when the governance system relies heavily on voluntary conservation measures. Participants provide a variety of solutions to these issues that center around changes in policy to help mitigate these pressures. This study adds to our understanding of polycentric governance by providing empirical research of understudied SES-framework variables. The second research study adds to our knowledge of private land conservation by analyzing the use of conservation easements in the US Midwest. Using geospatial analysis, this study examines the relationship between socioeconomic variables and conservation easements at the county level. Afterward, we examine the attributes of the conservation easements themselves to understand the social and environmental characteristics of these areas at the state and county level. Lastly, we identify the land cover within the conservation easement boundaries as well as their surrounding landscape. The results indicates that there are no strong relationships between socio-economic variables and conservation easements at the county level. The characteristics of conservation easements found that, in some cases, the social and environmental attributes can be contradictory. This study highlights the need for further investigation of conservation easements as a mechanism for protecting private land. The third study expands our understanding of how conservationists view and manage access. Participants from the study in Chapter 2 answer questions concerning access to the Iowa Great Lakes as well as in their own projects. We categorize their responses within Ribot and Peluso (2003) mechanisms of access to better interpret the results. The results demonstrate that access is a multifaceted concept and that participants hold differing views of similar situations concerning access. Additionally, most of the participants state that there are barriers to accessing the Iowa Great Lakes. However, the participants are split when discussing management in their own projects, due to many of them working on private land conservation. This research also pinpoints areas to improve the management of access in the Iowa Great Lakes and elsewhere. These three papers contribute to our understanding of governance, policy, and access to natural resources in highly fragmented regions to create more sustainable systems in areas like the US Midwest.