University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Pluralistic valuation of nature: Mixed-methods research with communities around protected areas in Alaska

Salcido, Evan Louis

This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121341

Description

Title
Pluralistic valuation of nature: Mixed-methods research with communities around protected areas in Alaska
Author(s)
Salcido, Evan Louis
Issue Date
2023-07-10
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
van Riper, Carena J
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Stewart, William P
Committee Member(s)
  • Raymond, Christopher
  • O'Keefe, Joy
Department of Study
Natural Res & Env Sci
Discipline
Natural Res & Env Sciences
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • environmental values
  • inclusive conservation
  • place meaning
  • protected areas
  • value pluralism
Abstract
Understanding the diverse values of nature among different groups of people is crucial to advancing conservation on public lands. Knowledge from the social sciences must be leveraged to form equitable and just natural resource planning processes, and enhance protected area management for multiple forms of benefit and well-being. My dissertation engaged residents surrounding protected areas across Interior Alaska, U.S.A. to understand how they interacted with nature and made decisions for environmental policy and practice. In my first study, I uncovered ‘place meanings' through in-depth interviews and found that wildlife were integral to the various reasons why residents developed connections with places. In my second study, I drew from a regional household survey and showed that the values of communal cohesion among subsistence users energized their environmental concern and pro-environmental behaviors, whereas non-users were driven by values for pristine nature. In my final study, I developed a decision support tool to communicate findings from a stated choice experiment that was combined with attitudinal data for scenario planning in the Denali region. Findings from these three studies build theoretical knowledge of how people think, feel and act in relation to the natural world, as well as provide insights for practitioners to foster equitable and just natural resource planning.
Graduation Semester
2023-08
Type of Resource
Thesis
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2023 Evan Salcido

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois