People

B.A. (Film Studies), Sydney; B.Sc. (Chemistry, Honours I), Sydney; Ph.D. (Chemistry), Sydney

Research

The organising of ecological chemical risks and ecological risk governance, with a focus on transnational standardisation processes. Using an Engaged Innovation Research methodology, Paris assessed where omics-based New Approach Methodologies can be applied within the chemical risk assessment work of regulators such as Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Science and Technology Branch, and more broadly studied how new practices become standardised and institutionalised in regulatory science built on emerging technologies.

Funded by Genome Canada and Génome Québec.

B.A., Swarthmore; M.P.A. (Environmental Science and Policy), Columbia; Ph.D. (Environmental Studies), Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Research

Worked with the NSERC ResNet network, which brought together researchers and resource managers from academia, government, ENGOs and industry to study how to monitor, model and manage Canadian ecosystem services for sustainability and resilience to help build a decision-support system that explicitly weighs trade-offs between different ecosystem services across Canada’s resource landscapes.

Funded by NSERC ResNet.

B.Sc. (Earth Systems, Oceans Track), Stanford; M.Sc. (Water Science, Policy and Management), Oxford; Ph.D. (Geography), McGill

Research

Led research on Indigenous water justice in the Arctic, and on the factors shaping collaboration among the organisations that play a role in protecting the North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of Maine.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC); Arts and Humanities Research Council, United Kingdom Research and Innovation.

B.A. (Anthropology, Hons), Alberta; M.Sc. (Nutrition and Metabolism), Alberta; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Research

Knowledge flow and knowledge translation, Arctic research governance, and innovation ecosystems.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.B.A. (International Tourism Management and Consultancy), NHTV University of Applied Sciences; M.Sc. (Cultural Anthropology), Utrecht; Ph.D. (Public Policy), Charles Darwin

Research

Worked on the social-science component of the EcoToxChip project, which develops and validates genomic tools for assessing chemical risk. Rens examined the organisational and institutional barriers to adopting toxicogenomics tools that could improve how chemical toxicity is tested and regulated.

Funded by Genome Canada and Génome Québec.

B.Sc. (Forestry), Shahjalal University of Science and Technology; M.Sc. (Forestry), Shahjalal University of Science and Technology; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Research

Climate change adaptation, ecological economics, community-based natural resource management, institutional analysis and complex systems.

Funded by Genome Canada and Génome Québec.

B.Comm. (Marketing and Economics), Mount Allison; B.Sc. (Environmental Science), Royal Roads; M.A. (Environment and Management), Royal Roads; Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary Studies, Environmental Governance), Calgary

Research

Worked with the NSERC ResNet network to help build a decision-support system for managing ecosystem services across Canada’s resource landscapes, explicitly accounting for the trade-offs between different services.

Funded by NSERC ResNet.

B.Sc. (Biology and Society), Cornell; Ph.D., Berkeley

Research

Studied how resource-governance initiatives shape the distribution of economic benefits and ecological burdens along resource value chains, holding a joint appointment with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.A. (Environmental Geography, Hons with distinction), Nipissing; M.E.S., York; Ph.D., McGill

Research

Applied adaptive governance and positive deviance approaches, as part of an IDRC-funded CARICOM nutrition project, to examine how multisectoral stakeholder mechanisms can build institutional diversity, sustain collaboration and co-learning across levels, and support agro-ecological approaches to local food production.

Funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), as part of the Improving Household Nutrition Security and Public Health in the CARICOM project.

B.Com., EDHEC Business School; M.B.A., Ottawa; Ph.D. (Business Administration), Concordia

Research

Worked on the social-science component of the EcoToxChip project, which developed genomic tools for assessing chemical risk. Guillaume assessed the barriers and opportunities for adopting these tools among end users, and mapped the organisational, economic, scientific and political dimensions shaping their use across different regulatory contexts.

Funded by Genome Canada and Génome Québec.

B.A. (Philosophy and Political Science), Montréal; M.Sc. (Political Science), Montréal; Ph.D. (Political Science), Toronto

Research

Worked on the social-science component of the EcoToxChip project, which developed genomic tools for assessing chemical risk. Working in comparative public policy and the social study of regulatory science, Matthieu studied efforts to expand the use of genomics and predictive toxicology in chemical regulation as an emergent technology of governance.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC); Genome Canada and Génome Québec.

B.E.S. (Environmental Studies), York; M.E.S. (Environmental Studies), Dalhousie; Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary Studies), Memorial

Research

Focused on sustainable food security policy and governance, taking a social-ecological approach to food security and examining the links between resilient food systems and community development.

Funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.A. (Life Sciences), Paris-Sud; Agricultural Engineering, AgroParisTech; M.Sc. (Management of Public Organisations and Policies), Paris Ouest, Mines ParisTech and ESCP Europe; Ph.D. (Management Science), Mines ParisTech and INRA

Research

Studied the collective design of sustainable agro-ecosystems whose functions and value are only partly known in advance, and whose stakeholders are often in conflict. Working closely with ecologists, Elsa built comparative case studies between Quebec and France examining how stakeholders design innovative governance rules for their agro-ecosystems, and what that reveals about the capacity of existing agricultural and environmental policy to support local innovation.

Funded by Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France; McGill University.

B.A.Sc. (Systems Design Engineering), Waterloo; M.Sc. (Geography), Memorial; Ph.D. (Geography), Memorial

Research

Studied the role of social capital in transboundary governance of the Great Lakes fisheries, as part of an SSHRC-funded project on using social capital to strengthen collaboration and co-learning in Great Lakes fisheries management. His work mapped collaboration within the Great Lakes knowledge-production system, developed a psychometric scale for measuring trust and informal communication among stakeholders, and assessed how different measures of social capital affect policy-oriented learning and knowledge-sharing across the policy network.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.Sc. (Agricultural Engineering), McGill; M.Sc. (Environmental Engineering), Cornell; Ph.D. (Natural Resources), Cornell

Research

Worked on food security policy and governance in semi-arid Kenya as part of the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) project on enhancing ecologically resilient food security through innovative farming systems in the semi-arid midlands of Kenya.

Funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

B.Sc. (Biological Sciences), Delhi; M.Sc. (Environment Management), Forest Research Institute Dehradun; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.Sc. (Business Administration), Utah; M.Sc. (Political Science), Utah; Graduate Certificate (Demography), Utah; Ph.D. (Political Science), Carleton

Research

Focused on climate change adaptation policy development and implementation in British Columbia, New York State and Victoria, Australia. Owen examined the social capital that helps government agencies bridge the organisational silos that otherwise limit their ability to share scientific knowledge and collaborate on shared environmental challenges.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.A., Massachusetts; M.A., Guelph; Ph.D., Toronto

Research

Worked on an international partnership examining the relationship between existing government policies and institutions and food security and environmental management in Kenya, aiming to identify institutional constraints on policy innovation and to propose improvements.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.Nat.Res., New England; M.Ec., New England; Ph.D., New England

Research

Researched how scientific knowledge is integrated into natural resource and environmental policy. Jean studied the social capital that helps government agencies bridge organisational silos and collaborate on shared environmental challenges such as climate change.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.Sc. (International Studies), Montréal; M.Sc. (Geography), Montréal; Ph.D. (International Studies), Laval

Research

Researched how scientific knowledge is integrated into natural resource and environmental policy. Patrick studied the environmental science-policy nexus in government, focusing on Canada and Australia.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.Sc. (Natural Resource Management, Hons), Western Australia; Ph.D. (Forest Restoration Ecology), Western Australia

Research

Studied how environment-related science moves into public policy in Westminster-based systems of government, and the outcomes of that process, across provincial and federal jurisdictions in Canada and Australia and the national governments of New Zealand, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

B.Sc. (Botany), McGill; M.Sc. (Forest Nutrition), McGill; Ph.D. (Ethics and Forestry), British Columbia

Research

Evaluated Canada’s Sustainable Forest Management Network (1995–2009), the first research network of its kind in the forestry sector, examining how it built collaborative research, shared information and formed effective partnerships across public, private, non-profit and academic actors, and what its fifteen years of operation revealed about the strengths and weaknesses of research-network partnerships in the forest sector.

Funded by Sustainable Forest Management Network.

B.Sc. (Biology and Environmental Studies), Tufts; M.Sc. (Ocean, Coastal and Earth Sciences), Texas Rio Grande Valley; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Sustaining collaboration in transboundary fishery management networks

Transboundary fisheries generate most of the world’s fishing revenue and are among the most vulnerable to overexploitation, requiring flexible governance across borders that climate-driven shifts in species range are now testing further. This dissertation asks what allows collaboration within transboundary fishery management networks to hold up over time, through three case studies. A fuzzy-set comparison of non-tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations finds that strong collaborative performance depends on a clear division of roles between secretariats and committees, genuine stakeholder representation, and a compact decision-making body. A study of Lake Sturgeon management on the St. Lawrence River shows how fragmentation and distrust harden into path-dependent management, though distrust can also open space for informal engagement and third-party brokering. A third case, on the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, finds that overly formal meetings blocked deeper learning until a role-play workshop and external experts helped managers rebuild trust and shift practice. Together the cases argue that formal structures create the arena for collaboration, but it is relational dynamics and the capacity to learn that determine whether it holds.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC); Fonds de recherche du Québec — Société et culture, doctoral research scholarship; F. Grey Woods Fellowship, McGill University; Graduate Mobility Award, McGill University; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Agriculture, Landscape Agroforestry), University of the Philippines Los Baños; M.Sc. (Sustainability), United Nations University; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Participatory scenario planning for social-ecological systems as a social learning process

Participatory scenario planning is widely used to help communities imagine alternative futures together, and is often credited with building social learning, yet evidence for that claim, and for which features of the process actually produce it, remains thin. This thesis develops a framework covering five kinds of outcome a session might produce: changes in what people know, in their relationships, in their goals, in how they feel, and in institutions. A review of 45 cases in the Biosphere Futures database finds cognitive outcomes reported far more often than emotional ones, and links outcome type to a session’s spatial scale and the actors involved. A mixed-methods study of a tidal wetland planning process in the Bay of Fundy shows measurable gains in systems thinking, trust and environmental aspiration that held for at least three months. A further study across two sessions finds that participants’ empathy toward non-human and future stakeholders increased and persisted, though empathy toward people alive today did not shift. The thesis concludes that well-designed scenario planning can durably change how people think, relate and consider those outside the room.

Funded by NSERC ResNet; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; Tomlinson Centennial Fellowship in Forest Ecology, McGill University; Fonds de recherche du Québec — Société et culture.

B.Sc. (Biology and Environmental Studies), Victoria; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Reassembling transboundary natural resource governance: wild food systems in Eeyou Istchee

Natural resource governance in Canada regularly has to reconcile Indigenous knowledge systems with the scientific and bureaucratic frameworks that dominate resource management, a tension sharpened wherever non-human actors hold an active social role in Indigenous ontologies that western governance has no place for. This dissertation turns to actor-network theory to ask what a more posthuman approach to governance might offer. In Eeyou Istchee, the James Bay Cree Territory, fuzzy cognitive mapping with Cree land-users traces how forestry is reshaping moose habitat, and finds that while some differences between Cree and scientific understandings can be reconciled, those rooted in specific local culture and belief cannot. A second case, on lake sturgeon governance in Nemaska, uses interviews and participant observation to map the human and non-human relations shaping the fishery, surfacing boundary-spanning roles that conventional governance analysis would miss entirely. The dissertation argues that a wider turn toward posthumanism in network governance offers a way through the frictions that pluralistic, multi-species governance settings routinely produce.

Funded by SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral; Polar Knowledge Canada Northern Scientific Training Program; NSERC-CREATE Environmental Innovations Training and Research Program; Mitacs Accelerate Program; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Geography), Lethbridge; M.Sc. (Geography), Ottawa; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

The role of research capacity in implementing impact assessment in Yukon Territory

Impact assessment is one of the few spaces in environmental governance built to negotiate between competing knowledge systems, yet the capacity needed to make that negotiation work is rarely examined directly. In northern Canada, where capacity is scarce and unevenly held across the many jurisdictions with a legal role in assessment, this matters more than most places. Using a policy network approach to trace formal and informal ties among Yukon assessment actors, this dissertation finds that a small number of boundary-spanning ‘choke points’ determine how well the system can draw in and act on new knowledge, and that these points can function as facilitators or as bottlenecks depending on who occupies them. Applying that lens to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Board identifies where the assessment body and individual assessors need support to balance technical and values-based evidence. A further look at Yukon First Nations governments shows they have adapted their participation strategy around asserting land rights and implementing land claims, compensating for capacity gaps elsewhere in the system. The thesis argues that impact assessment works best when treated as a knowledge-building exercise in its own right.

Funded by Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; NSERC-CREATE; Government of Yukon Research Stipend.

B.A. (Anthropology, Hons), Alberta; M.Sc. (Nutrition and Metabolism), Alberta; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Exploring the public value of networked science in the Canadian Arctic

The Arctic is one of the world’s most rapidly changing regions and faces a series of unprecedented and complex challenges. Science-informed innovation has been argued to be key in supporting sustainable regional development and improved policy outcomes. Yet despite significant and increasing public investment in Arctic research, Northern communities continue to assert that existing research governance structures have been unable to create public value, failing to deliver research that reflects public expectations, interests and innovation needs. Little is known about how Arctic scientific research is embedded in broader innovation and value creation processes, so this dissertation takes a systems approach to the governance contexts that shape how networked scientific research creates public value in the Canadian Arctic. Using ArcticNet as an instrumental case, it examines three levels of organisation: networked research actors, a network administrative organisation, and the institutional mechanisms for delegating authority. Social Network Analysis mapped the configuration of science-based innovation actors and its evolution across thirteen years, finding the network centralised around non-local public-sector actors who played central boundary-spanning roles, while local Arctic actors showed a growing propensity to span boundaries and close structural holes. Public Value Mapping of the network administrative organisation revealed diverse target publics and a range of public values, some identified at the outset and some emerging later, pointing to a need for clearer articulation of value across public-facing documents and scales. Principal-agent theory and the public value Strategic Triangle were then used to identify the overlapping, multi-level contracts for delegating public value creation in Arctic science, showing that networked models of science governance corresponded with a trend towards contracting public value management out to research actors, without it being clear how the core elements of that management have been realised. The dissertation raises questions about how publicly funded research can be designed to enhance public value, with implications for the strategic design and operation of Arctic research and for regional research and innovation policy.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; NSERC-CREATE; Graduate Student Mobility Award, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Forestry), Shahjalal University of Science and Technology; M.Sc. (Forestry), Shahjalal University of Science and Technology; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Livelihood vulnerability to climatic stresses in the north-eastern floodplains of Bangladesh

Climate adaptation planning is usually set at national or international scale, which leaves little room for the local, place-specific factors that actually determine how a community experiences climatic stress. This dissertation focuses on the wetland-dominated floodplain communities of north-eastern Bangladesh to ask how local social and ecological conditions compound vulnerability, how households draw on their own resources to reduce it, and how well government programmes actually match local needs. A participatory exposure assessment finds that local biophysical change and resource-use behaviour drive vulnerability in ways that standard, model-based stress assessments largely miss. Households were found to combine and reshape their assets into two broad strategies: building non-resource-dependent income through wider networks, or intensifying the use of natural resources already available to them — both of which typically required outside support from government or markets to work. A policy analysis then finds that despite real institutional progress on climate adaptation, Bangladeshi policy still tends toward limited public participation and weak coordination with natural resource management, leaving local demands only partially addressed.

Funded by Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Grant for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; William Dawson Scholar Award, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Biochemistry and Psychology), British Columbia; M.Sc. (Global Health and Population), Harvard; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Women’s access to land resources and household food security in eastern Kenya

In the smallholder farming systems of semi-arid sub-Saharan Africa, women carry much of the responsibility for household food security as farmers and caregivers, yet routinely face constraints on the land access that underpins that role. Set among Kamba smallholders in Machakos and Makueni Counties, Kenya, this dissertation draws on the sustainable livelihoods approach, social capital theory and theories of access to examine how that constraint plays out in practice. A life-stage analysis of interviews, focus groups and community meetings finds that women rely on a range of relational mechanisms to keep and adapt their access to land as circumstances change, and that local gender norms continue to block formal land ownership even where legal rights exist. Grandmothers raising grandchildren in skipped-generation households emerge as a particularly exposed group, though their social capital was found to strengthen the community networks that support food security. A multi-level analysis of survey data from over 200 women across 127 villages links bridging social capital to greater participation in agricultural decision-making, which in turn is associated with better child nutritional outcomes, an association not found for men’s participation. The thesis argues that food security policy in the region needs to engage with these institutional and gendered dynamics directly rather than around them.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral; Margaret A. Gilliam Fellowship in Food Security; Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science Seed Grant; Graduate Research Enhancement and Travel Award; International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

B.A. (Environmental Geography, Hons with distinction), Nipissing; M.E.S., York; Ph.D., McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Building social resilience to support sustainable food security policy in the Caribbean

Caribbean nations face a combination of high rates of non-communicable disease, rapid environmental change and declining rural communities that together undermine food and nutrition security. This dissertation develops social resilience as a concept and applies it to Saint Lucia. An Institutional Analysis and Development framework applied across the pre- and post-1950 periods finds that Saint Lucia’s agriculture and food system needs more ‘bridging’ institutions capable of sharing rule-making power and knowledge between formal and informal actors. A combined stakeholder and social network analysis of the development of the island’s 2009–2015 National Agricultural Policy points to a similar gap, identifying where boundary organisations could support a shift toward more adaptive institutions and stronger trust among stakeholders. At the community level, a social network analysis of smallholders producing for the domestic market shows that different forms of social capital shape farmer-reported innovation differently depending on context, with implications for how support and coordination should be designed. Together the findings make the case for more adaptive, locally specific and culturally grounded food and agriculture policy across the Caribbean.

Funded by Sustainable Agriculture Doctoral Scholarship, McGill University; International Development Research Centre, Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF); Schulich Graduate Fellowship, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Agricultural and Environmental Sciences), McGill; M.Sc. (Rural Planning and Development), Guelph; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Assessing stakeholder participation in Northern scientific research

Northern science is widely said to have shifted toward greater local community engagement, but the claim has rarely been tested empirically. This dissertation examines the shift using Gibbons et al.’s distinction between Mode 1 (science generated for its own sake) and Mode 2 (science generated in the context of its application), analysing research articles published between 1960 and 2010 across four major Arctic and polar journals. The shift toward Mode 2 approaches proves modest and gradual, with Mode 1 research still dominant overall, and local involvement varying considerably by discipline, organisation and region. Against a backdrop of rising dissatisfaction with research activity in many northern Indigenous communities, an in-depth case study of a successful International Polar Year partnership in a remote Yukon community identifies which contextual and procedural conditions actually produced good outcomes, such as early involvement in research design, decentralised control, and a strong local history of reciprocity and trust. A national survey of northern research stakeholders then finds that these contextual elements, especially trust, generally mattered more to partnership success than procedural design choices. Building on that finding, the thesis proposes a capital-assets approach to understanding how research partnerships affect both the communities and the researchers involved.

B.Sc. (Biological Sciences), Delhi; M.Sc. (Environment Management), Forest Research Institute Dehradun; Ph.D. (Renewable Resources), McGill

Ph.D. thesis

Understanding the social dimensions of tiger conservation in India

Tiger conservation concentrates many of the hardest problems in biodiversity conservation at once: protecting a dangerous predator in forests that some of the poorest communities in India depend on for survival, using exclusionary protected areas whose success still depends on the support of the people they exclude. This thesis takes an exploratory look at the social dimensions of that tension. A quantitative study combining Q-methodology with a survey of conservation professionals identifies five distinct viewpoints on tiger conservation, mapping where professional opinion converges and diverges. A qualitative study centred on Corbett Tiger Reserve traces how local stakeholders voice their concerns to park management, and what that reveals about the local political processes shaping conservation outcomes. A quantitative assessment of social capital in three villages bordering the reserve examines how tiger conservation affects villagers’ capacity for collective action, for or against conservation goals. A further qualitative study of a village experiencing intensive wildlife tourism finds that rapid, unplanned growth has created financial disparities that strain solidarity and complicate local institutions’ efforts to manage conflict. Taken together, the findings are offered as a basis for both near-term management decisions and longer-term tiger conservation policy in India.

Funded by Fonds de recherche du Québec — Société et culture; Graduate Excellence Fellowship, McGill University; International Travel Grant, McGill University; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Graduate Research Enhancement and Travel Award; Tomlinson Centennial Fellowship in Forest Ecology, McGill University; Provost’s Graduate Fellowship, McGill University; International Doctoral Award, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Natural Resources Conservation), British Columbia; B.Sc. (Ecology), Fujian Agricultural and Forestry University; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Plural values of nature and stakeholder conflict in an urban forest greenspace: the Morgan Arboretum

Urban forest greenspaces deliver ecological, social and cultural benefits, but different stakeholders bring different values to them, which can turn into conflict over how a space should be used and managed. Combining interviews with an online survey at the Morgan Arboretum in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, this thesis finds that visitors’ backgrounds and experience shape both why they come and what they value, with the Life Framework of Values showing some values held broadly in common and others emphasised very differently across groups. Disruptive behaviour and diverging values both drive conflict, and different forms of conflict were found to coexist and shift into one another over time. The thesis argues that understanding this plurality of values is central to explaining conflict in greenspaces, and to designing management strategies that head it off.

Funded by No external funding listed.

B.Sc. (Forest Resource Technology), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Community Resource Management Areas and rural livelihoods around Mole National Park, Ghana

Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) are Ghana’s model for community-based natural resource management, devolving rights over wildlife outside protected areas to local communities. This thesis assesses their effect on livelihoods around Mole National Park, drawing on a household survey (n=110), five focus groups and eleven key informant interviews, analysed through the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the Theory of Access. Participation in a CREMA was not found to improve financial, human or physical capital relative to non-CREMA communities, and CREMA members actually held less natural capital than non-members. Social capital was marginally higher among CREMA communities, though not significantly so, and traditional livelihood strategies persisted in tension with conservation goals. The thesis argues that CREMA frameworks need to engage participating communities’ livelihood concerns more directly if benefits are to be shared equitably.

Funded by McCall-MacBain Scholarship; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; Graduate Mobility Award, McGill University.

B.A. (Environment and Development), McGill; M.Sc. (Bioresource Engineering), McGill

Co-supervised with Prof. Jan Adamowski

M.Sc. thesis

Digital tools for water governance in the Great Lakes Basin

Water governance in the Great Lakes Basin is often held up as a model of transboundary cooperation, and a growing set of dashboards, web maps and data viewers now puts scientific data directly in front of the public. But these tools risk becoming ends in themselves rather than aids to decision-making, and no comprehensive review of them yet exists. Using the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy as a framework, this thesis combines a systematic scoping review of the platforms in use with interviews of the practitioners running them, asking what data they actually deliver and how practitioners see that data shaping user decisions. The tools prove to be in transition rather than settled practice, and the thesis argues they work best positioned as a supplement to in-person engagement rather than a substitute for it, with specific recommendations for shifting platform design from simply providing data toward actively supporting the decisions users need to make.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Graduate Scholarship — Master’s; Graduate Excellence Scholarship, McGill University; Macdonald Campus Graduate Students’ Society Travel Grant.

B.Sc. (Biology, minor Psychology), Victoria; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Trust, control and risk in transboundary governance of the Southern Resident killer whale

The Southern Resident killer whale population ranges across the Canada–U.S. border in the Salish Sea, which makes its recovery a transboundary governance problem that no single government can solve alone. This thesis draws on 32 key informant interviews and a 35-respondent survey of policy actors across both countries to examine how trust, perceived risk and control interact within the governance network. The network turns out to rely heavily on personal relationships and social control mechanisms to manage the risks of working across organisations, which limits its overall performance. The thesis identifies opportunities to build transboundary trust more deliberately, through more inclusive deliberation and by supporting the individuals who span organisational boundaries, and argues that a multi-dimensional trust–control–risk framework has broader value for transboundary conservation governance.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Graduate Scholarship — Master’s; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University.

B.A. & Sc. (Environment, Hons, minor Organismal Biology), McGill; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Measuring social-ecological "fit" to support local flood-risk decisions in Truro, Nova Scotia

Social-ecological fit (matching governance arrangements to the ecological systems they manage) is a promising, inclusive approach to environmental governance, but the concept is held back by inconsistent terminology and a lack of quantitative tools to assess it. This thesis reviews the literature on social-ecological fit and adapts Bayesian methods to measure it quantitatively, applying the approach to flood-risk decision-making in Truro, Nova Scotia. The work shows that fit covers a range of distinct types, not all of which apply to every social-ecological problem, and that Bayesian methods can assess local fit successfully. The thesis sets out how the concept can be applied directly to decision-making and identifies where the approach could be extended further.

Funded by NSERC ResNet; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; F. Grey Woods Fellowship, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Environmental Studies and Sustainability, minor International Agriculture), Michigan State; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Local produce procurement for school feeding programmes in Nevis, Eastern Caribbean

Childhood obesity is a rising public health concern across the Caribbean, and school meal programmes that source food locally are seen as one route to healthier diets while also supporting domestic agriculture. This thesis examines the organisational structures and social capital shaping the procurement of locally grown produce for Nevis’s school meal programme, drawing on 66 key informant interviews and focus groups with farmers and stakeholders. It finds a systemic breakdown in communication between farmers and programme administrators, with no contractual arrangement in place for local procurement. Social network analysis reveals weak organisation both among farmers and between farmers and school administrators. The thesis argues that stronger governance of the programme is needed to build a local food value chain capable of delivering nutritious meals reliably.

Funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University.

B.A. & Sc. (Environment, Hons, minor Organismal Biology), McGill; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Mangrove governance and evolving policy in Panama

Mangrove forests provide timber, coastal protection and fisheries habitat, yet Panama has lost mangroves faster than any other country in Latin America since 1980, despite much of its mangrove area sitting within protected areas on paper. This thesis traces why, reviewing the regulatory frameworks and recurring policy gaps behind mangrove loss regionally and in Panama specifically, then examining the protected mangrove ecosystem of Punta Galeta on Panama’s Atlantic coast as a case study of how international sustainable-management principles play out locally. The case points to a need for better communication, collaboration and trust among the stakeholders involved, and for a more coherent shared vision of how the coastline should be used. A policy analysis, combined with interviews of national mangrove policy actors, finds Panama’s mangrove-specific policies contradictory and fragmented across overlapping jurisdictions and competing conservation-versus-development priorities. The thesis closes with strategies for addressing these gaps and directions for further research.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Graduate Scholarship — Master’s; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; NSERC CREATE; Walter M. Stewart Fellowship, McGill University; STRI-McGill-NEO (SMN) Fellowship.

B.E.S. (Environment and Business, Hons, Co-op), Waterloo; Diploma (Environmental Assessment), Waterloo; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Cumulative effects assessment and collaborative governance of wildlife in Eeyou Istchee

The traditional food system of Eeyou Istchee, the Cree territory of northern Quebec, depends on wildlife increasingly stressed by fifty years of large-scale resource development. Cumulative Effects Assessment, the mechanism meant to track those combined impacts within environmental impact assessment, has previously been found to fall short of best practice in the territory. This thesis examines why, through a policy review of the regulatory frameworks and supporting functions meant to underpin cumulative effects assessment, finding that key programmes are either absent or not operating. Recognising that much of this gap traces back to resource and capacity constraints within government agencies, the thesis explores more decentralised, consensus-based approaches to wildlife monitoring, then tests the idea through interviews with government, non-government and private-sector actors involved in impact assessment in the territory. Eeyou Istchee has the foundation for genuine multi-stakeholder collaborative governance, the thesis concludes, but making it work will depend on close attention to both system context and what actually drives actors to collaborate.

Funded by Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University; NSERC-CREATE.

B.A. & Sc. (Hons), McMaster; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

The trouble with the trees: can community-based forestry succeed in Panama and beyond?

Community-based forestry has spread rapidly worldwide since the 1990s on the theory that local knowledge and a direct stake in long-term outcomes should produce better management. This thesis reviews that literature before turning to Panama as a case study: a country with high rural poverty and ongoing deforestation that looks, on paper, like a strong candidate. Applying an evaluative framework developed by Gilmour (2016), the thesis finds Panama not yet ready, politically or economically, to support community-based forestry successfully, a pattern echoed in other countries’ experience. A topic-modelling analysis of 1,112 research abstracts published on the subject between 1990 and 2017 then maps how the field’s research priorities have shifted over time, including growing attention to carbon sequestration and local outcomes. The thesis closes by arguing that complex adaptive systems theory offers a promising direction for the next generation of community-based forestry research.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Graduate Scholarship — Master’s; Schulich Graduate Fellowship, McGill University; NSERC CREATE; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University.

B.E.S. (International Development, Hons), Waterloo; Diploma (Environmental Assessment), Waterloo; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Social networks and the performance of agricultural cooperatives in the Niayes region of Senegal

Agricultural cooperatives are widely promoted as a way to spread information, improve market access and disseminate innovation among smallholder farmers, but empirical evidence on whether they deliver is mixed, and much of the research overlooks their social dimension in favour of their economic one. This thesis examines how the internal social organisation of cooperatives in Senegal’s Niayes region shapes their performance, looking at how social networks affect knowledge flow and innovation within a cooperative, how cooperatives contribute to members’ livelihoods, and what that means for more equitable cooperative policy. The findings show that purely economic analysis captures only part of the picture, missing existing power arrangements, social structures and economic diversity among members. The thesis argues that agricultural development initiatives working with cooperatives need to assess the existing social relations among members up front, and that combining economic and social analysis gives a fuller picture of how cooperatives actually function for their members.

Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Graduate Scholarship — Master’s; Amy and Tim Dauphinee Fellowship, Canadian Association for the Study of Cooperation; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Biology), Brandeis; B.A. (Environmental Science), Brandeis; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Wild edible plants and food security in the semi-arid midlands of Kenya

Around one in seven people worldwide face food insecurity, a risk climate change is set to sharpen, and households in Sub-Saharan Africa relying on livelihood systems poorly suited to environmental change are especially exposed. Wild edible plants are a common and effective coping strategy in these settings. This thesis, based in rural Eastern Province, Kenya, finds that specific demographic and access conditions predict how heavily households rely on them: food-insecure households, and those without off-farm income or with fewer assets, consumed wild edible plants more often, while smaller farm size and greater distance to harvest areas both reduced use. A review of the legal framework governing state forests, land privatisation and increasingly formal private land tenure finds access to these plants declining, as development and donor priorities focused on commercialisation have sidelined their subsistence value for poorer households. The thesis argues that the household characteristics identified can help target policy toward the groups most reliant on wild edible plants, and that protecting access to them could meaningfully strengthen household food security.

Funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada; Graduate Excellence Award, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Biology), McGill; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

Social factors affecting shark conservation on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, Belize

Sharks play an outsized role in maintaining healthy coral reefs, yet populations are declining worldwide and protection remains limited, including in Belize on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. This thesis presents an exploratory qualitative study of the attitudes and influence of shark stakeholders in Belize. It finds that Belizeans themselves rarely fish or eat shark, while Mexican, Guatemalan and Honduran fishers do so in Belizean waters, particularly during Lent — and that stakeholders differ sharply in how they use shark products, how they perceive population status, how they value sharks, and how much power they hold to shape policy. These conflicting interests and unequal influence pose a real obstacle to durable conservation policy. The thesis is offered as a first step toward understanding the social dimensions of shark conservation in Belize, and argues for building trust and communication between reef scientists and stakeholders as a next priority.

Funded by STRI-McGill-NEO (SMN) Fellowship; Internal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Grant, McGill University; Provost’s Graduate Fellowship, McGill University; Principal’s Graduate Fellowship, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Forest Engineering), São Paulo; M.Sc. (Renewable Resources), McGill

M.Sc. thesis

How the 2007–08 Global Financial Crisis affected Brazil’s forest sector

Economic downturns are known to reshape how natural resources are managed, but the effects of the 2007–08 Global Financial Crisis on forest management in South America had not been closely examined. Using grounded theory and case study methods, this thesis draws on the experience and perceptions of well-placed stakeholders to understand how the crisis affected sustainable forest management in Brazil. The crisis interacted with wider political, social and environmental trends to produce both harm and opportunity: on one hand, reduced production of forest products, falling exports and cuts to non-market environmental and social investment; on the other, a competitive opening for the plantation sector, reduced deforestation pressure in the Amazon as timber demand fell, and stronger incentives for third-party forest certification to retain access to risk-averse markets. Communities operating in the informal forest economy were comparatively insulated from the crisis. The thesis offers this as an initial step toward understanding how economic downturns and sustainable forest management interact in Brazil.

Funded by PEO International Peace Scholarship; Internal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Grant, McGill University; Provost’s Graduate Fellowship, McGill University.

B.Sc. (Ecology), Sherbrooke; M.Sc. (Forest Ecology), McGill; Ph.D. (Agro-ecology), McGill

Research

Enhancing ecologically resilient food security through innovative farming systems in the semi-arid midlands of Kenya. A multi-disciplinary, participatory project working with farmers and other stakeholders across Makueni, Machakos and Tharaka-Nithi counties in Kenya’s Eastern Province to evaluate agricultural and livestock practices and support the adoption and scaling-up of more resilient farming systems. It aimed to strengthen food and nutrition security by building a better understanding of local food systems and the drivers of insecurity, expanding uptake of appropriate agricultural practices, increasing household consumption of high-value traditional crops, connecting smallholders to local and external markets, and informing more effective food security policy.

Funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada; Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

B.A., Massachusetts; M.A., Guelph; Ph.D., Toronto

Research

Enhancing ecologically resilient food security through innovative farming systems in the semi-arid midlands of Kenya. A multi-disciplinary, participatory project working with farmers and other stakeholders across Makueni, Machakos and Tharaka-Nithi counties in Kenya’s Eastern Province to evaluate agricultural and livestock practices and support the adoption and scaling-up of more resilient farming systems. It aimed to strengthen food and nutrition security by building a better understanding of local food systems and the drivers of insecurity, expanding uptake of appropriate agricultural practices, increasing household consumption of high-value traditional crops, connecting smallholders to local and external markets, and informing more effective food security policy.

Funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).