Browsing by Subject "sustainable development"

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    A 10-Year Assessment of Equitable Geographic Inclusion in Minnesota's Legacy Amendment
    (2021-07) Alfaro, Benjamin D
    As a dynamic model for public funding to the arts - and the single largest state-based conservation finance measure to pass in the nation's history - Minnesota's Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment dictates annual government spending to environmental, artistic, and cultural causes in an unprecedented method. The Legacy Amendment boasts the largest voter turnout for an issue referendum in Minnesota's history and represents a nationally distinct policy model responsible for more than $3 billion in total dollars designated for the aforementioned purposes from 2009 to 2021. This project interrogates only one of several measurable areas of the policy model, specifically examining the geographic spread of funds over the amendment's first 10 years and using an equity lens to explore the relationship between government spending and the measure of "fairness" as a key criterion for success. Previous research exploring socially equitable public administration has challenged such ambiguous benchmarks for policy goals, instead encouraging more empirical, contextual definitions of how success might be determined. With these critiques in mind, this study lays the groundwork for understanding the Legacy Amendment as a multi-pronged instrument of economic subjectivity by navigating how the relationship between legislative priorities and spending decisions manifested during the first decade of the policy. Initial findings indicate approximately two-thirds of all Legacy funds affected statewide or multi-county causes, demonstrating a broad alignment with policy goals. Despite significant variances in total dollars spent, higher density urban areas and economic development regions demonstrated relatively parallel ratios in their share of Legacy spending per capita. The baseline data collected through this project lends itself to future examination of the Legacy Amendment's other self-described and perceivably benevolent goals.
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    Conservation Design for Commercial Properties
    (2008) Hills, Soraya
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    Essays in environmental and development economics
    (2025-02) Long, Yanxu
    This dissertation explores the intersection of environmental and development economics through three essays, centering on forests as natural capital. It investigates human–forest interactions using rigorous econometric methods, including ordinary least squares, instrumental variables (IV), difference-in-differences (DID), and quantile regression. By integrating economic, geospatial, and ecological data, the research evaluates forest-related policies at both micro (household) and macro (county) levels. The findings offer policy insights for optimizing land use, public financial investments, and household decision-making, ultimately contributing to sustainable development by balancing economic growth with environmental conservation. Essay 1 examines the effects of rural poverty alleviation on forest conservation. Using a high-resolution annual land cover dataset and a generalized DID approach, the study finds that poverty alleviation programs increased forest cover by 0.5% annually, with carbon storage benefits outweighing program costs. Rural relocation policies emerge as key drivers of conservation, highlighting a cost-effective strategy for integrating economic development with environmental restoration. Essay 2 evaluates the economic and ecological impacts of large-scale tree planting from 2002 to 2019 using an IV approach. While afforestation enhances grain production—particularly four to eight years after planting—it negatively affects GDP in primary and secondary sectors. The findings reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between plantation forest maturity and grain production, underscoring the need to balance ecological benefits with economic trade-offs. Essay 3 investigates the long-term effects of China’s Grain for Green (GfG) program, which subsidizes farmers to convert cropland on steep slopes into forests. Using national survey data and a DID framework with multiple treatment periods, the study finds that GfG increases household income and expenditure, primarily through farm income growth and government subsidies. Households reallocate land from staple crops to soybeans and cash crops, improving soybean productivity.
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    Examination of the Role of Civil Society in Adopting International Standard Commitments: A Landscape Analysis of MENA Region and Gulf Countries in Comparison with International Best Practices
    (2022-05) Wolff, Colin; Byrd, Matthew; Aly, Noran; Nyima, Tenzin
    This report offers an integrated examination of the role of civil society organizations in influencing governments to adopt international commitments. The study was commissioned by the University of Minnesota and International Republican Institute (IRI) as part of an effort to promote the spread of democratic practices in the MENA and Gulf countries Regions. Under the principles of sustainable development, open government partnerships, climate change, data openness and transparency, public service provision and infrastructure development, the graduate consultants were asked to identify and evaluate the level of adoption and commitments to these international standard commitments, as well as involvement in international partnerships, by countries in both regions compared to best practices of civil society organizations that managed to influence the public policy making process to implement these standards. The results of this evaluative research are intended to be used as the basis for the IRI next strategy to empower CSOs in influencing their governments to adopt the above-mentioned strategy. Based on what we have found, expanding the CSOs’ penetration and power serves as an influential tool that would not only facilitate embedding the international commitments into the national strategy of the region but also practically applying it, or rather, contribute to projectizing it by directing aid to developing countries towards specific projects that follows the international standards commitments. In our landscape analyses we found that the governments of the MENA region have made a number of commitments across all five areas. Though there is a great deal of variation among the nations, we found some noticeable trends; for instance, we found a dearth of governance commitments and little follow-through in any regard to climate change. We were also able to find recurring themes in our case studies.
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    Native Plants for Sustainable Landscapes: Establishment and Management of Lakeshores and Gardens
    (St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Extension Service, 2000) Krischik, Vera; Reed, Catherine; Willey, Serena
    This bulletin is a guide for lakeshore and garden development with an interest in preserving habitat and conservation while reducing erosion and runoff.
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    Pinabete : one opportunity toward the sustainable development of the Guatemalan Highlands.
    (University of Minnesota, 2005-12) Ignosh, John Paul; Kilgore, Michael A.
    This paper first provides a general survey of Guatemala, investigating historical, economic, social and political trends within the country. Then, the paper analyzes the management of pinabete, an endangered Guatemalan fir (Abies guatemalensis). The cultivation of this species is being promoted by the environmental agencies of Guatemala in effort to alleviate pressure upon the few remaining natural forested stands. This species is highly sought after for use as a Christmas tree during the holiday season. A financial analysis is conducted in the final section of this paper that investigates three different cultivation systems for this threatened species. The financial analysis of these three cultivation systems indicates that the commercialization of this species can be considered a financially efficient cropping alternative for farmers of the Guatemalan Highlands. Moreover, the incorporation of pinabete into a farmer’s cultivation system assists in the conservation of this species, promotes soil conservation and enables farmers to diversify their revenue sources. The combination of income generation, inclusion of marginalized people, and natural resource conservation is key to the sustainable development of the Guatemalan Highlands.
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    Southeast Minnesota Resource Mapping Survey.
    (1999) Droubie, Kari
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    Using participatory scenarios to stimulate social learning for collaborative sustainable development
    (2012) Johnson, Kris A; Dana, Genya; Jordan, Nicholas R; Draeger, Kathy J; Kapuscinski, Anne; Schmitt Olabisi, Laura K; Reich, Peter B
    Interdependent human and biophysical systems are highly complex and behave in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. Social and ecological challenges that emerge from this complexity often defy straightforward solutions, and efforts to address these problems will require not only scientific and technological capabilities but also learning and adaptation. Scenarios are a useful tool for grappling with the uncertainty and complexity of social-ecological challenges because they enable participants to build adaptive capacity through the contemplation of multiple future possibilities. Furthermore, scenarios provide a platform for social learning, which is critical to acting in the face of uncertain, complex, and conflict-laden problems. We studied the Minnesota 2050 project, a collaborative project through which citizens collectively imagined future scenarios and contemplated the implications of these possibilities for the adaptability of their social and environmental communities. Survey and interview data indicate that these participatory scenario workshops built and strengthened relationships, enhanced participants’ understanding of other perspectives, and triggered systemic thinking, all of which is relevant to collective efforts to respond to social-ecological challenges through sustainable development activities. Our analysis shows that participatory scenarios can stimulate social learning by enabling participants to engage and to discuss options for coping with uncertainty through collaborative actions. Such learning can be of value to participants and to the organizations and decisions in which they are engaged, and scenario processes can be effective tools for supporting collaborative sustainable development efforts.