Abstract
Lands and seas set aside as protected areas (PAs) are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation, but their establishment and management faces opposition by critics who claim that PAs impede local economic development. Yet, identifying opportunities for PAs to result in synergies, rather than trade-offs, with human communities is an urgent need to adequately mitigate biodiversity loss and transition society to a sustainable development pathway. This dissertation examines the contention between conservation and development (the conservation-development dilemma) through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and mixed methods approach. Using the social-ecological systems framework, this research assesses the local economic outcomes of PAs, patterns and processes of PA governance, and links between PA economics and governance to examine PA dynamics on several scales. Chapter 1 builds on foundational literature to describe the conservation-development dilemma. Chapter 2 presents a systematic review of the relationships between PAs and local economic development, finding that most extant literature identifies positive or neutral associations. Chapter 3 explores trends in global PA governance by measuring various conceptualizations and factors of decentralization. Chapter 4 is a case study of institutional fragmentation in public budgeting for federal PA agencies in the United States. Chapter 5 bridges conservation, economics, and governance by analyzing the impacts of PA coverage and approaches to PA governance on indicators of local economic development in US counties with spatial regression models. Chapter 6 synthesizes the results of the previous chapters, discusses research and policy implications, and offers concluding thoughts and paths forward to manage the conservation-development dilemma within the context of the sustainability science approach.