This doctoral dissertation research project will examine how conflict, costs, and conservation priorities shape spatial enforcement decisions in four national parks of Colombia. Protected areas like national parks are a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation, but they are sites where officials often fail to enforce existing regulations against human-related pressures. Recent studies show that budgetary constraints alone do not provide sufficient explanation for differences in the conservation impact of protected areas. This doctoral dissertation research project seeks to assess the proposition that the costs of conflict and access can prevent park managers from allocating enforcement resources in ways that optimize conservation outcomes. To test this proposition, the doctoral student will assess the conservation success of Colombian parks using satellite imagery and econometric estimation techniques. He will examine how estimated success varies with levels of conflict, accessibility, and park budget. The student will conduct field research in four national parks to examine how enforcement allocation decisions of protected area managers are shaped by spatial differences in expected conflict, accessibility, and conservation priorities.
By empirically examining the role of conflict and cost in spatial enforcement allocation, this research will provide new insights regarding potentially crucial determinants of conservation success in protected areas. Few studies have empirically examined how protected area regulations are enforced in practice, let alone how enforcement allocation varies spatially as a function of key decision variables such as conflict, accessibility, and conservation priorities. Enhanced understanding of the relative influence of these variables on enforcement allocation can improve the efficiency of current and future policies and investments that seek to strengthen tropical protected area networks. Project findings also will lay the groundwork of a research program on modeling and optimizing enforcement dynamics in tropical protected areas. Collected data will be used as the baseline for an assessment of the impact of future enforcement investments on conservation outcomes. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.
