Purpose National Park Service (NPS) units generate a significant economic impact for states and local gateway communities across the USA. Utah is home to 13 NPS with visitation accounting 18% of state's US$9.75bn tourism economy in 2018. Twelve units, including five national parks, are located Southern Utah, driving an that heavily dependent on tourism. This paper examines challenges opportunit...

Meadows are natural dynamic features of forested mountain landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. Proportions of meadows and forests change with environmental conditions and disturbance history. We investigated the belowground microbial communities associated with these two vegetation types and how they change across the meadow–forest transition at two sites in Oregon. Soils were sampled along rep...

BACKGROUND Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data suggest that Latinos are less likely to be physically active and more likely to be overweight and suffer from resulting complications than are Whites and that within the Latino population, Latina women are especially at risk. Therefore, promoting physical activity among Latinos, and understanding gender participation patterns within that populat...

Is it true that “the orang-utan could be virtually extinct within five years”, as reported by [1] in a recent issue of Current Biology? The dire conservation status of this ape warrants a sense of urgency [2], but we would like to present a more balanced view and highlight the emergence of some positive trends. Illegal logging, forest conversion and associated fires occur in most Indonesian nat...

Among developing countries, Nepal has been an enthusiastic leader in experimenting with participatory systems of forest governance. This article evaluates the state-initiated implementation of the leasehold forestry programme in Nepal, aimed at providing better livelihoods to the poorest sections of society by leasing patches of degraded forest land for a 40-year period. Using case studies in t...

This study tests four hypotheses related to forest clearing over time in Ecuador's northern Amazon: (1) a larger increase in population over time on a farm (finca) leads to more deforestation; (2) rates of forest clearing surrounding four primary reference communities differ (spatial heterogeneity); (3) fincas farther from towns/communities experience lower rates of forest clearing over time; a...

The present study investigates the forest governance structure for REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) implementation in a protected forest of Bangladesh, namely Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary (RKWS). The study analyses the key aspects of forest governance, focusing on drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, governance deficit, institutions and social ...

In Mexico, the bdemocratization of natural assetsQ through an agrarian reform process laid the territorial foundation for the establishment of a large community forest sector. The common property regime and agrarian policies established by the Mexican Revolution also created a common form of governance for all of rural Mexico. Concepts from common property theory and social and natural capital ...

The forest management in Indonesia is currently using a new paradigm, one of which the involvement local communities. This paradigm applied throughout Indonesia, especially state areas and customary forests. National parks are part forests where involves community. One methods used community-based ecotourism has widely implemented to communities around national park. approach improve people liv...