CONSTRUCTING CORRIDORS AND CONSERVATION POLICY IN HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT LANDSCAPES OF EL SALVADOR

Open Access
- Author:
- Patel, Ruchi
- Graduate Program:
- Geography
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- May 09, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Brian Hastings King, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Larry James Gorenflo, Committee Member - Keywords:
- biological corridor
conservation and development
Mesoamerican Biological Corridor
El Salvador
biological corridor
Mesoamerican Biological Corridor
landscape restoration
conservation and development
El Salvador - Abstract:
- In global conservation, biological corridors have been designed and promoted widely as a model capable of achieving both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development goals. As the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America lying at the heart of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, El Salvador presents a unique case study of corridors because of its rich biodiversity and highly human-modified landscapes. With rapid urbanization, agricultural development, and other anthropogenic pressures continuing to exacerbate habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss, corridors have been adopted into the country’s environmental agenda on national and subnational scales, drawing from legacies of the former multinational Mesoamerican Biological Corridor project. The research presented in this thesis examines historic and present discourses and design of corridors in El Salvador in an attempt to deconstruct the motivations, priorities, and challenges behind this particular approach to integrated landscape management. Combining findings from key informant interviews and detailed document and policy analysis, the research reveals a discourse surrounding corridors that constructs them as objects both embedded in and comprised of a mosaic of diverse land uses, tailored to enhance landscape connectivity through biodiversity-friendly land use practices. However, despite a recognition of the social and ecological potential of corridors, as well as numerous funded project proposals, implementation of corridors has been largely ineffective on the ground. Moreover, corridors have lost their former resonance, eclipsed by ‘landscape restoration’ as the focus of national environmental policy, a framing which places more explicit emphasis on climate change mitigation and adaptation. While landscape restoration has much in common with the integrated approach embodied by corridors, it evokes a different spatial imaginary with important implications for conservation priority-setting, distribution of resources, and the promotion of land use alternatives. In elucidating challenges to the adoption of corridors and other analogous landscape-level management approaches, the research informs future conservation and development programs in El Salvador as well as the wider Mesoamerican region.