{"id":{"repo_id":"vt","oai_identifier":"oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/140609"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/vt/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/140609","repository":{"repo_id":"vt","name":"Virginia Tech","base_url":"https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Collaborative governance in the face of global change: a social science approach to working effectively at the human-wildlife-environment interface","abstract":"This dissertation explores the use of a collaborative governance framework for addressing a range of wildlife and environmental conservation issues. Conservation threats in general are often wide-reaching and interdisciplinary, meaning their impacts extend beyond what one organization or field has the resources and capacity to manage. Collaborative governance, a framework that outlines conditions and stakeholders necessary to work effectively across various boundaries like discipline, scale, and sector, is often used to address such conservation issues because of its ability to overcome such challenges. This dissertation comprises three standalone papers exploring the use of collaborative governance in three separate wildlife and environmental contexts. The first paper focused on the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) update process in the Southeastern United States leading up to the 2025 submission deadline. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach, this study explored how different agencies, organizations, and other entities collaborate to develop plan changes. This study focused particularly on how these plans address the movement of threatened and endangered species across state lines and how they incorporate climate change information as these are expected to worsen in coming years. Findings include the importance of trust, avenues for future collaborations, and the importance of regional agencies. The second paper explored the development of an ecotourism circuit in Sierra Leone, with a focus on collaboration with local communities. Because tourism development has a strong history of excluding these groups, along with their wants, needs, and concerns, this study focused on assessing these constructs in two potential ecotourism development sites using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach. This ecotourism circuit development represents a unique opportunity to incorporate principles of collaborative governance and community engagement as there is not currently a well-established tourism sector in Sierra Leone. Most work on these concepts in tourism is done retroactively but employing them in Sierra Leone's tourism development can provide valuable information on the benefits and challenges of doing so more proactively. Findings include a desire among all groups for economic and infrastructure benefits, communication challenges between local communities and other stakeholders, and the importance of keeping ecotourism development in Sierra Leone manageable. The third paper in this dissertation examined the use of the One Health framework in Sierra Leone. This framework emphasizes strong interconnections among human, animal, and environmental health, yet has historically overemphasized human health, particularly zoonotic disease transmission to humans. This imbalance is also present in Sierra Leone's use of One Health, which was formalized immediately after the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. The One Health framework, however, has much potential to effectively address other health and safety threats. In fact, expanding its use into other health and safety sectors will be necessary to take the holistic approach to health the framework strives for. This need is especially apparent in places like Sierra Leone, where environmental health threats like climate change, deforestation, urbanization, and natural disasters are rapidly increasing and pose a major threat to health and safety for humans, wildlife, livestock, and the environment. Collaborative governance represents a valuable tool for better integrating these threats and the organizations tasked with addressing them into One Health. This study utilized a qualitative semi-structured interview and focus group approach to explore potential cross-boundary collaborations to initiate or strengthen, challenges to such collaborations, and the most significant health and safety threats. Findings confirm environmental health threats that are rapidly growing, willingness to better incorporate said threats into One Health work, and challenges in putting collaborative plans and policies into action. Taken as a whole, this dissertation identifies valuable, novel uses of the collaborative governance framework to improve management of threats at the human-animal-environment interface. It explores trends in collaborative governance drivers and challenges, contributing to more effective work in both the specific study settings and in general.","abstract_html":"This dissertation explores the use of a collaborative governance framework for addressing a range of wildlife and environmental conservation issues. Conservation threats in general are often wide-reaching and interdisciplinary, meaning their impacts extend beyond what one organization or field has the resources and capacity to manage. Collaborative governance, a framework that outlines conditions and stakeholders necessary to work effectively across various boundaries like discipline, scale, and sector, is often used to address such conservation issues because of its ability to overcome such challenges. This dissertation comprises three standalone papers exploring the use of collaborative governance in three separate wildlife and environmental contexts. The first paper focused on the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) update process in the Southeastern United States leading up to the 2025 submission deadline. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach, this study explored how different agencies, organizations, and other entities collaborate to develop plan changes. This study focused particularly on how these plans address the movement of threatened and endangered species across state lines and how they incorporate climate change information as these are expected to worsen in coming years. Findings include the importance of trust, avenues for future collaborations, and the importance of regional agencies. The second paper explored the development of an ecotourism circuit in Sierra Leone, with a focus on collaboration with local communities. Because tourism development has a strong history of excluding these groups, along with their wants, needs, and concerns, this study focused on assessing these constructs in two potential ecotourism development sites using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach. This ecotourism circuit development represents a unique opportunity to incorporate principles of collaborative governance and community engagement as there is not currently a well-established tourism sector in Sierra Leone. Most work on these concepts in tourism is done retroactively but employing them in Sierra Leone's tourism development can provide valuable information on the benefits and challenges of doing so more proactively. Findings include a desire among all groups for economic and infrastructure benefits, communication challenges between local communities and other stakeholders, and the importance of keeping ecotourism development in Sierra Leone manageable. The third paper in this dissertation examined the use of the One Health framework in Sierra Leone. This framework emphasizes strong interconnections among human, animal, and environmental health, yet has historically overemphasized human health, particularly zoonotic disease transmission to humans. This imbalance is also present in Sierra Leone's use of One Health, which was formalized immediately after the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. The One Health framework, however, has much potential to effectively address other health and safety threats. In fact, expanding its use into other health and safety sectors will be necessary to take the holistic approach to health the framework strives for. This need is especially apparent in places like Sierra Leone, where environmental health threats like climate change, deforestation, urbanization, and natural disasters are rapidly increasing and pose a major threat to health and safety for humans, wildlife, livestock, and the environment. Collaborative governance represents a valuable tool for better integrating these threats and the organizations tasked with addressing them into One Health. This study utilized a qualitative semi-structured interview and focus group approach to explore potential cross-boundary collaborations to initiate or strengthen, challenges to such collaborations, and the most significant health and safety threats. Findings confirm environmental health threats that are rapidly growing, willingness to better incorporate said threats into One Health work, and challenges in putting collaborative plans and policies into action. Taken as a whole, this dissertation identifies valuable, novel uses of the collaborative governance framework to improve management of threats at the human-animal-environment interface. It explores trends in collaborative governance drivers and challenges, contributing to more effective work in both the specific study settings and in general.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Hymel, Victoria"],"institution":"Virginia Tech","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy","degree_level":"doctoral","degree_discipline":"Planning, Governance, and Globalization","degree_department":"Public Administration/Public Affairs","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":["Schenk, Todd Edward William"],"committee_members":["Wagle, Paroma Subodh","Teel, Tara","Chaves, Willandia A."],"year":2026,"date_issued":"2026-01-06","date_published":"2026-01-06","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:19:18Z","subjects":["Collaborative Governance","Cross-boundary Collaboration","Semi-structured Interviews","Focus Group","Thematic Content Analysis","State Wildlife Action Plans","Ecotourism","One Health","Sierra Leone"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["In Copyright"],"rights_urls":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["vt_gsexam:45526"],"render_values":[{"text":"vt_gsexam:45526","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/10919/140609","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.committeechair","label":"Committee Chair","values":["Schenk, Todd Edward William"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.committeemember","label":"Committee Member","values":["Wagle, Paroma Subodh","Teel, Tara","Chaves, Willandia A."]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["Public Administration/Public Affairs"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Hymel, Victoria"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2026-01-07T09:00:14Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2026-01-07T09:00:14Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2026-01-06"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Virginia Tech"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Planning, Governance, and Globalization"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["doctoral"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Doctor of Philosophy"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Collaborative Governance","Cross-boundary Collaboration","Semi-structured Interviews","Focus Group","Thematic Content Analysis","State Wildlife Action Plans","Ecotourism","One Health","Sierra Leone"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["In Copyright"]},{"key":"dc:rights.uri","label":"Rights URI","values":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["vt_gsexam:45526"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/10919/140609"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This dissertation explores the use of a collaborative governance framework for addressing a range of wildlife and environmental conservation issues. Conservation threats in general are often wide-reaching and interdisciplinary, meaning their impacts extend beyond what one organization or field has the resources and capacity to manage. Collaborative governance, a framework that outlines conditions and stakeholders necessary to work effectively across various boundaries like discipline, scale, and sector, is often used to address such conservation issues because of its ability to overcome such challenges. This dissertation comprises three standalone papers exploring the use of collaborative governance in three separate wildlife and environmental contexts. The first paper focused on the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) update process in the Southeastern United States leading up to the 2025 submission deadline. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach, this study explored how different agencies, organizations, and other entities collaborate to develop plan changes. This study focused particularly on how these plans address the movement of threatened and endangered species across state lines and how they incorporate climate change information as these are expected to worsen in coming years. Findings include the importance of trust, avenues for future collaborations, and the importance of regional agencies. The second paper explored the development of an ecotourism circuit in Sierra Leone, with a focus on collaboration with local communities. Because tourism development has a strong history of excluding these groups, along with their wants, needs, and concerns, this study focused on assessing these constructs in two potential ecotourism development sites using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach. This ecotourism circuit development represents a unique opportunity to incorporate principles of collaborative governance and community engagement as there is not currently a well-established tourism sector in Sierra Leone. Most work on these concepts in tourism is done retroactively but employing them in Sierra Leone's tourism development can provide valuable information on the benefits and challenges of doing so more proactively. Findings include a desire among all groups for economic and infrastructure benefits, communication challenges between local communities and other stakeholders, and the importance of keeping ecotourism development in Sierra Leone manageable. The third paper in this dissertation examined the use of the One Health framework in Sierra Leone. This framework emphasizes strong interconnections among human, animal, and environmental health, yet has historically overemphasized human health, particularly zoonotic disease transmission to humans. This imbalance is also present in Sierra Leone's use of One Health, which was formalized immediately after the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. The One Health framework, however, has much potential to effectively address other health and safety threats. In fact, expanding its use into other health and safety sectors will be necessary to take the holistic approach to health the framework strives for. This need is especially apparent in places like Sierra Leone, where environmental health threats like climate change, deforestation, urbanization, and natural disasters are rapidly increasing and pose a major threat to health and safety for humans, wildlife, livestock, and the environment. Collaborative governance represents a valuable tool for better integrating these threats and the organizations tasked with addressing them into One Health. This study utilized a qualitative semi-structured interview and focus group approach to explore potential cross-boundary collaborations to initiate or strengthen, challenges to such collaborations, and the most significant health and safety threats. Findings confirm environmental health threats that are rapidly growing, willingness to better incorporate said threats into One Health work, and challenges in putting collaborative plans and policies into action. Taken as a whole, this dissertation identifies valuable, novel uses of the collaborative governance framework to improve management of threats at the human-animal-environment interface. It explores trends in collaborative governance drivers and challenges, contributing to more effective work in both the specific study settings and in general."]},{"key":"dc:description.abstractgeneral","label":"General Abstract","values":["Wildlife and environmental conservation issues are often wide-ranging and require involvement from agencies, organizations, and individual from a variety of backgrounds and fields of study, including but not limited to biology, geography, engineering, policy, and social sciences. Because these fields often deal with different forms of information and address problems in different ways, it can be challenging to align their goals, strategies, and even interpersonal skills like communication methods and conflict resolution. Collaborative governance, a framework that provides guidance on what kinds of groups and individuals are important to include and conditions necessary to make collaborations more successful, can be incredibly useful in such contexts. This dissertation utilizes the collaborative governance framework in three environmental and wildlife management study settings. The first study in this dissertation focused on State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) in the Southeastern United States. It is comprised of interviews with a range of wildlife planners and professionals on their experience in developing and updating SWAPs, particularly as factors like climate change grow and shift, with potential major impacts on wildlife in the study region. Interviews also explored how various conservation agencies and other organizations work together on these plans, particularly across boundaries like state lines or fields of study. Findings include the importance of trust in collaborations and the role of agencies or organizations dedicated to managing cross-boundary collaborations. The second study in this dissertation examined ecotourism development in Sierra Leone. It focused on the role and experience of communities located around sites where ecotourism programs are being developed. More specifically, this study focused on what benefits communities would like to see result from ecotourism, their concerns about implementing the programs, and whether they felt meaningfully included in ecotourism planning. Findings include a consistent desire for economic, employment, and infrastructure development (construction of schools, water wells, etc.) as a result of ecotourism and challenges around communications between communities and other organizations involved in the project. The third study centered on addressing environmental health and safety risks through the One Health framework in Sierra Leone. One Health is an approach that incorporates many different fields of study to address the strong connections among human, animal, and environmental health. However, it typically focuses disproportionately on the human health component and diseases that spread from animals to humans. In places like Sierra Leone, environmental health threats like natural disasters and access to clean food and water are becoming increasingly dangerous. This study examined challenges and opportunities to expanding and strengthening collaborative efforts to address these threats through Sierra Leone's One Health platform. Findings revealed overwhelming willingness to better integrate the environmental sector as well as challenges to doing so. Overall, this dissertation addresses collaboration across boundaries like state lines, fields of study, and roles in addressing threats and challenges related to environmental and wildlife conservation. It explores trends in what makes these collaborations successful, what is challenging about them, and where they need to be strengthened or initiated in the three study sites. Additionally, results can help inform more general work in these fields, contributing to more effective cross-boundary collaborations in a variety of settings."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["Doctor of Philosophy"]},{"key":"dc:format.medium","label":"Dc Format Medium","values":["ETD"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Collaborative governance in the face of global change: a social science approach to working effectively at the human-wildlife-environment interface"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.committeechair":["Schenk, Todd Edward William"],"dc:contributor.committeemember":["Wagle, Paroma Subodh","Teel, Tara","Chaves, Willandia A."],"dc:contributor.department":["Public Administration/Public Affairs"],"dc:creator":["Hymel, Victoria"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2026-01-07T09:00:14Z"],"dc:date.available":["2026-01-07T09:00:14Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2026-01-06"],"dc:description.abstract":["This dissertation explores the use of a collaborative governance framework for addressing a range of wildlife and environmental conservation issues. Conservation threats in general are often wide-reaching and interdisciplinary, meaning their impacts extend beyond what one organization or field has the resources and capacity to manage. Collaborative governance, a framework that outlines conditions and stakeholders necessary to work effectively across various boundaries like discipline, scale, and sector, is often used to address such conservation issues because of its ability to overcome such challenges. This dissertation comprises three standalone papers exploring the use of collaborative governance in three separate wildlife and environmental contexts. The first paper focused on the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) update process in the Southeastern United States leading up to the 2025 submission deadline. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach, this study explored how different agencies, organizations, and other entities collaborate to develop plan changes. This study focused particularly on how these plans address the movement of threatened and endangered species across state lines and how they incorporate climate change information as these are expected to worsen in coming years. Findings include the importance of trust, avenues for future collaborations, and the importance of regional agencies. The second paper explored the development of an ecotourism circuit in Sierra Leone, with a focus on collaboration with local communities. Because tourism development has a strong history of excluding these groups, along with their wants, needs, and concerns, this study focused on assessing these constructs in two potential ecotourism development sites using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach. This ecotourism circuit development represents a unique opportunity to incorporate principles of collaborative governance and community engagement as there is not currently a well-established tourism sector in Sierra Leone. Most work on these concepts in tourism is done retroactively but employing them in Sierra Leone's tourism development can provide valuable information on the benefits and challenges of doing so more proactively. Findings include a desire among all groups for economic and infrastructure benefits, communication challenges between local communities and other stakeholders, and the importance of keeping ecotourism development in Sierra Leone manageable. The third paper in this dissertation examined the use of the One Health framework in Sierra Leone. This framework emphasizes strong interconnections among human, animal, and environmental health, yet has historically overemphasized human health, particularly zoonotic disease transmission to humans. This imbalance is also present in Sierra Leone's use of One Health, which was formalized immediately after the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. The One Health framework, however, has much potential to effectively address other health and safety threats. In fact, expanding its use into other health and safety sectors will be necessary to take the holistic approach to health the framework strives for. This need is especially apparent in places like Sierra Leone, where environmental health threats like climate change, deforestation, urbanization, and natural disasters are rapidly increasing and pose a major threat to health and safety for humans, wildlife, livestock, and the environment. Collaborative governance represents a valuable tool for better integrating these threats and the organizations tasked with addressing them into One Health. This study utilized a qualitative semi-structured interview and focus group approach to explore potential cross-boundary collaborations to initiate or strengthen, challenges to such collaborations, and the most significant health and safety threats. Findings confirm environmental health threats that are rapidly growing, willingness to better incorporate said threats into One Health work, and challenges in putting collaborative plans and policies into action. Taken as a whole, this dissertation identifies valuable, novel uses of the collaborative governance framework to improve management of threats at the human-animal-environment interface. It explores trends in collaborative governance drivers and challenges, contributing to more effective work in both the specific study settings and in general."],"dc:description.abstractgeneral":["Wildlife and environmental conservation issues are often wide-ranging and require involvement from agencies, organizations, and individual from a variety of backgrounds and fields of study, including but not limited to biology, geography, engineering, policy, and social sciences. Because these fields often deal with different forms of information and address problems in different ways, it can be challenging to align their goals, strategies, and even interpersonal skills like communication methods and conflict resolution. Collaborative governance, a framework that provides guidance on what kinds of groups and individuals are important to include and conditions necessary to make collaborations more successful, can be incredibly useful in such contexts. This dissertation utilizes the collaborative governance framework in three environmental and wildlife management study settings. The first study in this dissertation focused on State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) in the Southeastern United States. It is comprised of interviews with a range of wildlife planners and professionals on their experience in developing and updating SWAPs, particularly as factors like climate change grow and shift, with potential major impacts on wildlife in the study region. Interviews also explored how various conservation agencies and other organizations work together on these plans, particularly across boundaries like state lines or fields of study. Findings include the importance of trust in collaborations and the role of agencies or organizations dedicated to managing cross-boundary collaborations. The second study in this dissertation examined ecotourism development in Sierra Leone. It focused on the role and experience of communities located around sites where ecotourism programs are being developed. More specifically, this study focused on what benefits communities would like to see result from ecotourism, their concerns about implementing the programs, and whether they felt meaningfully included in ecotourism planning. Findings include a consistent desire for economic, employment, and infrastructure development (construction of schools, water wells, etc.) as a result of ecotourism and challenges around communications between communities and other organizations involved in the project. The third study centered on addressing environmental health and safety risks through the One Health framework in Sierra Leone. One Health is an approach that incorporates many different fields of study to address the strong connections among human, animal, and environmental health. However, it typically focuses disproportionately on the human health component and diseases that spread from animals to humans. In places like Sierra Leone, environmental health threats like natural disasters and access to clean food and water are becoming increasingly dangerous. This study examined challenges and opportunities to expanding and strengthening collaborative efforts to address these threats through Sierra Leone's One Health platform. Findings revealed overwhelming willingness to better integrate the environmental sector as well as challenges to doing so. Overall, this dissertation addresses collaboration across boundaries like state lines, fields of study, and roles in addressing threats and challenges related to environmental and wildlife conservation. It explores trends in what makes these collaborations successful, what is challenging about them, and where they need to be strengthened or initiated in the three study sites. Additionally, results can help inform more general work in these fields, contributing to more effective cross-boundary collaborations in a variety of settings."],"dc:description.degree":["Doctor of Philosophy"],"dc:format.medium":["ETD"],"dc:identifier.other":["vt_gsexam:45526"],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://hdl.handle.net/10919/140609"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:publisher":["Virginia Tech"],"dc:rights":["In Copyright"],"dc:rights.uri":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dc:subject":["Collaborative Governance","Cross-boundary Collaboration","Semi-structured Interviews","Focus Group","Thematic Content Analysis","State Wildlife Action Plans","Ecotourism","One Health","Sierra Leone"],"dc:title":["Collaborative governance in the face of global change: a social science approach to working effectively at the human-wildlife-environment interface"],"dc:type":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Planning, Governance, and Globalization"],"thesis:degree_level":["doctoral"],"thesis:degree_name":["Doctor of Philosophy"],"thesis:institution_name":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:19:18Z"}