Sports facilities are constructed across the United States using public subsidies and there is limited research about how the community benefits from these investments. Broader community benefits need to be established to justify public funding of sports facilities, including how social capital and sense of community are developed in a sport context. This research was composed of three studies that explored the benefit of providing access to sports events as a generator of social capital, the importance of developing social spaces at sports facilities to provide opportunities for attendees to nurture a sense of community and the value of virtual spaces in maintaining sense of community when isolated. The first study was a case study of Arizona State University (ASU) football season ticket holders to understand whether ticket donations to games can facilitate social capital by providing fans an opportunity to meet new people and develop long-term relationships. Findings indicated that donating tickets to sports events facilitate social relationships among fans that can build social capital, which advances existing research that focused primarily on the economic impact, and provides practical applications by encouraging sport managers to donate unused tickets. The second study examined sense of community by evaluating how fans use social spaces at a Denver Broncos National Football League (NFL) game and the Ironman World Championships (IWC). This study demonstrated that sense of community can originate in social spaces because attending a sport event and interacting in social spaces facilitates positive feelings about the community for the attendees. The third study focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sport participants’ sense of community. This study examined the impact the pandemic had on sense of community among members of USA Triathlon, the Olympic and Paralympic National Governing Body for the sport in the United States. The research showed that USA Triathlon members adopted alternative virtual engagement opportunities that replaced in-person activities and were not materially impacted by the pandemic. Overall, these three studies advanced the understanding of how sports events, whether in-person or virtual, can facilitate social capital and enhance sense of community.

Wildlife has been critically affected by human-induced change and in some areas, species extinction may be as high as 35%. Despite the overwhelming evidence of species extinction, habitat loss, and global climate change, current public support for conservation programs is low. One potential way to promote pro-conservation behavior is through transformative experiences as outlined in Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory (TLT). TLT works to explain the process through which people create new worldviews that can influence both attitudes and behaviors. This mixed methods dissertation seeks to understand transformative experiences and their short-term consequences in the context of wildlife viewing opportunities. Three studies were conducted to: 1) explore the key components of wildlife experiences that prompt transformation; 2) compare transformative experiences and visitor outcomes across captive and natural wildlife viewing opportunities; and 3) understand the short-term impacts of a natural gorilla-based wildlife viewing opportunity. The first study used semi-structured photo elicitation interviews. These interviews uncovered three major themes that provide evidence of critical components for fostering transformation during wildlife encounters. These themes were used to create two novel scales assessing transformative wildlife experiences. The second study used onsite visitor surveys to compare TLT and visitor outcomes at the North Carolina Zoo and at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund’s Conservation Gallery in Rwanda. Structural equation modeling showed that onsite transformation occurred at both sites and directly influenced conservation caring, which mediated the relationship between onsite transformation and species- and biodiversity-oriented behavioral intentions. The final study included a follow-up questionnaire for visitors from the gorilla trekking experience 4-months after their trek. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed three distinct levels of short-term response to the trek. Qualitative results from the follow-up questionnaire were also considered in the context of the three groups. Overall, this dissertation adds to the growing body of literature examining the transformative nature of wildlife experiences and contributes two novel scales that can be used in future studies. In addition, it adds to the limited onsite research examining terrestrial, African wildlife experiences. The theoretical and managerial implications for the findings from all three studies are discussed at length.

Destination image refers to the sum of beliefs, ideas, and impressions a person has toward a tourism destination, which can be classified as either projected or perceived, from a supply-demand perspective. Projected destination images are beliefs of the destination designed by official destination marketing (management) organizations (DMOs) aiming to appeal to tourists. In contrast, perceived destination images are tourists’ perceptions of the destinations, which are usually posted and promoted through user-generated content (UGC). Although previous studies have documented the differences in destination marketing strategy effectiveness between projected and perceived destination images, little research has examined this from a visual attention angle. Therefore, guided by the dual-process theory, this study compares the visual attention patterns of the two destination image sources and examines how these visual attention patterns may influence advertisement effectiveness using a mixed-methods of eye-tracking experiments and post-experiment surveys, analyzed using paired-sample t-tests and linear regression models. Given the growing importance of the Chinese tourism market for Kenya and the uniqueness of Kenya as a tourist destination, the participants were recruited from Chinese residents who expressed potential travel to Kenya (n=61). Data from the experiment and the questionnaire was collected in July 2021 and analyzed using paired-sample t-tests and linear regression models. Results indicated that DMO images elicit longer and more frequent fixations than UGC images. Additionally, this study suggests that visual attention in terms of fixation duration has a significant positive impact on the advertisement effectiveness of Kenyan destination images. The study contributes to the literature by providing insights into how people visually perceive destination images and advances the dual-processes theory. Practically, the study suggests that integrating DMO pictures into UGC might be an effective approach to enhance the advertisement effectiveness of destination images.

Contrary to common thought at the end of the 20th century, the forces of globalization over the last several decades have contributed to more rigid rather than more permeable international borders as countries have enacted strict immigration and travel policies. This growing rigidity of international borders has paradoxically occurred as international tourism steadily grew up until the COVID-19 pandemic and conservationists adopted a landscape-scale approach to conserving and restoring ecosystems, often across international borders. Considering this paradox, this dissertation research examined the interactions between tourism development, ecological restoration, and bordering processes by utilizing bordering and stakeholder theories; core-periphery, cross-border tourism, and border frameworks; political ecology; and polycentric governance and cross-border collaboration literature. Together, these conceptualizations were used to assess stakeholder attitudes towards tourism development and ecological restoration, compare resource governance characteristics of private protected areas, and analyze shared appreciation for natural and cultural heritage at the U.S.-Mexico border. To collect data, the researcher utilized in-depth interviews, photo-elicitation interviews, focus groups, secondary data analysis, and observations to engage key tourism and conservation stakeholders from the region, such as tourism businesses, tourists, state and federal agencies, conservation nonprofits, ranchers, and residents The findings of this research revealed a political ecology of a border landscape that included social and environmental injustices and unequal stakeholder partnerships in tourism and ecological restoration initiatives. Unequal partnerships were also found in cross-border resource governance systems, largely due to the U.S. government’s border wall construction actions, and the necessity for government leadership in establishing vertical and horizontal linkages in polycentric governance structures was evident. The results also demonstrated how a shared appreciation for natural and cultural heritage contributes to debordering despite the rebordering actions of border security and strict travel policies. This study contributes to tourism literature by highlighting the need for tourism and ecological restoration initiatives to consider social and environmental justice issues, develop stronger cross-border linkages with governments and resource users, and foster cross-border collaboration and integration. This consideration of social and environmental justice issues involves sharing benefits of tourism and restoration, restoring and preserving resources that stakeholders value, and facilitating access to resources.

The National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) is a collection of more than 800 areas designated as wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964. The Act defines wilderness as an “area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Wilderness lands are supposed to be pristine examples of nature where the overseeing agency has not allowed any post-designation development. The language of the act describes land designated as wilderness as “untrammeled” by people, discounting thousands of years of human influence. It also discounts the potential effect of surrounding lands and visitors on the wilderness. The management of these lands falls to all four federal land management agencies, and they each had – and still have – their own organizational perspectives on the Wilderness Act and their agency’s role in its implementation. Although the Act provided criteria for designating and managing wilderness, concrete guidance is lacking. This ambiguity has allowed a rift to emerge between those who believe that wilderness should be actively managed and those who believe that wilderness should be preserved and left alone as much as possible. The diversity of views and agency approaches have created administrative divides between wilderness lands and other land types. In parallel, the introduction of subsequent environmental laws have placed additional legal boundaries on the land, creating parcels next to and within wilderness that are subject to different uses and requirements. This study, which marshals dozens of expert interviews and explores a series of wilderness cases across the United States, focuses on several unanticipated challenges of stewarding the NWPS in the 21st Century. These include: the impacts of public land parceling due to legal obligations; how statuary ossification affects current interpretations of the various laws bearing on wilderness lands; and ultimately how land managers and agencies – who are looking toward a future of increased anthropogenic impacts on wildlife biodiversity and endangered/threatened species on wilderness lands – approach these challenges.

Program leadership’s decision to include an evaluator during the program planning and design phase is the critical first step necessary for evaluators to provide the programmatic benefits associated with the evaluation profession. Several recent developments have promoted evaluator inclusion in program planning and design activities, including federal legislation that mandates evaluator inclusion and advocacy efforts from evaluation academics. However, the evaluation literature presents a collective frustration within the evaluation field due to ongoing exclusion from program planning and design activities. Utilizing the defensive attribution hypothesis, this quantitative study gathered responses from 260 American Evaluation Association members and 61 Project Management Institute members to determine an evaluator exclusion rate, develop a taxonomy of exclusion factors, and explore the extent to which program leaders and program evaluators demonstrate defensive attributions when rating these factors’ influence on evaluator exclusion in program planning and design activities. Results indicated an approximately 70% evaluator exclusion rate in respondents’ most recent program experiences. Furthermore, the defensive attribution hypothesis was not supported in the study, as program evaluators more strongly attributed their lack of inclusion to deficiencies outside of the evaluation practice, but program leaders also more strongly attributed evaluator exclusion to deficiencies outside of the evaluation practice. Program evaluators most strongly attributed their exclusion to program leaders’ insufficient training and knowledge on the role of evaluation during the program planning and design phase. Program leaders most strongly attributed evaluator exclusion to their own staffing decisions, indicating a preference to not include evaluators in program planning and design activities due to achieving previous program success without them, assigning evaluation activities to non-evaluation staff, and a funding process that allows the practice to occur. As the first study to explore evaluator exclusion in the program planning and design phase, it sets a foundation for future research studies to corroborate and build upon its findings, identify policies that encourage evaluator inclusion, and continue efforts to establish mutually beneficial relationships in the program planning and design phase.

Two recent tourism trends are the growing wildlife tourism subsector of nature-based tourism and the increased use of social media in both marketing and for tourists to share their experiences. Until recently, the connection between social media and wildlife tourism remained understudied, and tourist behavior on Instagram after visiting wildlife tourism attractions (WTAs) remains unstudied. Some researchers call for more tourism research using social media data created by tourists, called user-generated content (UGC), to understand them. This netnographic study examines tourists who visited a range of WTAs by analyzing their post-visit photos and captions on Instagram through the lens of involvement theory to evaluate the strength of their connection to wildlife and conservation. Previous research has indicated that wildlife tourism can have extraordinary benefits to conservation and communities, but some WTAs, some of which are photo-prop tourism attractions where animals are handed over to tourists for selfies, have negative impacts on individual animals and species due to illegal sourcing, improper care, human interaction, and habituation. Findings from this study suggest that WTAs with good or excellent conservation and welfare practices lead to more highly involved tourists, ultimately benefitting community investment, animal welfare, and conservation efforts via the flow of tourist dollars and spread of information on social media, the tourist changing their behavior, or all of the aforementioned. Conversely, WTAs with negative conservation and welfare practices do not foster the same level of tourist involvement as their counterparts, often leading to more anthropocentric Instagram posts that do not spread conservation messaging or imply environmental behavior change. The implications from this research suggest that wildlife tourism attraction management practices should focus on conservation and welfare for the improvement of conservation efforts via policies, enforcement, larger governing bodies or organizations advocating or taking action, and future research on the potential impact COVID-19 had on the wildlife tourism industry.

Invasive plants harm the ecological properties of natural systems, human health,

and local economies. However, the negative impacts of invasive species are not always

immediately visible and may be disregarded by local communities if social benefits of

control efforts are not clear. In this dissertation, I use a mixed-methods approach to

investigate the drivers of invasive plant distribution, potential financially feasible

management techniques to control invasion, and community forest user perceptions of

those techniques. In this work, I aim to incorporate the diverse perspectives of local

people and increase the long-term success of invasive species control activities in socio

economically vulnerable populations.

Integrating a spatially and temporally diverse data set, I explore the social and

ecological drivers of invasive plant abundance across 21 buffer zone community forests

in the Western Chitwan Valley of Nepal. I evaluate to what extent forest user and

collective manager activities, the legacies of historic activities, and ecological properties

influence present-day invasive plant abundance. I built upon this study to identify areas

with critically high levels of invasion then initiated a three-year, community-based

management intervention to evaluate traditional and adaptive land management

approaches to control invasive plants. I found that both approaches reduced invasive

plant abundance relative to the surrounding, untreated forest. I then interviewed focus

groups to investigate their perceived efficacy of the various treatment types and found

that almost all forest users and managers preferred the adaptive approach over the

traditional management approach. Notably, forest users cited the importance of the

availability of forest resources and lack of harmful plants in the plots that had undergone

this method. Understanding how forest users relate to and experience invasive plants has

been relatively understudied but can influence forest user engagement in different

management approaches. For this reason, I performed in-depth ethnoecological

interviews to explore how forest users perceive, how they utilize, and to what extent they

value invasive plants. This mixed-methods approach contributes to a more holistic

understanding of the role that local people play in invasive plant management and

restoration activities.

Free-choice learning environments provide visitors with unique opportunities to observe and learn voluntarily and can serve as valuable educational opportunities. Incorporating interactive elements into displays have been shown to increase visitor dwell time and, ultimately, enhance the displays’ impacts on visitor knowledge and positive attitudes. This is especially important in free-choice learning environments where the visitor controls what display to visit and for how long. Visitors may not benefit from the display if they are not engaged with some attention-holding component. Interactive elements can greatly benefit a display’s potential to strengthen a visitor’s conservation attitudes and values of non-charismatic species that are traditionally less engaging due to their lack of activity or their appearance. This study examined the effect of a self-guided display with or without the incorporation of interactive elements on a visitors knowledge, attitude, and value of rattlesnakes. In Spring 2019, university biology students took surveys before (pre-survey) and after (post-survey) visiting a live animal rattlesnake display on campus. This was repeated in the Fall 2019 except that eight interactive elements were incorporated into the rattlesnakes displays. The pre and post-surveys were designed to evaluate the effect of the displays on student knowledge, attitudes, and values towards rattlesnakes. Paired t-tests revealed that visiting the displays increased student knowledge, attitude, and value of rattlesnakes, but that this effect was not enhanced by adding the interactive elements to the display. The results also showed that visiting the displays increased visitor dwell time, positively influenced one’s interest in revisiting the displays, and, overall provided visitors with enjoyment. These results provide further evidence that self-guided, live animal displays are impactful on increasing visitor knowledge, attitude, and value. However, the results also demonstrate that interactive elements do not necessarily enhance a display’s value, so further research should be conducted to determine key traits of effective interactive elements. This data and that from future related studies can have powerful conservation implications by informing on how displays can be optimized to achieve desired objectives.

Non-White minorities represent nearly half of the US population and strongly support environmental protection but are severely underrepresented in environmental careers and natural resource-related degree programs. What factors contribute to this disparity in environment career choice? Previous research has indicated that students career decisions are influenced by family and culture as they related to self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations towards different occupation choices. In this paper, I explored the importance of familial and cultural factors in career choice decisions to understand the motivations of non-White minority students to enter and remain in college degree programs within environmental disciplines. I surveyed 122 students enrolled in both environmental and non-environmental degree programs at Arizona State University. I measured family and cultural influence using the “Family Influence Scale” and “Orthogonal Cultural Identification Scale” respectively. I hypothesized that non-White students in environmental degree programs are influenced less by their families and are more acculturated to the dominant Anglo culture compared to non-White students in non-environmental degree programs. I found no significant relationship between ethnicity, family influence, or acculturation on the degree choices of students. Interestingly, family influence on students’ career decisions was most influenced by home language, household income, and acculturation to the dominant culture. Students more acculturated to Anglo culture reported higher familial influence. Higher income and non-English speaking households also reported higher levels of family influence. Acculturation and language in particular are interesting factors related to family influence and warrant further analysis especially in relation to non-White student participation in environmental careers.