Ecuador's national system of protected areas and the politics of environmental policy making
Description
This dissertation focuses on the problem of environmental resource use in the South American country of Ecuador. The Ecuadorian political system has made a significant political and institutional commitment to the management of environmental resources for long-term sustainability and conservation. Despite these institutional arrangements and the existence of public policies intended to support them; resource management falls short of the goals of either sustainable management or environmental conservation. The explanation developed here draws on the democratic transition and common goods literatures to argue that the condition of the state in Ecuador today can be characterized as weak. This weakness in the context of emerging pluralism has allowed a political condition in which individual interests abound. The result is constant competition among users and interest groups over environmental resources. Users of environmental resources in Ecuador continue to exploit resources for short term economic benefit even when such use eliminates the possibility of long term economic benefits; causing negative outcomes in both the long and short term for the user's environment. Utilizing a case study approach this dissertation focuses on the conditions under which resource exploitation is mitigated and examines the political processes that underlie the outcomes of environmental policy making in Ecuador