Merrill Baker

Graduate Student

Research Description

My research aims to examine how different protected area governance strategies influence conflict arising at the interface of extractive industry and biodiversity conservation. Madagascar, an island globally renowned for its biodiversity, species endemism, and high species extinction rates, recently enacted a threefold increase in terrestrial protected areas and is now also focused on expanding its marine protected area network. The current and planned expansion of marine protected areas provides an ideal opportunity in which to study how different conservation strategies achieve, or fail to achieve their goals, and how to best mitigate conflict arising between resource use and resource protection.  My research will focus primarily on artisanal marine fisheries and specifically on how the stakeholders involved in different conservation strategies negotiate property rights, decision making, and enforcement.  My research approach draws largely on political ecology methodologies and the fields of conservation biology and international relations.