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Coleman, Kimberly

Natural Resources

2012

MS

There is increasing emphasis, both in popular and academic discourse, on the need to build resilient communities and ecosystems. Community-based collaboration may contribute to resilience and social capital is often cited as the critical element that makes stakeholder collaboration productive. However, questions remain about how to build or increase social capital for natural resource goals. Recent literature suggests that participatory processes, such as servicelearning, may contribute to the production of social capital. Research also suggests that groups engaged in service-learning for natural resource purposes may achieve the additional benefit of increased natural resource education.
The goal of this thesis is to examine the interconnectedness between community-based collaborative natural resource management, social capital, resilience, service-learning, and natural resource education. It is comprised of a comprehensive literature review (Chapter 1) and a research article that examines the roIe of service-learning partnerships in building social capital for natural resource management (Chapter 2). Service-learning may support resilient communities and ecosystems by both providing natural resources education and contributing to social capital development for community-based collaboration. Understanding this potential could offer a new means for strengthening and expanding community-based collaborations in natural resources as well as provide a tool for building resilient communities.