We argue that attempts to superimpose park regulatory regimes on existing land uses in the tropics represent conflicts between alternative cultural models of natural resource management. The results of such conflcits are unique regulatory regimes emerging from distinctive processes that redefine the terms and limits of natural resource use. In creating scarcity of available resource, parks encourage social diffrentiation and greater awareness of societal patterns of inequality, establishing a potential for the articulation of demands for social and environmental equity. We evaluate these claims with a case study of the Cerro Azul Meambar National Park in Honduras. We base our analysis on 54 in-depth interviews of Park residents and five Park communities.
Evaluation of the factors influencing the adoption of agricultural and natural resource management technologies among small farmers in developing countries have been mostly limited to qualitative discussions or simple descriptive statistics resulting in superficial and inconclusive findings. This study introduces the use of Poisson Count Regressions as a statistically appropriate procedure to analyze certain common types of adoption data. It uses them to assess the impact of key socio-economic, bio-physical, and institutional factors on the adoption of integrated pest management, agroforestry, and soil conservation technologies among small farmers in three Central American countries: Costa Rica, Panama, and El Salvador
