The Impacts of National Security and Sustainable Development: A Comparative Study of Shared Protected Areas

National security and sustainable development paradigms shape national goals, priorities and policy in shared protected areas. The two paradigms define the physical, economic, social, and political infrastructure of shared protected areas through competing frameworks of national interests and environmental protections. This comparative study builds on international thinking about the relationship between sustainable development to answer the hypothesis that national security impacts most the environmental pillar of sustainable development. The research methodology is a triangulation of comparative document analysis with qualitative and quantitative interviews for a rich description of the two paradigms in two shared protected areas. Sustainable development is assessed in the four park conservation management plans using the Lockwood and Kothari traditional versus emergent sustainable development indicators as independent variables and the organizing framework. The impacts of national security doctrine, policy and projects are systematically assessed on sustainable development in the parks. This research formalizes one step toward the study of national security and sustainable development and the challenges of developing environmental protections in a national security environment.