ADVANCED TOPICS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: EVIDENCE-BASED CONSERVATION (REVISED 10/15)
TERM/HOURSFall 2013/W 5:00-7:30pm
LOCATION25 W. 4th St. C-19
PROFESSORJennifer Jacquet,
OFFICE HOURSM 11-1pm and by appointment
OFFICE LOCATION285 Mercer Street, Tenth floor, #1006
PREREQUISITEENVST-UA 100 Environmental Systems Science
OVERVIEW:
This course is encouraged for students interested in learning more about the science of environmental problem-solving. The course begins with an overview the major drivers of planetary change, including habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, and climate change, as well as some more recent and specific problems, such asthe scale of illegal meat importation from Africa to Europe via Paris, the human impacts on the deep sea, and the rise of human-made debris in outerspace. These problems, and a host of others, reveal the enormity of the challenges facing environmental policy makers, conservation practitioners, and citizens. But continuing to dwell on these problems without focusing on possible solutions would be to continue to “refine the obituary of nature”. We will discuss the importance of these obituaries, but then quickly move to the science of problem-solving, starting with the rise of evidence-based conservation. We will read new conservation research in this vein, such as studies that demonstrate that old growth forest is what giant pandas really need, that even quiet, nonconsumptive recreation reduces the effectiveness of protected areas, how to prevent the white stork from death by electrocution on electrical wires, and the best opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This course moves beyond environmental obituaries and into the realm of available remedies, creative problem solving, and interdisciplinary research. Students will also be asked to design, implement, and measure the effectiveness of their own conservation project, as well as present the results to the class at the end of the term. In this way, the course encourages implementing the skills and ideas learned in class.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
See the peer-reviewed research articles listed on the daily calendar.
Conservation Biology for All. 2010. Eds. N. Sodhi and P. Ehrlich, Oxford University Press (free online)
Plagiarism: results in failure in the class and referral to an academic dean. Plagiarism includes: copying sentences or fragments from any source without quotes or references; not citing every source used in your papers; citing internet information without proper citation; presenting someone else’s work as your own; or copying verbatim from any source. You are subject to CAS’s guidelines on plagiarism:
THE GRADE:
Example conservation actions relevant to the week’s topic -- each worth 5% (25% of total grade)
Mid-term exam* (20% of total grade)
Conservation assignment (30% of total grade)
Final exam* (25% of total grade)
*Exams will be a combination of multiple choice questions and written essays.
SCHEDULE
CLASS 1 (SEPT 4): WELCOME TO THE ANTROPOCENEDUE: N/A
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What is expected of you in this class and, in particular, for the conservation assignment? What is the Anthropocene? How is it characterized? What are the major drivers of global change? What are the indicators?
READINGS: N/A
CLASS 2 (SEPT 11): THE IMPORTANCE OF OBITUARIESDUE: N/A
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What are Caro et al.’s concerns with the Anthropocene? What were some of the earliest environmental concerns? What are some of the most recent? How do these concerns drive action and policy?
READINGS:
Chapters 1-2
Steffen et al. 2011. The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives. Royal Society A369:842-867.
Caro et al. 2012. Conservation in the Anthropocene. Conservation Biology 26:185-188.
Ravishankara et al. 2009. N2O: The dominant ozone-depleting substance emitted in the 21st century. Science 326:123-125.
Chaber et al. 2010. The scale of illegal meat importation from Africa to Europe via Paris Conservation Letters 3:317-321.
Alfaro-Shigueto et al. 2011. Small-scale fisheries of Peru: a major sink for marine turtles in the Pacific. Journal of Applied Ecology 48:1432-1440.
Janss 2000. Avian mortality from power lines: a morphologic approach of a species-specific mortality. Biological Conservation 95:353-359.
Abbot & Mace. 2001. Managing protected woodlands: fuelwood collection and law enforcement in Lake Malawi National Park. Conservation Biology 13:418-421.
Halpern et al. 2008. A Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems. Science 319:948-952.
Slabekoorn et al. 2010. A noisy spring: the impact of globally rising underwater sound levels on fish. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 25(7):419-27.
CLASS 3 (SEPT 18): EVIDENCE-BASED CONSERVATIONDUE: N/A
***Guest: David Seaward, Coordinator, Green Grants Program at NYU
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What is evidence-based conservation? What is its model? When and why did it arise? How does it differ from more traditional conservation biology?
READINGS:
Sutherland et al. 2004. The need for evidence-based conservation. TREE 19:305-308.
Jacquet et al. 2010. Scanning the oceans for solutions. Solutions 2:46-55.
Zhang et al. 2011. Old growth forest is what giant pandas really need. Biology Letters 7:403-406.
Naylor et al. 2009. Feeding aquaculture in an era of finite resources. PNAS 106:15103-110.
Sutherland et al. 2009. One hundred questions of importance to the conservation of global biological diversity Conservation Biology 23: 557-567.
Hoffman et al. 2010. The impact of conservation on the status of the world’s vertebrates. Science 330:1503-1509.
Bowler et al 2010. A systematic review of evidence for the added benefits to health of exposure to natural environments. BMC Public Health 10:456-465.
CLASS 4 (SEPT 25): PROTECTED AREASDUE: ACTION PROPOSAL - DRAFT
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What are protected areas? How are they defined? What are some of the earliest protected areas and what are some of the most recent? What percentage of the terrestrial and marine environments is protected? How does that vary by country? How does the effectiveness and cost of protection change with size of the protected are? What are some of the challenges to protected areas?
READINGS:
Chapter 5 (habitat fragmentation)
Woodroffe & Ginsberg. 1998. Edge effects and the extinction of populations inside protected areas. Science 280:2126-2128.
McCook et al. 2010. Adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef: A globally significant demonstration of the benefits of networks of marine reserves. PNAS.
Clevenger & Waltho. 2001. Factors influencing the effectiveness of wildlife underpasses in Banff National Park, Canada. Conservation Biology 14: 47-56.
Reed & Merenlender. 2008. Quiet, nonconsumptive recreation reduced protected areas effectiveness. Conservation Letters 1:146-154.
Cantu-Salazart & Gaston. 2010. Very large protected areas and their contribution to terrestrial biological conservation BioScience 60:808-818.
CLASS 5 (OCT 2): REDUCING DEMAND/EXPLOITATIONDUE: EXAMPLE 1
***Guest: Claudia Li, Founder of Shark Truth, Vancouver, BC
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What are some of the major tools to reduce demand and therefore reduce exploitation? What is a social norm? What is a descriptive versus injunctive norm? How have attempts to change demand been measured?
READINGS:
Cialdini 2003. Crafting normative messages to protect the environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science 12:105-109.
Hallstein & Villas-Boas. 2010. Can household consumers save the wild fish? Analysis of a seafood sustainability advisory in a U.S. supermarket.
Schultz et al. 2007. The constructive, destructive, and reconstructive power of social norms. Psychological Science 18:439-434.
Christian et al. 2013. A review of formal objections to Marine Stewardship Council fisheries certifications. Biological Conservation 161:10-17.
CLASS 6 (OCT 9): REDUCING SUPPLY/EXPLOITATION/MID-TERM REVIEWDUE: EXAMPLE 2
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What are some of the major tools to reduce supply and therefore reduce exploitation?
READINGS:
Chapter 6 (overharvesting)
Hall et al. 2000. By-catch: problems and solutions. Marine Pollution Bulletin 41:204-219.
Gilman et al. 2006. Reducing sea turtle by-catch in pelagic longline fisheries. Fish and Fisheries 7:2-23.
CLASS 7 (OCT. 16): PROPOSALS/MID-TERMDUE:ACTION PROPOSAL - FINAL
CLASS 8 (OCT. 23): TABOOSDUE: N/A
***SPECIAL FIELD TRIP: MoMA Salon 6
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What role to taboos play in conservation?
READINGS:
Colding & Folke 2001. Social taboos: “Invisible” systems of local resource management and biological conservation. Ecological Applications 11:584-600.
Jones et al. 2008. The importance of taboos and social norms to conservation in Madagascar. Conservation Biology 22:976-986.
Foale et al. 2011. Tenure and taboos: origins and implications for fisheries in the Pacific. Fish and Fisheries 12:357-369.
Shen et al. 2012. Does science replace traditions? Correlates between traditional Tibetan culture and local bird diversity in Southwest China. Biological Conservation 145:160-170.
CLASS 9 (OCT. 30): CLIMATE CHANGEDUE: EXAMPLE 3
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What is the current state of climate change and what are the recommendations of how to deal with it?
READINGS:
Chapter 8 (Climate change)
Velders et al. 2007. The importance of the Montreal Protocol in protecting climate. PNAS 104:4814-4819.
Dietz et al. 2009. Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce U.S. carbon emissions PNAS 106:18452-18456.
Attari et al. 2010. Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings. PNAS 107:16054-16059.
Chakravarty et al. 2009. Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters. PNAS106: 11884-11888.
Vallaraigosa et al. 2013. Powering Los Angeles with renewable energy. Nature Climate Change 3:771-775.
CLASS 10(NOV.6): INVASIONS/INDIRECT EFFECTS/POLLUTIONDUE: EXAMPLE 4
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What are some of the actions that have provided the most evidence for reducing species invasions?
READINGS:
Chapter 7 (Invasive species)
Thresher & Kuris 2004. Options for managing invasive marine species. Biological Invasions 6:295-300.
Kaluga et al. 2011. Reducing death by electrocution of the white stork Ciconia ciconia Conservation Letters 4:483-487.
Hole et al. 2005. Does organic farming benefit biodiversity? Biological Conservation 122:113-130.
Donlan et al. 2002. Islands and introduced herbivores: conservation action as ecosystem experimentation. Journal of Applied Ecology 39:235-246.
Geijer & Read. 2013. Mitigation of marine mammal bycatch in U.S. fisheries since 1994. Biological Conservation 159:54-60.
CLASS 11 (NOV. 13): ENFORCEMENTDUE: EXAMPLE 5
***Guest: Christine Webb, Columbia University
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What are some of the pressing issues with regards to conservation enforcement? What tools are proposed to deal with them? How well do these tools work?
READINGS:
Chapter 12 (Endangered species management)
Jachmann 2008. Monitoring law-enforcement performance in nine protected areas in Ghana. Biological Conservation 141:89-99.
Pollnac et al. 2010. Marine reserves as linked social-ecological systems. PNAS 107:18262-18265.
Osterblom & Bodin. 2012. Global cooperation among diverse organizations to reduce illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean. Conservation Biology 4:638-648.
Plus readings from Christine:
Higgins 1997. Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychology 52:1280-1300.
Lee et al. 2000. The pleasures and pains of distinct self-construals: the role of interdepedence in regulatory focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78:1122-1134.
White et al. 2011. it’s the Mind-Set that Matters: the role of construal level and Message Framing in influencing consumer efficacy and conservation Behaviors. Journal of Marketing Research Vol. XLVIII: 472–485.
CLASS 12 (NOV. 20): BIG IDEAS ABOUT BIODIVERSITY, SUMMARY & REVIEWDUE: PROGRESS REPORT
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER BY THE END:
What is the concept of re-wilding? What is triage and how does it apply to the conservation and protection of endangered species? What are the arguments for and against protecting endangered species?
READINGS:
Caro & O’Doherty 1999. On the use of surrogate species in conservation biology. Conservation Biology 13: 805-814.
Donlan et al. 2005. Re-wilding North America. Nature 436:913-914.
Wilson et al. 2011. When should we save the most endangered species? Ecology Letters 14:886-890.
Nicholis 2012. Endangered species: Sex and the single rhinoceros. Nature 485:566-569.
Costello et al. 2012 A market approach to saving the whales. Nature 481: 139–140.
Altevogt et al. 2012. Guiding limited use of chimpanzees in research. Science 335: 41-42.
Chapter 16 (The conservation biologist’s toolbox)
Jacquet 2013. The Anthropocebo Effect. Conservation Biology.
Carvell et al. 1998. How Diana climbed the ratings at the zoo. Nature 395:213.
Rands et al. 2010. Biodiversity Conservation: Challenges Beyond 2010. Science 329:1298-1303.
Pullin & Salafsky. 2010. Save the whales? Save the rainforest? Save the data! Conservation Biology 24:915-917.
CLASS 13 (NOV. 27): CONSERVATION DOCUMENTARYDUE:
CLASS 14 (DEC. 4): CONSERVATION IN ACTIONDUE: FILM REVIEW AND FINAL PRESENTATIONS
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CLASS 14 (DEC. 11): FINAL EXAM
FINAL REPORTS DUE BY MIDNIGHT DEC. 18!
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EXAMPLES (5 TOTAL; 25% OF TOTAL GRADE): 3-minute lightning talks consisting of 9 slides timed to show for 20 seconds eachdue throughout the semester. This should be a conservation action related to the week’s topic. To do this well, you will need to do the readings thoroughly in advance. Come to class prepared to share a conservation action and evidence of its success or failure related to that week’s topic from anywhere in the world. Give background on its origins (when did it begin?), funding, objectives, and evidence of impact. Email me your slides by 4:30pm the day of class.
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CONSERVATION ASSIGNMENT (30% OF TOTAL GRADE):
For this assignment, you will be asked to design and carry out an applied ecology and conservation action of your choice. The possibilities are endless. Students have chosen to work on how to increase recycling in residence halls, reducing waste in cafeterias, and to change perception about the ugliness of wind power. I hope that each of you can identify a conservation issue that inspires you. You may work individually or in groups of up to 3 people. You should be planning, and implementing your conservation action as soon as possible after the course begins. The only requirement for the project is that your conservation action must be informed by peer-reviewed literature and address one of the main drivers of planetary change. Your grade will be based on six aspects, and at every point I will be looking for signs that you are looking for ways to measure and present the degree of effectiveness of the project and its perceived impact. Note that the proposal, presentation, and final report will be much better with STRONG VISUALS: data, photographs of your project at various stages, etc.!
1) the research proposal (20%) first draft due Sept. 25; final draft is due Oct. 16. This should put your project in context and then discuss your idea, including background, methods, and your timeline. The proposals should be no more than 5 double spaced pages and include at least 15 references (which are separate from the 5-page count). You will receive feedback from the class and me about your proposals.
For a sample proposal, see: ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/NHQ/nri/ceap/ccv_proposal.pdf
2) the progress report (10%) due Nov. 6. In no more than 500 words, tell me how your project is going. Provide any examples of strengths, weaknesses, or Aha moments.
3) participation in classmates’ conservation actions (10%) This part of your grade will be based on your involvement in classmate’s projects. There should be a lot of opportunities to help others out and I want to foster a collaborative class environment and maximize the impact of individual projects. Obviously contributions will be judged based on the amount of effort they involved (e.g., giving feedback on a proposal, or a presentation, or signing a petition). If you make a good faith effort you should do well on this part.
4) the presentation at the end of the term (30%)due Dec. 4 each student is allocated 6 minutes and 40 seconds for a ‘Pecha Kucha’ style presentation (thus a group of 3 will do a 30 minute presentation, and each person must present and be clear about their individual role as well as the overall goal of the project). Presentations will be given during class on Dec. 4 (order to be allocated at random). A successful presentation will be broken into background (tell the audience why this issue is important), action, methods (how it made a difference), results and discussion, including conclusions about how your project fits into the bigger picture of your conservation issue, and what the future holds. Also, acknowledge classmates who helped you with your conservation action
5) the final report (30%) due by midnight Dec. 18. Maximum of 10 pages double-spaced. References are crucial and separate from the page count. Like the presentations, it should be presented in the format of a scientific paper (i.e., introduction, methods, results, discussion).
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