Conservation Science

The promise of environmental conservation incentive programs that provide direct payments in exchange for conservation outcomes is that they enhance the value of engaging in stewardship behaviors. An insidious but important concern is that a narrow focus on optimizing payment levels can ultimately suppress program participation and subvert participants’ internal motivation to engage in long-term conservation behaviors.

Territorial user rights for fisheries are being promoted to enhance the sustainability of small-scale fisheries. Using Chile as a case study, we designed a market-based program aimed at improving fishers’ livelihoods while incentivizing the establishment and enforcement of no-take areas within areas managed with territorial user right regimes.

Black-footed and Laysan albatrosses are charismatic, long-lived, pelagic seabirds that are considered important indicators of North Pacific ecosystem health. New information indicated that the most recent official government status assessment for these species might have underestimated population threats and overestimated population health. Thus, the main purpose of our project was to re-assess the conservation status of these albatrosses and share our results with a broad group of stakeholders to ensure these species are adequately protected. We assembled an expert adviso

Marissa McMahan spent that notoriously warm summer of 2012 lobstering with her father out of Georgetown and encountered a different visitor, a large, stout gray-and-black fish she’d never seen before. The fish, which began turning up in lobster traps up and down the coast, was the black sea bass, a succulent mid-Atlantic species normally unable to tolerate Maine’s cold sea.

A research team lead by Indiana University faculty member Rebecca Lave has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to study the introduction of market-based environmental conservation policies in the European Union. The two-year, $314,750 grant will fund research focusing on habitat banking, in which the environmental costs of development projects are offset by purchasing credits generated by restoration projects elsewhere.

Pascal Yaa is a small-scale octopus fisherman who has been fishing the coral reefs off Mombasa, Kenya since 1968. As a spear-fisher, Pascal swims the reefs daily with a mask and snorkel. Recently, he has been disturbed by what he is seeing. Increasingly, fishing nets and boats are damaging and killing large, old corals. From Pascal’s perspective, reef protection and restoration are critical to ensure long-term, sustainable fishing. In his own words, Pascal says, “Corals are the homes of fish and other animals like the octopus.

That people are fascinated by bats can be shown in the number of sold-out walk and talk tours scheduled by the Yolo Basin Foundation to watch the colony of Mexican free-tailed bats that take off from the Yolo Causeway on a hunt for insects every summer night. Fascination could turn to frustration, however, as bat populations decline in the face of an approaching threat. Fourteen hibernating bat species in Northern California are at risk from a fungus that causes white nose syndrome, which has been spreading westward since it originated in New York in 2006. ...

With wingspans of up to 3 metres, it should be hard to miss the largest bird in North America – but there aren’t a lot of them. The California condor is only just hanging on in its home state, but thanks to a gargantuan conservation effort, the tide may finally be turning.

From April 23rd through April 28th, 2015, I attended and presented at the 20th International Pectinid Workshop in Galway, Ireland with support from the Switzer Foundation Professional Development Grants program. From a professional development perspective, this workshop provided me with my first opportunity to give a presentation in front of a scientific audience beyond my thesis defense in graduate school.