Trip/Course Description

MARINE CONSERVATION BIOLOGY

ENV 324

Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences

Duke University

Spring 2008

Instructors:

Andy Read (aread@duke.edu)

Dave Johnston (Dave.Johnston@noaa.gov)

Course Description

In this course we will examine the challenges associated with managing and conserving marine biodiversity.  We will use the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument

in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) as our focal case study (see http://hawaiireef.noaa.gov/welcome.html).  The Monument, established in June 2006, is the largest marine conservation area in the world, encompassing an area larger than all the country's national parks combined.  We will use the Monument to explore the concept of marine wilderness as it pertains to the conservation and management of marine protected areas. 

The course will be taught entirely in Hawaii.  The first three days of the class will be spent on Oahu, meeting with various stakeholders together with scientists and managers who work for the three agencies that co-manage the Monument (NOAA, USFWS and the state of Hawaii).  The next ten days will be spent on Midway Atoll, part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, where we will work with biologists and mangers from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and see first-hand the challenges of implementing the Monument.  Ours will be the first educational trip to the Marine National Monument.  A draft list of field activities on Oahu and Midway is included overleaf.  The schedule is, of course, subject to change, depending on weather and logistics.

Class Schedule

The class is scheduled during Block A; we will meet each day from January13^th to January 25^th.  Students are responsible for making their own travel arrangements to and from Honolulu.  Students should arrive in Honolulu on January 12^th and plan to depart no earlier than the evening of January 25^th.  We will travel to Midway as a group on a chartered jet.  We will be staying at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (http://www.ewc.hawaii.edu) whilst on Oahu and at USFWS facilities on Midway Atoll (http://www.fws.gov/midway/).

Grades

Grades will be assigned from the following:

Discussion                                                                                          30%

Term Paper                                                                                       40%

Field Blog                                                                                           30%

Readings

There is no required text for this course.  Readings will assigned and distributed as PDFs prior to our trip to Hawaii. You are expected to have read and considered the relevant material before each class or discussion.