2008 An Environmental Crossroads

site

people

Global warming clouds our future. Pollution degrades our air, soil and water. Environmental toxins compromise the health of our children. Misuse threatens the sustainability of our forests, fisheries, wetlands and coasts, and the health of species that live there.

But there is reason for hope.

Through sound science and policy research, we're finding answers to these problems. Airborne lead and acid rain have been dramatically reduced. Industrial water pollution has decreased. Habitats are being preserved.

Faculty members from the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University are part of the effort to help find these answers and establish new environmental practices and policies to safeguard our natural resources for generations to come.

To contact our experts or learn more about what we're doing in states across the nation, click on the state you're interested in.

Wildlife & Threatened Species
Habitat destruction and fisheries bycatch continue to threaten Georgia’s 67 federally endangered or threatened species. The gopher tortoise, the state reptile, is protected but nonetheless declining throughout its range. Georgia’s longleaf pine population has been singled out as one of the nation’s most endangered ecosystems

Scott Eckert is an expert on sea turtle conservation and management. Working with conservationists at the Marinelife Center at Juno Beach, Fla., he is tracking the foraging, migratory and inter-nesting movements of the beach’s rare colony of endangered leatherback turtles.
tel: (252) 504-7598 e: seckert@widecast.org

Research focus: Endangered species research and management. Conservation biology. Marine turtle management and conservation. Diving physiology. Ecological physiology.

Using a specially designed, flexible tracking harness he devised in the 1980s (and refined with satellite telemetry in the 1990s) Eckert has tracked the movements of more than 300 sea turtles, including giant leatherbacks that nest at Juno Beach, Fla., the species’ most important nesting colony north of the Virgin Islands. His research has helped scientists gain new insights into leatherbacks’ migrations and critical habitats – knowledge that is helping conservationists develop management strategies for the endangered species’ recovery.

“Determining where leatherbacks go – where their foraging grounds, migratory corridors and inter-nesting areas are – is vital in helping us reverse their decline and anticipate the impact fisheries or other human activities may have on them,” he says.

Eckert is an assistant research scientist at the Duke Marine Lab, and is director of science for WIDECAST, the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network.

Pat Halpin uses GIS and other geospatial technologies to study terrestrial and marine ecology, with a focus on conservation planning and management.
tel:(919) 613-8062 : e: phalpin@duke.edu

Research focus: Geospatial technologies (GIS and satellite remote
sensing). Spatial analysis for terrestrial and marine conservation. Spatial ecology. Conservation planning and management.

Halpin’s research group is currently working with the Nature Conservancy on a marine eco-regional conservation plan for the southeastern Atlantic Coast states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

As co-director of the Triangle Landscape Change Project, he uses geospatial technologies to analyze landscape patterns and land use change, with a special emphasis on the causes and consequences of development. Land use pattern, in turn, provides a context for studies of forest dynamics as influenced by prior land use (especially agriculture) and fragmentation. Forest pattern provides a context for studies of songbird communities in fragmented forest habitats in a nonforest matrix.

Lynn Maguire has chaired a review panel examining monitoring approaches for endangered species.
tel: (919) 613-8034: e: lmaguire@duke.edu

Research focus: Collaborative decision processes. Facilitation of environmental disputes. Decision analysis for environmental problems that are difficult because of uncertainty, multiple or conflicting objectives, and disputing parties.

Recent applications include the northern spotted owl and other endangered species; invasive species; water quality; wildfire risk; and seafood rating systems.

Maguire’s research evaluates both the substance of environmental decisions - how well the resulting management actions reflect public values and available science - and the process of environmental decision making - how well the mechanisms used to involve the public achieve social justice goals.

Stuart Pimm studies ways to preserve endangered species and restore their natural habitats.
tel: (919) 613-8141: e: StuartPimm@aol.com

Research focus: Biodiversity, conservation biology and the impact of poor water management decisions on endangered species.

John Terborgh is co-director of the Center for Tropical Conservation. He an authority on neotropical habitat conservation and endangered or threatened species, especially birds and mammals.
tel: (919) 490-9081 e: manu@duke.edu

Research focus: Tropical ecology and conservation. Biodiversity. Avian and mammalian ecology in neotropical forests. Predators' role in preserving ecological diversity.

Terborgh was one of 12 scientists, conservationists and artists who in Spring 2004 petitioned the Bush administration to cease delaying Endangered Species Act protection for 225 of the nation’s most imperiled plants and animals, including the white fringeless orchid and other native Floridian species.

A recent study found that 114 U.S. species have gone extinct since the Endangered Species Act was enacted in 1973, Terborgh notes. “The federal government has chronically dragged its feet on new listings no matter which party was in the White House,” he says.