2008 An Environmental Crossroads

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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.

Fisheries Bycatch
Commercial fishing is vital to Maryland’s economy and cultural heritage. But the health of many of its fisheries, including blue crab, is threatened by pollution, coastal development and overfishing. Bycatch also is a problem. Thousands of sea turtles, dolphins, whales, sea birds and other marine life are unintentionally injured or killed by fishing gear each year.

Larry Crowder studies marine ecology and the use of technology to track and monitor marine mammal populations. He’s an expert on international fisheries policy, particularly fisheries vs. endangered species conflicts.
tel:(252) 504-7637 : e: lcrowder@duke.edu

Research focus: Marine ecology and fisheries. Population and community ecology. Endangered species/fisheries conflicts, especially sea turtles and bycatch in fishing gear. Marine conservation biology and policy. International affairs.

In 2004, Crowder and a team of other Duke researchers published the first global assessment of sea turtle bycatch casualties. They found that more than 250,000 loggerhead and 60,000 leatherback turtles are snared each year by longline fishing – far more than previously thought. “There have been few attempts to quantify the magnitude and extent of protected species bycatch, even for fisheries in which bycatch is perceived as a pressing concern,” Crowder says. “Our numbers, though estimates, are firm enough to warrant the development of rules for fishing equipment and practices to reduce or avoid such losses.”

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.

Mike Orbach served as a scientific advisor to the US Commission on Ocean Policy and is an expert on marine and coastal management and policy. He is director of the Duke Marine Lab.
tel:(252) 504-7606 : e: mko@duke.edu

Research focus: Applications of social science to environmental policy and management. Marine fisheries and integrated coastal management. Public involvement and participatory action in environmental policy. Environmental sociology and anthropology.

Orbach has conducted research on all U.S. coasts, as well as Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Rim.

Andy Read studies the impact of bycatch on ecosystems and marine mammal populations. He’s an expert on “smart” fishing gear that’s designed to reduce the risk of ensnarement, and on the use of technology to track and monitor marine mammal populations.
tel:(252) 504-7590 : e: aread@duke.edu

Research focus: Marine mammals, particularly dolphins and porpoises; marine conservation biology; fisheries bycatch; whales and whaling. He is particularly interested in the study of endangered or threatened marine mammals, and in the development of new technology to reduce the risk of marine mammals becoming ensnared in fishing gear.

Although he has taken part in marine mammal rescues, current rescue practices are “really only a Band-aid,” Read says. “It's something to do in the interim while we search for better solutions. What we're doing is kind of like emergency room care for marine mammals that become entangled. The real answer is developing fishing gear that doesn't entangle them in the first place."