Greetings all! There will be a brown bag lunch session on Wednesday in the Ballroom Salon V at the ESA meetings about ways ecologists can become involved in environmental protection. The panel includes environmental attorneys and ecologists from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity who will discuss the role basic ecological research plays in environmental protection. We are also going to talk about developing ways for ecologists to find out what questions need serious attention when its time to consider ideas for grants, thesis topics, or side projects. Also, we will discuss our experiences in different career paths in environmental policy and protection work.
Much of the effort to protect species and habitat in the United States depends on non-profit organizations, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, or the Center for Biological Diversity, to shape policy or bring suit to stop destructive activities by government or private parties. However, being successful at bringing about good (and sound) results relies critically on having good scientific information about the communities and ecosystems involved. Thus, there is a key role that ecologists can play by doing the basic research on threatened ecosystems that will allow good decisions to be made. Examples include demographic and ecological studies on the Desert Tortoise in the Mojave, investigations of the sources of the environmental lead that has been poisoning California Condors, or on the uses of newly burned forests by Spotted Owls. Answers to these basic questions such as these can go a long way toward ecologically sensible decision-making. If you are interested, please come by or feel free to email me as well as this is part of an ongoing project to develop some kind of institutional framework to help ecologists find out about such opportunities. Please distribute freely! Doug Karpa, Ph.D., J.D. Candidate Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley.
