Student: Jon Hosch
Graduation date: May 2020
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: November 2017
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Summary
I began forming this interest at a semester school that I attended, in Wiscasset Maine, that focused mainly on the study of the ecology in the region. The three topics that will serve as the basis for my entire concentration are Biodiversity, Forests, and Mountains. I have always been interested, in general, in these particular situated contexts and their intersections with Biodiversity and each other. Fundamentally, biodiversity is grouped under the category of Nature and is easily understood, at a base level, by analyzing a few key factors: species richness, stability, and ecosystem services (Zhu et al. 2007). My two other topics, Mountains and Forests, are both considered hybrids in our the field but are also simply places. I would like to mainly focus on alpine regions within the topic of Mountains but I am also actively searching for an intersection between the two hybrid topics (although, by definition, alpine regions do not contain truly forested areas). Mountains not only provide resources for endemic species but they also control the climates of entire areas of land. I am hoping to find room for intersectionality between montane regions and forests in the power that these places have to shape the habits and actions of entire species and cultures (Funnell and Price 2003). I will also be investigating, in detail, the use and commodification of these situated contexts. It is of paramount importance, now more than ever, to focus on these points because of the increasing impact that anthropogenic change is having on the biodiversity of these regions (Ehrlich and Wilson 1991).
Getting a bit deeper, I am excited to explore the drawbacks associated with different methods of conservation and their varying potential to protect/strengthen biodiversity in these places (Bruner et al. 2001). I am also interested in attempting to analyze the issues associated with environmental protection through a lens that disregards opinion or personal interest (Hayes 2006). For example, these places themselves have no relation to the sometimes impoverished nature of their surrounding communities and, because of this relationship (or lack thereof), it is important to address related concepts with an attempt at an unbiased tone.
It is a strong egalitarian belief that all species deserve the same amount of protection and anything that humans do has a negative impact on the survival of those species. The same logic can be applied to forest and alpine taxa but it will be vital for me to investigate their specific importance as well (Kruckeberg and Rabinowitz 1985). All things considered, someone still must be tasked with the protection of these regions, and the species within them, because, however impoverished they may be, they are of value to humans and our planet (Pan et al. 2001, Kramer et al. 1997). This is one of my many opportunities to weave my concentration themes together because, not unlike a litmus test, one could use the concentration of one specific species to judge the health of an entire food chain (Caroll et al. 2001). Even with this information, a value, some qualitative notation, still must be placed on this “health” in order to allocate resources efficiently (Debarbieux and Price 2008).
In order to tend to the interdisciplinarity of environmental studies, I will be examining, in my concentration, the ways in which humans interact with these places on various cultural (sociological) and individual (philosophical) levels. Through the examination of fluctuating human interaction (eg. policy and environmental protection) I will be attempting to evaluate some of the ways that places, such as forests and montane regions, can be, and have been, protected while fulfilling the greatest amount of human desired criteria (eg. natural resource management and habitat restoration). In conjunction with the above, I will explore a broad spectrum of the functions of these situated contexts beginning with the lowest possible level of human interference, what is seen in many circles as wilderness, and, on the far side of the spectrum, total human interaction, be it attempted technological interference or complete resource degradation (Cronon 1996).
Bruner, Aaron G., Raymond E. Gullison, Richard E. Rice, and Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca. 2001. “Effectiveness of Parks in Protecting Tropical Biodiversity.” Science 291 (5501): 125–28.
Carroll, Carlos, Reed F. Noss, and Paul C. Paquet. 2001. “Carnivores as Focal Species for Conservation Planning in the Rocky Mountain Region.” Ecological Applications 11 (4): 961–80.
Cronon, William. 1996. “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Environmental History 1 (1): 7–28.
Debarbieux, Bernard, and Martin F. Price. 2008. “Representing Mountains: From Local and National to Global Common Good.” Geopolitics 13 (1): 148–68.
Ehrlich, Paul R., and Edward O. Wilson. 1991. “Biodiversity studies: science and policy.” Science, vol. 253 (5021): 758+.
Funnell, Don C, and Martin F Price. 2003. “Mountain Geography: A Review.” Geographical Journal 169 (3):183–90.
Hayes, Tanya M. 2006. “Parks, People, and Forest Protection: An Institutional Assessment of the Effectiveness of Protected Areas.” World Development 34 (12): 2064–75.
Kramer, Randall A., and D. Evan Mercer. 1997. “Valuing a Global Environmental Good: U.S. Residents’ Willingness to Pay to Protect Tropical Rain Forests.” Land Economics 73 (2): 196–210.
A R Kruckeberg, and D. Rabinowitz. 1985. “Biological Aspects of Endemism in Higher Plants.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 16 (1): 447–79.
Pan, Yude, Richard A. Birdsey, Jingyun Fang, Richard Houghton, Pekka E. Kauppi, Werner A. Kurz, Oliver Phillips, et al. 2011. “A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests.” Science 333 (6045): 988–93.
Zhu, Jiaojun; Mao, Zhihong; Hu, Lile; Zhang, Jinxin. 2007. Plant diversity of secondary forests in response to anthropogenic disturbance levels in montane regions of northeastern China. Journal of Forest Research; Tokyo Vol. 12, Iss. 6: 403-416.
Questions
- Descriptive: How does the role of species biodiversity differ within forests and alpine regions?
- Explanatory: How does the protection of forests change their ecosystem function? How does the biodiversity of forests affect alpine regions close to them?
- Evaluative: What are the benefits and drawbacks of the protection of forests and montane regions for the communities within and around them? Can human intervention achieve biodiversity in a manner consistent, or improved, with what had originally existed in these regions? Which groups feel the effects of lost biodiversity in these regions?
- Instrumental: Which group or government decides which resources or wild lands to protect and the ways in which they should be protected? Who has the right to judge their success?
Concentration courses
- ENVS 499 2+2 (Fall Semester of Third and Fourth Years, 4 Credits) During this faculty-guided independent study I will be attempting to fill in some gaps in the ecology-focused portions of my concentration. This 2+2 will propose a project, pertaining directly to my concentration, to be completed during my study abroad in Paris the Spring semester of my Junior year. I will be formulating this project with a faculty advisor the semester before I leave and reflecting on it the semester after I return.
- ENVS 350 Environmental Theory (Spring Semester of Second Year, 4 Credits) This course will further develop my understanding of some of the "theoretical assumptions underlying" the work that I am attempting to do in my concentration. I have already explored some of these theories in 160, and a bit in 220, but this course will help me begin to really understand these concepts in depth as well as how some of these underlying theories can be useful in supporting some of my concentration findings.
- HIS 261 Global Environmental History (Fall Semester of Third Year, 4 Credits) This class will build on some of the topics that I learned in HIS 141 regarding the effects of colonization on perceptions of the natural environment. This will also explore the ways that humans have interacted with their surroundings in the past and the ways that this has changed our world today. HIS 261 will serve as a means of understanding and gathering "top of the hourglass" information to be incorporated and considered in my concentration. Similarly to ENVS 350 I will be gaining a pertinent, more general, base of information that will prove useful in understanding the situatedness of my concentration in later years.
- SOAN 365 The Political Economy of Green Capitalism (Fall Semester of Fourth Year, 4 Credits) In conjunction with the other SOAN courses that I plan on taking in my time at Lewis and Clark, this class will help me explore the ways in which natural resources are viewed and protected through the use of technology. I will also be analyzing methods of environmental protection and how commodification affects ecological problems. A major portion of my proposed concentration is to analyze the various successes and drawbacks of certain types of conservation. Some important components to this are of course the use of technology, which areas to conserve first, and for what reasons do we conserve at all (eg. monetary value or general use to humans)?
Arts and humanities courses
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- History 141: Colonial Latin American History (Fall Semester First Year, 4 Credits) This course was taken the first semester of my freshmen year. It explored the “cultural confrontations, change, and Native American accommodation” to the invasion of foreign empires. I believe that this has standing in the interdisciplinarity of environmental studies because this class explored the events that gave birth to the ways in which we interact with our surroundings (eg. natural resource use and appreciation).