Environmental Studies Research Spotlight

During the summer of 2011, Holly Rippon-Butler (Davenport '12) spent five weeks in Taupo, New Zealand, working with the Waikato Regional Council to learn about the work they do to prevent nitrogen runoff, promote sustainable forestry, and manage riparian zones. Her study was focused around Lake Taupo, the largest freshwater lake in New Zealand, located at the center of the North Island.

Holly learned about management policy through conversations with council staff in the Taupo office and by reading policy documents. She traveled with the staff on field visits to logging and riparian sites, and also traveled to speak to farmers throughout the Lake Taupo catchment and surrounding area. In these farm stays, she heard firsthand accounts of what farmers in New Zealand thought about new environmental protection policies and the stresses they face in dealing with them.

Reflecting on her time in New Zealand, Holly wrote: “When I look back on my experience, I don’t just see pictures and remember what it looked like—I see beef cows that Mike and Sharon Barton are getting ready to send for processing. I see a pasture covered with an invasive weed that Alex Richardson is worried will destroy his winter crop. I see a farm that Hilton Reeve won in a government ballot and has improved with dedication ever since...Taupo, New Zealand is not just a page in the Lonely Planet guidebook for me anymore—it is full of people and ideas that I know I will revisit.”

(Summer experience funded by the Environmental Studies Program's Summer Environmental Fellowship. Image courtesy of Holly Rippon-Butler)

About the Environmental Studies Major

Yale's Environmental Studies major offers an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and responding to environmental problems. From the natural sciences, students learn experimental techniques and methods of analysis needed to make accurate observations, to document change, and to understand the dynamics of healthy landscapes and functioning ecosystems. From the humanities and social sciences, students gain insights into human behavior and the workings of our social, political, and economic institutions. The Environmental Studies major prepares students for graduate study in a range of disciplines including law, medicine, and public health, and for careers in business, environmental management and conservation, teaching, and writing.