Environmental Studies @ Yale

Aravinda Ananda, Environmental Studies '05
Shrimp Aquaculture in Ecuador: NGO Success in Improving Local Environmental Sustainability

Antasia Azure, English (writing concentration) '05
Study of the Culture of the Australian Aborigines and Their Relationship to the Great Barrier Reef in Cape Ferguson Region of Australia

Cara Berkowitz, Environmental Studies '05
Hands-On Environmental Education: Bridging Deficits in Holistic Educational Methods and Awareness of Environmental Issues

Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '05
Paleontology and comparative Anatomy of Squamates: Field Work, CT Data Processing and Descriptions of Gerrhosaurid Skulls

Deepali Dhar, Undeclared '07
Climate Change Internship with Environmental Defense in New York City, NY

Genevieve Essig, Psychology '05
Summer Internship with Environmental Law Institute

Alexandra Freeman, History Of Science / History Of Medicine '05
The Recent History of Bioprospecting; An Ecological and Medical Investigation in the Republic of Panama

Shani Harmon, Environmental Studies / Anthropology '06
Potato Park Agrobiodiversity: Impact of Globalization on Indigenous People in Peru

Laura Hess, Environmental Studies '06
Internship with CHIRAG (Central Himalayan Resource Action Group)

Caroline Howe, Environmental Studies or Environ. Engineering '07
Study of Sustainable Agriculture on an Organic Farm and Field Research at Yale Myers Forest

Laura Jeanty, Physics '06
Internship on Electrical Industry with TERI (The Energy and Research Institute) in New Delhi, India

Lucas Knowles, EVST '05
Case History of the King Salmon Military Dump Site in Alaska

Beth Kochin, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '07
Impact of Anadromous and Landlocked Alewife on Inland Water Quality and Food Web Structure

Maya Kotas, Biomedical Engineering '05
Study of Malaria Intervention Techniques at Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre, Ifakara, Tanzania

Erica Larsen, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '06
Rotifers in Space: Testing a Spatially Explicit Model of Metacommunity Coexistence

Danielle Larson, Environmental Studies '05
Field Study in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve

Flora Lichtman, Environmental Studies '05
Regulating Underwater Sound: A Case Study (Research at SACLANT Undersea Research Center on the Northwest Coast of Italy)

Melanie Loftus, Environmental Studies '05
What are the Institutional Challenges to Regional Environmental Planning in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area?

Erica Machlin, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '05
Speciation in Mouse Lemurs (Working in Yoder Lab at Yale)

Madeleine Meek, Anthropology '05
Assessment of Healthcare Initiatives in Ranomafana Integrated Conservation-Development Project

Megan O'Connor, Environmental Studies '05
Animal Care at The Second Chance Wildlife Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland

So Yeon Paek, Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry '05
Infectious Eye Diseases and Public Health Initiatives in Humijbre, Ghana

Vicente Undurraga Perl, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '06
Landlocked Alewife and Implications of Dam Removal or Fish Ladder Construction In Connecticut

Sarah Jane Selig, Environmental Studies and International Studies '06
Research on Mesoamerican Reef Health in Akumal Mexico

Leanna Sudhof, Environmental Studies And International Studies '06
Bacterial Larvicides as a Malaria Vector Control Method at International Centre of Insect
Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya

Mary Elizabeth Young, Biology '06
Development of a Non-Invasive Molecular Sexing Protocol for the Endangered Amur Tiger

Xizhou Zhou, Environmental Studies '05
Case Study of Shell/Petro China Pipeline: Environmental and Social Impacts with UNDP

Shrimp Aquaculture in Ecuador: NGO Success in Improving Local Environmental Sustainability
Aravinda Ananda, Environmental Studies '05

I worked for two months with the conservation organization, Jatun Sacha at Congal Station on the coast of Ecuador observing and participating in research for sustainable livelihood options for local residents. Conducting research in three main areas – forest management, aquaculture and agriculture, Jatun Sacha aims to integrate more sustainable livelihood options into local communities. The coastal region in which Jatun Sacha works has been heavily impacted in the past 15 years by the shrimp industry, destroying and degrading many mangrove areas which have provided livelihood options for the local poor. With the loss of clams and other mangrove species, the livelihood options for many in the local area have been curtailed. As aquaculture still provides one of the most productive forms of production per unit of land, Jatun Sacha has been working to develop more environmentally friendly shrimp aquaculture methods through low stocking densities and polycultures. However, most local poor do not have access to the resources necessary to own and operate shrimp ponds, and thus Jatun Sacha is exploring other viable, environmentally sound livelihood options. Jatun Sacha has also been experimenting with the rehabilitation of degraded lands through the replanting of abandoned shrimp ponds with palm trees and pineapples. Yet, as most local people do not have rights to operating or abandoned shrimp ponds, and traditional agricultural production carries various setbacks such as low market prices and lack of transportation in a timely manner for perishable crops, Jatun Sacha has been exploring specialty crops such as cashews, bamboo, and hardwoods which will fetch a high market price and do not spoil during transport. The main project being pursued currently at Congal is a 100 hectare forest management plan that would consolidate local landholdings to be planted with bamboo and hardwood species. While Jatun Sacha’s involvement in the area remains a potential case study for either positive or negative community development, it is clear that there are multiple roles for community development. The government can play a role through the provision of funding or infrastructure. NGOs can provide expertise and direction. Finally, the community itself could benefit from social development and the instilment of values, a work ethic, and cooperation.

My project was to research and write on the Australian Aborigines’ relationship with the land and sea, particularly their relationship to the Great Barrier Reef region. I knew I would have to be resourceful to meet the right people, and to arrange to go to the right places. I had organized connections before I left, but I knew the project would develop once I was on Australian soil. Before leaving the U.S. I had set up a meeting with Kirsten Dobbs from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority who works closely with the Authority’s Indigenous Liaison Unit balancing the protection of turtle and dugong with Aboriginal traditional hunting rights. Kirsten recommended that I meet with Rebecca Sheppard from the Queensland State Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI) whose job it was to research and recommend protected fish habitat areas in the northern Great Barrier Reef. Because many of these proposed fish habitat areas are along remote coastlines, Ms. Sheppard spends a lot of time consulting with Aboriginal communities who might be impacted by the fish habitat zones. At the time that Ms. Dobbs recommended Ms. Sheppard she also mentioned a Marine Biologist Scott Whiting who was working in Australia’s Northern Territory. Dr. Whiting was researching an endangered species of turtle that nested on the indigenously owned Tiwi Islands, eighty kilometres north of the mainland. Dr. Whiting invited me to join him on his fieldwork, but advised that I contact the Tiwi Island Land Council to ask permission to be involved with his project on their island’s turtle nesting beaches. I learned that the land councils were the organizations that brought together the Aboriginal people and government representatives in order to develop policies and programs for land use. It had become clear to me that I needed to talk to members of an Indigenous land council about their work. I contacted Kate Hadden who called a meeting of the Tiwi Island Land Council to approve my application to join Dr. Whiting on his visit to their islands in order that I learn about the Aboriginal role in sustaining land and species. Before I knew it I found myself where the dry outback of Australia’s Northern Territory meets tropical coast, a thousand miles from the Great Barrier Reef. From Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, I flew to the remote Tiwi Islands. These little known islands are made up of Melville and Bathurst Islands, Melville being Australia’s second largest island after Tasmania. As part of the approval, a permit was required to visit the islands, which reminded me (and other visitors) that I will be on land that is governed by Aboriginal traditional law. The requirement of a permit before entering their land illustrated that Aborigines have strong views on land use that I wanted to learn about. I joined Dr. Whiting to study the nesting patterns of the Olive Ridley turtle, an endangered species virtually unknown in Australia. These turtles return to tropical islands of Australia to nest on the same beaches where they were born twenty or thirty years before. An ABC documentary film crew of three had been granted permission to camp overnight with us. For the ABC it was an opportunity to shoot one of the first recordings of the nesting patterns of the Australian Olive Ridley turtles on film. The research team congregated at the local beach, we loaded up the sea ranger boat with overnight gear and headed off twenty-five km north to Van Dieman Beach, possibly the most remote coast of Australia’s territories. After setting up camp behind the dunes out of view of saltwater crocodiles we walked the beach while Dr. Whiting explained the research: At this stage Dr. Whiting has passed much of the responsibility to track and record nesting data on to Jack Long, an Aboriginal Sea Ranger. Mr. Long will patrol this beach every two weeks and record the turtle’s nesting patterns from the tracks and hatched nests he finds. Tiwi Sea Rangers like Mr. Long are co funded by the Tiwi Land Council and the Northern Territory Fisheries Department to patrol the coastline for the protection of species, and to report illegal professional and recreational fishing. Recently, Mr. Long helped Dr. Whiting put tracking devices on Olive Ridley turtles that came to the beach to nest. It was very instructive to see that Mr. Long’s Aboriginal expertise in outback waters compliments the latest technology of satellite tracking from space. With the innovation of satellite tracking we are learning about the migratory patterns of this endangered species. Sea Rangers also assist in quarantine and the eradication of feral non-native animals and weeds that threaten native flora and fauna. Mr. Long pointed out tracks in the sand explaining what animals made the tracks, what the animals were doing and why. Mr. Long identified to a turtle track and Dr. Whiting took over. I observed that over the afternoon a natural structure developed out of whom did what best and recognition of the different contributing skills we each brought to this research. I noted that the relationship between the Aborigines and the marine biologist depended on trust and mutual respect for success. Later from 2:30 am to 7:30 am, we all grouped together to patrol the long beach. With Mr. Long as the leader I soon learned the value of Indigenous eyes because crocodiles were a real threat in the dark. One fresh track had deep claw imprints that told Mr. Long that a crocodile sneaked up behind a turtle on tiptoes and wrestled the 45 kg turtle back to the water. In working side by side with Ms. Hadden, Dr. Whiting, Mr. Long, and the ABC on this endangered species project and talking with the director of the Tiwi Land Council, I experienced first hand a management scheme that takes care of people and nature. In the field we were learning how to accommodate different worldviews: in this case from the Indigenous, scientific, governmental, and media perspectives. As representatives of different perspectives we found a way to personally connect, establish trust, open our minds and develop a sense of humour toward the ambiguity of intercultural communication. With nature as our host, our shared perspective was to “learn by doing.” As an aside, in 2004, Tiwi Ranger Mr. Long and the Tiwi Indigenous Sea Ranger Program won the Northern Territory Coastcare Award for their contribution to improved sustainability of the coast, community stewardship, best practice and partnerships, and for targeting the causes rather than the symptoms of environmental problems. From Darwin I returned to Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef to take what I had learned to that setting. I caught up with Rebecca Sheppard. We discussed her work of the last nine years, consulting with Aboriginal groups in remote Cape York in the northern Great Barrier Reef. She told me about her learn-by-doing successes and failures in her communications with Aboriginal communities: As a representative of the Australian government Ms. Sheppard needed to work hard to win these communities’ trust. She developed a relationship with these communities as opposed to many who had flown in, handed down the latest initiatives from top government only to leave, never to be seen again by the Aboriginal community whose lives were so impacted by the project directives given them. Ms. Sheppard’s personal, “on-the-ground” style of communication won the respect and trust of the indigenous groups whom she consulted. She included community members in her research and respected their local knowledge to the degree that she turned down a fish habitat proposal because of the negative impact it would have on local community. They worked to develop other means of maintaining fish stocks. I was interested in visiting the communities that Ms. Sheppard worked with in order to experience first hand the kind of communication that made her successful. Ms. Sheppard introduced me to Clyde Andrews, DPI’s Indigenous Liaison Officer based at Cairns. Mr. Andrews, a fisheries inspector of twenty-three years, was undertaking a program to train Indigenous Sea Rangers in the Cape York area. Inspired by the Northern Territory Indigenous Sea Ranger Program, Ms. Sheppard and Mr. Andrews together with other state representatives spanning the east to west coast of northern Australia formed the “Top End” Fisheries Working Group to share ideas on Indigenous Sea Ranger Programs. In the Northern Territory, eighty five percent of coastline is Indigenously owned, yet no long-term support exists to develop Indigenous Sea Ranger Programs to manage this strategic outback border with Indonesia and Southeast Asia. After speaking to Mr. Andrews, he invited me to join him at a small Indigenous community at the northern tip of Cape York where he would be teaching a young Aboriginal, Eric Colis, to be a Sea Ranger fully trained and recognised by the State Fisheries Department. I was very interested in seeing this training in order to observe for myself the role that the Sea Rangers were expected to play in the management of their land and sea. This was a unique opportunity that I was fortunate to arrange. Because it took days for Mr. Andrews to tow the patrol boat over the rough terrain of Cape York Peninsular, I decided to go south to Townsville for a week before flying back north to meet Mr. Andrews because there was a university course I wanted to audit for my project. A few weeks earlier, I had met Dr. Smyth who had invited me to audit his week-long intensive course at James Cook University. Dr. Smyth is a consultant to Aboriginal organizations, government, conservation agencies, and research institutions on projects relating to the recognition of Indigenous Rights and interests in environment and resource management. The “Caring for Country” course covered the history of the Australian Aborigines through to present legal land claims and on to future directions in ownership rights and recognition for Indigenous Australians. Dr. Smyth designed the course to give environmental management students a context when negotiating co-management of resources with Aboriginal communities. Over the week, I listened to guest speakers, interviewed them over lunch, and conceptualised management plans with fellow students. Because I was staying with Ms. Sheppard during this course, at night she, her boyfriend, and I discussed their years of experience working in the field of Indigenous resource management. This was a wonderful arrangement: during the day I could learn about ideas, at night I could discuss those ideas with those that use them in their work with Aborigines and sustainable environmental management policies. On the last day of the course some efforts I started earlier bore fruit. I knew that I both needed and wanted to interview a leader of the Aboriginal community so that I could record her people’s views about sustainable management of the environment and the relationships of Aborigines with state agencies. I hoped I could find someone who could talk candidly and I was fortunate enough to find someone who did. I arranged to interview Melissa George who co-taught the Caring for Country course with Dr. Smyth and who is actively engaged in securing the recognition of Indigenous rights and interests in environmental and natural resource management locally, nationally, and internationally. Proclaimed by Aboriginal law Ms. George’s clan is the Traditional Owner of Magnetic Island in the Great Barrier Reef and the Townsville region on the mainland. Her clan is Nwalgibain, her tribe is Wulgurukaba, and her language group is Wulguru. I interviewed Ms. George for over an hour, and she gave me permission to tape the interview. I transcribed the interview and I am now attempting to write a Q&A article. In the interview Ms. George confirmed for me that Aboriginal identity is the connection of people with place. All that I had learned proved invaluable preparation for my time with the community of New Mapoon on Cape York Peninsular. From Townsville I flew to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait to meet a Fisheries representative of the region. We walked, talked, and drove around the island discussing the unique relationship that the Torres Strait Islanders have with their Sea Country. Early the next morning I took the ferry to Cape York to meet with Clyde Andrews at the community of New Mapoon. Mr. Colis, who was the Aboriginal Sea Ranger Trainee, took us in the boat to visit his people’s totem. In the patrol boat Eric pointed out dangerous currents to avoid. I realized that in remote areas it is local knowledge that guides the most experienced stranger safely. Running against the current we tried to stay steady alongside a cliff as Mr. Colis pointed excitedly to a gigantic sea turtle formation on the side of the cliff: the totem of the New Mapoon people. No human hands had carved or painted this rock. The natural formation was an uncanny representation of the turtle, which is so central to the identity and mythology of Mr. Colis’s Aboriginal community. I was struck by the correspondence between the natural environment and Aboriginal Dreamtime mythology and again saw how much the Aboriginal people look for and find connections between their identity and the land.

On my return flight to Cairns I approached the CEO of the New Mapoon Council who I had met only briefly on my arrival to the community. I took this opportunity to strike up a conversation. Three hours later, he asked if I would come back and work with the community accompanied by promises of fresh crayfish and bush “tucker” (food). I hope to do so. The opportunity that Yale gave me to undertake my project has been a life altering experience. I learned more than I expected. I learned that I want to continue my work with Indigenous peoples and so much so that I have changed my major from English to Anthropology. I also learned that unsuspecting teachers can be found in the most unsuspecting places.

Hands-On Environmental Education: Bridging Deficits in Holistic Educational Methods and Awareness of Environmental Issues
Cara Berkowitz, Environmental Studies '05

Paleontology and comparative Anatomy of Squamates: Field Work, CT Data Processing and Descriptions of Gerrhosaurid Skulls
Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '05

Tracheloptychus petersi lies within the clade Gerrhosauridae, containing a variety of SubSaharan African and Malagasy lizards with platelike dorsal scales and certain distinctive cranial features. Gerrhosauridae itself ultimately belongs to the Scincomorpha and then to the Scleroglossa. Though its extant sister clade, Cordylidae, has been fairly well-studied morphologically, Gerrhosauridae has been the subject of few anatomical analyses, with the notable exception of an excellent description of the gross anatomy of the heads of various members of the clade Gerrhosaurus [2, 1]. Certainly the Malagasy plated lizards, the zonosaurines, have not received a great deal of attention, largely due to their scarcity. The Peabody, however, possesses a number of frozen, preserved, and live zonosaurines; most of these are T. petersi, though Zonosaurus ornatus is also represented. Using these specimens, CAT scans of the skulls of the Yale zonosaurines, and some additional specimens which I have loaned from the University of Michigan, I will undertake a description of the skull of T. petersi in comparison to that of Z. ornatus and Z. madagascariensis. The choice of taxa relates to a recent molecular phylogenetic study which nests Tracheloptychus within Zonosaurus, with Z. madagascariensis sharing a closer common ancestor to Tracheloptychus than Zonosaurus ornatus [3]. If the study’s reconstruction is accurate, I should be able to identify synapomorphies of T. petersi + Z. madagascariensis to the exclusion of Z. ornatus. Preparation for the analysis has involved preparation of skeletons from frozen specimens of T. petersi and the disarticulation of Z. ornatus skeletons. I hope also to perform clearing and staining on some specimens in order to visualize cartilaginous structures. This project may last beyond my tenure as an undergraduate at Yale.

This summer, I worked at the New York City Office of Environmental Defense under the guidance of James Wang, Ph. D. in climate and atmospheric science. In addition to gaining a broader scientific understanding of the global warming process, I worked on various projects, including rebuttals of climate skeptic articles and a global warming fact sheet to be distributed to the public. The global warming fact sheet involved researching the impacts of global warming such as glacier melting, snow pack melting, coral bleaching, wildlife endangerment, and more. I also contributed to an affidavit outlining the potential effects of global warming emissions on long island residents in the near future. Additionally, I compiled a few facts on green house gas emissions due to the transportation sector and how individual choices can reduce these harmful emissions. Through my time at Environmental Defense, I interacted with many economists, lawyers, and scientists who were utilizing their expertise to protect the environment in creative and effective ways. Observing their passion and their application of individual skills to convince and educate the public, the government, and private organizations to adopt more environmental-friendly practices was inspiring and insightful. All in all, this internship was a pleasurable experience.

At my internship this summer with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., I worked on a variety of the institute’s main projects, including the Africa Program, the Clean Air Act (CAA) New Source Review (NSR) Project, and the Environmental Compliance Consortium (ECC), with duties ranging from researching the structure of east African judiciary systems (Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya) to interviewing air quality officials all over the United States to collect information about state regulations concerning new stationary sources of air pollution to assembling information about state facility-based environmental permit tracking systems. Over the course of the summer, I had the opportunity to work with all different types of staff employed by the institute, from research associates to senior attorneys to the vice-president. I was given my own private work area with a desk and computer and was allowed much independence and responsibility. As an intern, I was also give the opportunity to attend from time to time a variety of seminars and workshops offered by the institute to their associates. These workshops are intended to present the latest developments in the every-changing field of environmental law. Overall, it was an extremely valuable experience in that I learned not only what it is like to practice law in the non-profit sector but also a great deal about the environmental law field in general and its typical participants and stakeholders. The staff were extremely accomplished and competent and were very willing to share their experiences and insights with the interns. Many had worked in the private sector and in public service with the government as well as in the non-profit sector, which gave them a unique perspective on the field. I would recommend considering an internship at the institute to anyone interested in environmental law, law in the non-profit sector in general, or an internship which is truly stimulating and educational.

The loss of biological diversity is the most profound environmental challenge the world faces today. Biodiversity loss holds serious ramifications for human health and medicine: habitat loss leads to the loss of raw materials which may contain therapeutic agents to fight against human disease. It is these interdependent issues of biodiversity conservation and human health that led me to the Republic of Panama. The scientific research of investigating the natural word for useful products is called bioprospecting. Currently, the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG) in Panama is at the forefront of this exciting research. The ICBG scientists collect field samples and use biological assays to test microorganism and plant extracts for activity against tropical diseases including leishmaniasis, dengue, and malaria. During the months of June and July, I volunteered at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) where I worked closely with the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group. At STRI I assisted with field collections, observed laboratory techniques, investigated conservation efforts, and gathered data to flush out my case study of the current Panama drug discovery program. In a bilingual work place, my fluency in Spanish allowed me to connect with many scientists and conduct interviews with a variety of peoples. Because the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group was founded in 1991, the ICBG research in Panama is comprised of a very recent history. Consequently, one of the challenges of my research involved the fine line between journalism and historical scientific investigation. One of the most interesting aspects of my research was the insight I gained into the challenges scientists face with conducting research in developing countries. Overall, I had a wonderful experience in Panama and highly recommend the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to students interested in scientific investigation and tropical biology. I am most grateful for being given the opportunity to actively participate in the drug discovery process: to collect the tropical plants with my own hands, to assist with laboratory procedures, and to hear the voices of the scientists who drive this ecologically important process. I am majoring in the History of Science/History of Medicine and hope that this project will be the springboard to my year long senior essay this fall.

This past summer, I traveled to Peru to work with the Quechua-Aymara Association for Sustainable Livelihoods (ANDES Association). My time was spent between the office in Cuzco and the Potato Park biodiversity reserve located on the outskirts Pisac. Potato Park is composed of six indigenous communities - Paru Paru, Sacaca, Pampallacta, Chahuaytire, Cuyo Grande, and Amaru – that are engaged in traditional agricultural practices and cultivate native varieties of potato. When I arrived in Peru, I hoped to gain insight into how local indigenous practices maintain a high diversity of cultivars. I was also very interested in how collective management of indigenous land could preserve the Quechua culture thereby preserving agrobiodiversity of Andean crops. Working with my interests, the ANDES Association assigned me to a team of technicians trained in the fields of biology, agronomy, ethnopharmocology and environmental engineering. We first conducted an ecological survey of the community of Sacaca. Then we used the Registro Local, a knowledge matrix designed to collect indigenous knowledge, to find out what traditional and local knowledge the Quechua of Pisac held in regards to potatoes. Finally, using indigenous knowledge management software, the information from the Registro Local was converted to a digital format where the indigenous people could preserve their knowledge as well as document their knowledge as a measure against biopiracy. Working with the ANDES Association was a great experience first because of the hands on nature of the internship. I got to work with a few hundred varieties of potatoes as well as other crops endemic to the Andean area such as maize, quinoa, tarwi, ollucu, oca and mashua. The internship was also great because of the exposure it afforded to in situ biodiversity conservation management issues in general. The ANDES Association’s goal is to conserve landraces and wild relatives of domesticated plants and animal species as well as the associated traditional knowledge and local cultural heritage. To this end, the ANDES Association also dealt with local concerns of food security, conservation, economy, education, gender equality, intellectual property rights and indigenous people’s self-determination. The efforts of ANDES Association extended not only to the study and preservation of local ecosystems, but exploring possibilities of agroecotourism, marketing native crops, and capacity building in sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management. Finally, having a background in anthropology, I really appreciated the cultural sensitivity and respect the workers of the ANDES Association demonstrated in working with the indigenous people of Potato Park. I would definitely recommend this internship to any student in the future. I learned a great deal about sustainable agriculture, agrobiodiversity, and biodiversity conservation in indigenous communities. The most rewarding part of the internship, though, was being able to apply what I learned to real situations in the field. Walking away from this experience, I think I’ve got a glimpse of what it is like to conduct biodiversity research and what is required to run a non-profit committed to biodiversity conservation.

For three months, I interned with a grassroots development NGO called Chirag in the Kumaon hill region of Uttaranchal, Northern India. Chirag’s stated mission is to improve the quality of life of people living in the area’s rural villages, especially women and the poor, the most oppressed groups. The organization seeks to fulfill this mission primarily through community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), to reverse environmental degradation due to increasing population pressure, with programs like social forestry, soil and water conservation measures, construction of water tanks and pipelines, etc. Chirag complements its CBNRM programs with other social empowerment programs like education, health, women’s self-help groups, income-generating activities, etc. As the forests in Kumaon are in many ways the life-blood of the hills, one of Chirag’s main focuses is on social forestry: mobilizing village communities to replant and protect their village forests. I spent my time with Chirag working on two main projects. The first project was collecting and synthesizing data on the nature and burden of village women’s work. As women perform most of the activities that are connected to the environment (fodder, fuelwood, and water collection mainly), they are in many ways the “caretakers” of the environment. My research was useful to Chirag insofar as it allowed the organization to better target its programs to relieve the burden of women’s work, as well as quantify the amount of time/effort saved to women as a result of its programs. I conducted my own research in one village, Gola, as a case study. In the process, I spent innumerable days working and spending time with women and their families. I did the official data collection through focused discussions modeled after Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs). All of my interactions were in Hindi, with a sprinkling of the local language, Kumaoni. The second project I worked on was designing and beginning implementation of an evaluation of Chirag’s social forestry program, from a purely physical science perspective. Because of the short time of my internship, I focused my efforts on taking measurements in half a dozen village forest plantations that could then be used to calculate the survival rate of seedlings in the future. I also spent a good deal of time shadowing Chirag field workers, accompanying them on their daily rounds to villages. I was also in continuous discussion with the agriculturalist in Chirag about new agricultural techniques for farmers in the area. This internship was incredibly challenging, and just as incredibly rewarding, both intellectually and personally. The sheer magnitude of what I learned while with Chirag still astounds me—about different strategies in development work, Indian government and culture, village life, Kumoan ecology and geography. I experienced first-hand what I had only before read about: that effective environmental problem-solving requires and relies on the understanding and participation of those affected; that local problems require local solutions; that outsiders have a role in sparking social change, but ultimately that change has to be motivated from within in order for it to be sustainable.

The Environmental Studies Fellowship allowed me to participate in many varied research projects, both at Yale and at Yale’s Myers Forest in northeastern Connecticut. Most of my summer was spent working on Professor Oswald Schmitz’s project to study the effect of climate change on insect populations. I was able to see this experiment through all stages: the creation of our enclosures and their placement in the field, the infusion of carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 into these sealed enclosures, the analysis of sample with a mass spectrometer to determine the levels of heavy elements taken up by the plants and then insects, and the final results of the experiment. Though Prof. Schmitz plans to create a five-year experiment following the same model, it was ideal to be a part of a summer-long project in order to see the entire process.

India’s electricity sector is in the midst of a complex and much-needed transformation. The state electricity boards are heavily in debt and unable to meet current power needs, and in the rural areas, more than half the households do not have electrical access. In 2003, the government of India set a goal of 100% rural electrification by 2020 and passed a new electricity act encouraging states to privatize their electricity sectors. As an intern with The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) in New Delhi, I spent this summer working on a project that explored various paths for restructuring the industry by studying international and domestic experience in power sector reforms. My work focused on the issue of rural electrification and highlighted the environmental and social impact of different reform options, from rural cooperatives to a new structure for subsidized agricultural tariffs, from distributed generation by way of renewable energy sources – small hydropower plants, individual photovoltaic cells, hybrid and cogeneration plants, and wind power – to the importance of an independent and accountable regulator. I prepared a case study on rural electrification successes in Guatemala, Chile, China, and Sri Lanka, and developed detailed reports of the entire reform process in Chile, China, and Indonesia, drawing lessons for the Indian context and evaluating each model in terms of its social and environmental sustainability.

For my environmental internship project, I chose to analyze the policy process surrounding the King Salmon Air Station, a former Air Force base turned airport. The town of King Salmon is located in Southwest Alaska 15 miles inland from Bristol Bay along the Naknek River. It is home to one of the world’s most productive fisheries, thousands of summer tourists, Katmai National Park, and a local population of about 1000 people, most of which are Alaska Native. King Salmon is also home to a 727-acre complex that was a formerly active Air Force complex and is now a commercial airport. Unfortunately, the King Salmon Air Station has a lot of history. Originally built in the 1940’s to help as a defense installation against Japan in World War II, the base was then transformed into reserve status and was acquired by the state of Alaska as an airport in 1959. In the 1980’s, community outrage initiated a clean-up operation of the air station, which was eventually found to have contaminated much of the land it occupied with petroleum, trichloroethylene (TCE), and buried 55-gallon drums. Today, the air station clean-up is near completion and serves as a shining example of how a successful clean-up operation can be done through community involvement, adequate funding, and governmental commitment. However, after visiting the town of King Salmon and talking with locals, I found a problem. Basically, the Alaska Native population, mostly located in the town of Naknek 15 miles downriver from King Salmon, expressed anger, resentment, and suspicion over the entire clean-up process. This is due to fears that cancer and illness rates are growing at disproportionate rates. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to prove any sort of causality between the air station and sickness due to the migratory patterns of the fish and game that comprises most of Alaska Natives’ diets. However, in my opinion, the greatest threat to the local population is the access that the airport provides. Like so many other places in Alaska, the King Salmon area has fallen victim to development and utilization of natural resources - at the expense of the local population.

Impact of Anadromous and Landlocked Alewife on Inland Water Quality and Food Web Structure
Beth Kochin, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '07

Malaria is a disease that has plagued mankind for centuries, and continues to ravage much of southern Africa. Even more than many other infectious diseases, it demands an intricate understanding of the mechanisms of transmission and pathology, and multi-disciplinary approaches to control. With the help of the Yale Environmental Studies Summer Internship, I spent the summer of 2004 in and around Ifakara, Tanzania, studying malaria transmission and vector control via the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre (IHRDC). In addition to studying within the confines of IHRDC, I had the opportunity to participate in entomological field work in rural communities in the Kilombero River Valley. In particular, I spent approximately a month work fairly independently in a town called Lupiro, where I conducted hands-on experimental field work that involved 24 nights of human landing catches, and supervision of community research volunteers. While in Lupiro, I also developed a deeply engrained awareness of the hardships of life in the valley and a connection with the people who live and work there. My work was quite distinct from anything I have participated in at Yale. Here, I am a biomedical engineering major, and someone who had long believed in the power of biomedical innovation for solving medical problems. My work in Tanzania has taught me to appreciate the intricacies of infectious disease, and made clear to me that fighting such disease demands development of new therapeutics, increased availability of testing and treatment, understanding of the ecology of both parasites and vectors, and community sensitization. This experience has been invaluable to my development as a student, a scientist, a future physician, and human being. It is my feeling that experiences such as mine can not help but have profound effects on the way students view the rest of the world and choose to contribute to it.

My environmental internship project investigated the spatial effects of colonization on species richness in metacommunities, using a model system of aquatic zooplankton and macroinvertebrate metacommunities. Metacommunities are sets of communities linked by dispersal across a mosaic of patches. My co-collaborators were Linda Puth, Ph.D., YIBS Postdoctoral Fellow, and Mark Urban, Ph.D. candidate, Yale FES. I completed the field work this summer at Yale-Myers Forest in Eastford, CT, where I created model aquatic metacommunities in a natural forest environment. The model communities were groups of six buckets in arrays with center source communities of locally-occurring zooplankton and surrounding buckets at fixed distances which were patches available for colonization. The distance from the center to the outlying buckets varied between arrays. I sampled the zooplankton and macroinvertebrates in all of the arrays throughout the summer in order to investigate species richness and colonization. I predicted that species richness would be greatest in arrays separated by intermediate distances. The final lab work component will be completed during the academic year in the Post lab at Yale. In addition to working with this project, I also spent time assisting several other researchers with their own projects, which allowed me to think about other possible areas of research. I also became better acquainted with the people, research, and facilities at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. This internship was a great opportunity to participate in research as an undergraduate and to experience the possibilities for ecological research that exist at Yale.

During the summer of 2004, I spent from June 15th until August 12th in Alaska. I was a participant in a course run through Wildlands Studies by the Wrangell Mountains Center and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Through natural history observation and field investigation, we focused on understanding the interrelated geological and ecological processes, as well as the social forces, which shape Wrangell – St.Elias National Park and Preserve. Each student also completed an individual research project. We were located in the tiny town of McCarthy, an isolated cluster of private property in the midst of Wrangell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve, which, at over 13 million acres, is the largest national park in the United States. The town is extremely remote, and has only a handful of residents, with the population soaring to about two hundred people during the summer. The majority of the seven week course was spent on backpacking trips through the various glacial, alpine meadow, and spruce forest ecosystems there. At first, we all focused on the same material, learning the basic glaciology, geology, botany, and ecology of the area, as well as the important policy issues, through field study, lectures, discussion, and readings. Soon, however, each student designs his or her own final project, for which there is a huge amount of flexibility. I worked with Dave Mitchell, who is currently developing the campsite monitoring technique for the Park, to come up with a practical and effective technique that would lead to a baseline data which may ultimately help develop a backcountry management plan for the Park. I also studied the larger monitoring, management, and regulation questions that the Park is struggling with, focusing in particular on the problems with measuring and regulating to protect the intangible qualities of silence and solitude. I would recommend this program to students with a diverse array of interests relating to environmental sciences and environmental studies. There is a huge amount of flexibility in the individual projects. (Students this year also designed studies and researched topics relating to geology, botany, ecology, glaciology...) It would really be appropriate for students of any year, although most of the students who I took the course with had just graduated from college and were using this course as a substitution for their senior research/senior project.

This report documents the work completed during my stay at NATO Undersea Research Center in La Spezia, Italy. Because I was affiliated with the Marine Policy Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Yale University and NATO, I had the opportunity to work on several different types of projects. I was officially working under the Sound, Ocean and Living Marine Resources (SOLMAR) Project; my work was overseen by Dr. Michael Carron, the head of the project, Nicola Portunato, the lead investigator for SOLMAR, and Dr. Elena McCarthy, a researcher working remotely for WHOI. My work was focused on marine mammals and anthropogenic sound in the ocean. After whale standings were linked to a NATO low-frequency sonar test, NATO created SOLMAR to study the distribution of whales in the area and develop risk mitigation procedures for sonar use. To accomplish this task, SOLMAR organizes at least one oceanographic cruise a year, coordinates with institutions across the world, and is building a database of oceanographic and marine mammal data for the Mediterranean. The Marine Policy Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is interested in the issue from a legal perspective: should ocean noise be regulated, and if so, how? Because these organizations have diverse interests, I received a broad education during my time at SACLANT: I learned a great deal about the technical aspects of oceanographic research and data processing. At the same time, I studied international and federal environmental law and became intimate with LexisNexis, the Federal Register and Thomas. My work for the NATO Undersea Research Center includes:1. Research Cruise. I participated in a three-week oceanographic research cruise on the R/V Leonardo, a NATO research vessel. The cruise took place off the northern coast of Sicily, with most of the data collected in the waters around the Aeolian Islands. Nicola Portunato from SOLMAR coordinated the cruise, which included two other ships in addition to the Leonardo: the R/V Universitatis (from the University of Genoa) and the R/V Galatea (from the Italian Hydrographic Office). I spent twenty-one days on the Leonardo, which also lodged scientists and students from the University of Genova, acousticians from NATO Undersea Research Center, and marine mammal specialists from the Genova Aquarium. 2. Satellite Image Processing. I was in charge of compiling the satellite images collected at SACLANT of sea surface temperature, chlorophyll a content and water clarity and geo-referencing the data to make it accessible in ArcView, Surfer and other mapping programs. When I came to SACLANT, I had never used MatLab. I had a very cursory knowledge of ArcView and had never heard of a “grid”. 3. Database Building. I helped populate the SOLMAR database—which included compiling scattered cruise data dating back to 1998. The final product included an analysis of what was missing. 4. GEBCO. Observed and helped manage a General Bathymetric Chart of the Ocean (GEBCO) Conference. This international organization is over 100 years old and “aims to provide the most authoritative, publicly-available bathymetry data sets for the world's oceans.” The GEBCO 1 minute global bathymetric grid was released last year. For WHOI, my work was more policy focused. It includes: 1. Created Website. In conjunction with Dr. McCarthy, I created a website that will be launched on the Marine Policy Center site in late August 2004. Entitled “Mapping Anthropogenic Noise in the Sea: An Aid to Policy Development”, the website includes background on the ocean noise issue, a summary of the sources of sound in the sea, a brief look at the policy instruments capable of addressing the issue, an annotated list of other sources of information on ocean acoustics, marine mammals and policy, and an interactive GIS map (generated with ArcIMS) compiling data from several different scientists. The GIS map visually displays anthropogenic activities (ie: noise producers) and marine mammal sightings in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary: it includes layers of ship tracks, fishing gear, whale watching, dredging and disposal, environmental information and marine mammal sightings. Each layer is linked to a description with varying amounts of analysis on what the data means for noise production in Stellwagen. The whale-watching layer includes a great deal of analysis I did summer 2003, as a guest student at the Marine Policy Center. 2. Contributed to Law Review Paper. I am still involved in this project. Dr. McCarthy and I are working on a law review paper regarding the Marine Mammal Protection Act. We are focusing on the permitting program, paying special attention to how noise-producing activities are regulated by the program. I have focused on the history section of the paper—heavily dependent on congressional testimony and other primary sources. Dr. McCarthy and I hope to publish the paper later this year.3. Edited Book. My sponsor from WHOI, Dr. Elena McCarthy, was in the final stages of writing the International Regulation of Underwater Sound: Establishing Rules and Standards to Address Ocean Noise Pollution (now available on Amazon.com) when I arrived at SACLANT. I edited the book before it went to press, helped with final research and design, and created the index. It is now available on Amazon.com.

The project I designed for the summer of 2004 was titled “What are the institutional challenges to regional environmental planning in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area?” After interviews with a few key NGO leaders, I decided to shift my focus to comparing the different ways in which the Washington area has dealt with problems associated with sprawl. My first interview was with Don Chen of Smart Growth America in Washington, DC. From this interview, I decided that my focus would be on a comparative study between Arlington County, VA, and Prince George’s County, MD, two suburbs of Washington, DC. While Arlington is a great example of transit-oriented development (TOD), a system purported to allow for increased housing density without the associated increase in traffic congestion, Prince George’s is struggling with a sprawling county that has not increased density around transit stations, a possible reason for major traffic problems. In New Haven, I met with Abe Parrish from the Yale Map Collection. He put together a disc that included land use/land cover data from 1990 (EPA) and 2000 (NLDC) in Arlington and Prince George’s Counties to correspond with census information I had requested from those years. This semester, I hope to continue with my interviews by moving on to politicians and citizens in Prince George’s and Arlington Counties, pursuing my revised topic, “What are the different ways in which the Washington area has dealt with problems associated with sprawl?” I hope to draw conclusions from studies of Arlington County and decide whether “smart growth” is a viable option in Prince George’s County. I would like to thank the Environmental Studies Department for giving me the opportunity to pursue my research interests independently this summer. I have gained confidence through my experience and I look forward to continuing my study throughout the semester.

This summer I conducted field research for my senior essay which will examine the experience of local communities in Madagascar with integrated conservation-development projects (ICDPs) During eight weeks I worked with the Madagascar National Park Service (ANGAP) in charge of Andohahela National Park (ANP) and Action Sante Organisme Secours (ASOS), a local public health non-governmental organization (NGO) that delivers healthcare to villagers in the periphery of ANP. ANP is an ICDP founded in 2000 in southeastern Madagascar at the interface of the rainforest and the spiny desert. It is home to many endemic and endangered species and is thus the focus of many international conservation organizations. I spent time in 4 peripheral villages of ANP and examined how well health programs are integrated with conservation programs and whether they provide 1)positive benefits for the peripheral villagers and 2)the sorts of economic payoffs (or development) necessary for ICDPs to work. I chose to research the healthcare development initiatives of the Andohahela ICDP because the perceived effectiveness of initiatives to improve access to health-care facilities and overall health is a question of pressing concern to these peripheral communities. By researching one development initiative of the ICDP in-depth, I was able to draw some conclusions about the present success of this ICDP. My research determined that even if healthcare programs are successful in terms of achieving their goals, which was often not the case, this does not mean that it will deter people from using the resources that are protected. Through interviews with villagers, I began to understand the lack of interdependence between their own health priorities and conservation. Most people do not see the connection; it is quite a stretch that these organizations are trying to make. They may see healthcare as a “direct” benefit from the existence of the park, but not understand why conservation is important and may therefore still not participate in achieving conservation goals while nonetheless enjoying healthcare benefits offered by creation of the ICDP. I chose this project because I find important to figure out what makes ICDPs successful or not, and subsequently how to improve or reinvent them, so that there will better development in the future and in turn, a healthier environment. I hope that my project contributed to this goal in some small part.

I did a spring internship at a wildlife rehabilitation facility called Second Chance Wildlife Center (SCWC) in Gaithersburg, MD. The center cares for approximately 5,000 animals, including raptors, deer, squirrels, songbirds, opossums, and box and snapping turtles. It’s run by an energetic, dedicated woman named Christine Montuori, four other full-time staff members, a part-time vet, and several volunteers. In the summer, the center accepts between two and six interns, and in the spring only one or two. I worked forty-hour weeks cleaning cages, feeding animals, and administering medication. I learned to suture wounds, examine and admit patients, take x-rays, perform necropsies, and assist the vet in surgery and lab analysis. I strongly recommend this internship to anyone with an interest in veterinary medicine – the staff and facilities are great, everything is extremely well-organized, and I learned how to handle and care for dozens of animal species.

This summer I traveled to the West African country of Ghana to integrate environmental awareness with public health education in the development of eye health initiatives in the village of Humjibre. My project focused on blindness prevention and correction, as well as the environmental and social implications of proper treatment and prevention of infectious eye diseases. To address the concern for blindness correction, I implemented a Cataract Surgery Program to identify those patients who could potentially recover eyesight with cataract surgery. Over 800 individuals were screened for cataracts, and over 500 pairs of reading and sunglasses were distributed. In addition, 33 residents of Humjibre and neighboring villages were identified as candidates for cataract surgery and traveled to Cape Coast Eye Clinic to receive the surgeries. The second objective of the project – blindness prevention – was addressed through eye health education programs. Groups of Junior Secondary School students were taught basic eye anatomy and eye care; general facts about three diseases causing blindness: river blindness (onchocerciasis), trachoma, and cataracts; and procedure for performing visual acuity screenings. Following the disease overview, the students were taught about treatment and prevention through the SAFE strategy. I emphasized the significance of caring for environmental issues such as deforestation because of the economic and health effects it could cause. Eradication of diseases such as river blindness can open up abandoned farmland near rivers where it was once feared. Up to an estimated 17 million more mouths could be fed from this land yearly. My trip to Ghana was an amazing educational experience. Not only was I introduced to a culturally foreign lifestyle, I learned about the relationship between ecology and economy in the developing world. I chose to undertake this project because of my strong conviction for public health equality and education, especially for developing countries such as Ghana, and because of the significant socio-economic and environmental associations with infectious eye disease and blindness prevention. In a country with only one ophthalmologist per million people, I learned quickly that the key to the country’s growth is to develop a self-sustaining society through empowerment.

Landlocked Alewife and Implications of Dam Removal or Fish Ladder Construction In Connecticut
Vicente Undurraga Perl, Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Track) '06

This summer I was part of a research project studying alewives. We mainly focused on the effects of the reintroduction of anadramous alewife in freshwater lakes in Connecticut. Some of the things I learned this summer were different fish sampling techniques that varied according to the developmental stage of the alewives. Some of these methods were gill netting, the use of casting nets, plankton nets, seining and dip netting, etc. Once or twice a week, I was able to go out in the field to the Roger’s Lake station, were the lab had installed several bags containing different conditions. Some bags contained both anadramous and landlocked alewives, some only had one type of alewife and some did not have any. Every time the bags were visited, several measurements were recorded. Some of these parameters were visibility, temperature at different depths, and other parameters that were obtained from water samples. When I was not in the field, my work in the lab consisted of washing sampling bottles and other sampling equipment. I also got to help with the cleaning of other sampling supplies from other field experiments, as pitfall trap containers. Later in the summer I did some data entry from the various lakes sampled and also from the bags at Roger’s Lake. Many lakes had to be sampled and for this I worked closely with one of the PhD candidates, Eric Palkovacs, with whom I went to several lakes and tried to collect alewives. This task was incredibly difficult since early in development, alewives are transparent and the only thing that you can see from this fish that is less than an inch long, are the eyes! Some recommendations for people thinking about doing a field research based fellowship for the summer would be to only do the fellowship and nothing else, since it is very hard to combine field work with any other activity that requires a time commitment outside of lab. Because I, not knowing how hard it would be, decided to take physics and also work in the lab, it was very hard to combine and effectively perform 100% in both. Overall, my experience was positive, I learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in an Ecology lab and I would definitely recommend the experience to anyone who can seriously devote all their time to it. You can see some pictures of my experience at http://pantheon.yale.edu/~vju3/sampling/sampling.html

Research on Mesoamerican Reef Health in Akumal Mexico
Sarah Jane Selig, Environmental Studies and International Studies '06

During my three week stay at the CEA center in Akumal, Mexico I primarily worked with CEA survey data. CEA had previously collected surveys through paper surveys in the CEA center as well as internet surveys accessed through the CEA website. My task over this period of time was to review the survey information and summarize the data for an upcoming meeting with the Mexican government where the ongoing development plan for Akumal will be discussed. My findings were significant because we had a number of repeat visitors as well as potential home buyers as respondents. I also aided in collecting data for Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) scans of the Akumal area. These scans are used to discover rock compositions as well as the depth of the water table and salinity. This data was collected with assistance from a Cornell professor as a project for a student of Hamilton College and will be appropriately analyzed upon return to the United States. Finally I collected water samples for an ongoing water quality project for the regional cenote (freshwater ground system) and ocean system. These samples were filtered and then cultured to detect the presence of a variety of bacterial growth that is assumed to indicate fecal contamination of the water. Overall my internship with CEA was a very educational experience. I had the opportunity to see the interaction of a NGO and the Mexican Government. The extreme difficulty related to changing policy or making lasting change in the area was high-lighted by the land usage questions of the development plan for 2029 and the sale of all of the mangrove covered land behind Akumal, for an undisclosed amount of money, to the governor’s brother. At the same time it was difficult to be involved in policy development that I was supposed to be working on with no funding and very little leverage with the government. In terms of recommendations, I probably would not recommend working with CEA without a very clear plan that included no infrastructural support from CEA beyond housing. As the group is still poorly funded, they have ongoing projects that are making very little forward progress. From my knowledge of CEA’s interaction with other similar groups in Mexico, this type of problem is common with environmental groups in central and south America. Basically policy is very hard to develop without infrastructure and governmental support.

Thanks to the Environmental Studies Internship Fellowship, I spent 9 weeks in Kenya with the Malaria Programme headed by Dr. Githure at the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE). The research was supposed to contribute to my senior research project on Bti as a malaria vector control strategy. Bti, or Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, is a larvicide which kills larvae when ingested and is harmless to humans, posing an environmentally friendly and sustainable option for Integrated Vector Management. It has been tested only very little in Africa—an appropriate formulation for the surface-feeding anopheline larvae and application and transport in Africa needs to be developed. I was primarily attached to a new NIH-funded project in Mwea, a rice-growing region in the foothills of Mount Kenya, where they were still in the initial stage of baseline data collection, mapping the species distribution and identifying significant larval habitats. CDC light traps and PSC collection were used to collect adult mosquitoes, and larval dipping resulted in larval samples which were counted and identified. The samples were taken to Nairobi on weekends to be analyzed by PCR and dissected for analysis of midgut microbial populations. Because the testing of Bti formulations in the experimental plots was not supposed to begin until August, I got experience in the field with the baseline data collection, did some water chemistry measurements in the rice paddies, received as much exposure as possible to the malaria programme in general by visiting stations on Lake Victoria and the coast, and attended preparations for future projects involving Bti application in Kenya. Although I was not able to be involved in Bti testing, the experience at ICIPE was invaluable in introducing me to Kenyan culture, in showing me the underlying problems that contribute to the propagation of disease, in giving me a clear sense of the obstacles research faces in a developing country like Kenya, in introducing me to the field of infectious disease and entomology, and in making visible the ultimate goal toward which all the little projects are aiming. It also made me understand how a one dollar drug can be very much out of reach.

Since the 1800s, the Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) population has suffered a dramatic decrease in numbers due to human population growth, loss of habitat, hunting, and capture of cubs for zoos (Miquelle and Pikunov 2003 and Kuchrenko 2001). Human impact affected the tigers to the degree that by 1941, the population of Amur tigers had decreased to twenty to thirty individuals in the Russian Far East (RFE) (Kaplanov 1948). Although the population has increased during the second half of the twentieth century due to protective legislation and conservation efforts, the population exhibits low genetic variability to the extent that that Amur tigers in captivity may have more genetic variation than those in the wild (Russello et al., in press). In the YIBS Molecular Systematics and Conservation Genetics Laboratory, Dr. Michael Russello and Dr. Gisella Caccone are currently conducting a genetic survey of the Amur tiger to study the human impact on P. t. altaica populations, to study population status and recovery, and to link in situ and ex situ conservation efforts. My contribution to this ongoing project was to determine the sex of individuals by optimizing a molecular sexing protocol on non-invasively collected scat samples from the RFE. To accomplish this task, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify two distinct DNA regions: a fragment of the SRY gene, a gene specific to the Y chromosome, and a tiger-specific microsatellite, which is present in both sexes of P. t. altaica. Before I could begin screening scat samples to determine the sex, the PCR conditions were optimized to allow for the amplification of both the SRY and the microsatellite DNA fragments. To optimize the conditions, several different combinations of varying concentrations of DNA from samples, DNA primers, bovine serum albumin (BSA), magnesium chloride, and DNA polymerase were used. Initially, to save time and reagents, the DNA amplification was performed with both the SRY and microsatellite primers simultaneously in the same reaction tube. Ultimately, this multiplex reaction yielded inconsistent results, so the reactions were performed separately. Once the conditions and reagents were optimized and tested on blood samples from captive individuals of known sex, the non-invasively collected scat samples were screened. The DNA used in the PCR reactions was a 1:10 dilution of the original extraction. Dilutions were made to decrease the concentrations of inhibitors present in the samples. If no bands were present using the 1:10 dilution, a 1:100 dilution was used to further decrease the presence of inhibitors. To determine the sex of the samples based on the PCR reactions, those samples possessing both the microsatellite and the SRY fragment were classified as males, and those possessing just the microsatellite fragment were classified as females. The results of the primary screening revealed individuals that contained only the SRY fragment or samples classified as males, but had the possibility of picking-up SRY DNA from prey items. This discrepancy was caused by the lack of specificity in the original SRY primers. The original primers contained SRY DNA sequences present in multiple species, including prey items, such as, deer and wild boar. Therefore, there was no way to determine if the PCR was amplifying tiger SRY fragments or the SRY fragments of prey items. To eliminate the uncertainty from the previous screening of scat samples, a new set of SRY primers was created in which the 3’ end began on a variable nucleotide position present only in cats. If a sample contained prey DNA, the SRY fragment would not be amplified. To ensure that the new primers only amplified tiger DNA, the cat-specific SRY primers were tested on prey items, such as, Sika Deer and domestic pigs and cattle. Since the new primers did not amplify the SRY fragment in prey items, the samples were screened again using the new SRY primers and the original microsatellite primers. Samples were scored as males if they contained the SRY fragment in addition to the microsatellite fragment at either 1:10 or 1:100 dilutions. Of the ninety-one samples screened, seventy-four individuals were sexed (81.3%): twenty-two males and fifty-two females. Although the number of females outweighs the number of males, many samples likely came from a single individual. The samples were divided into forty-nine distinct groups based on the location of the scat collected. Because many groups contained multiple samples of the same sex, there is the possibility that the samples were, in fact, taken from the same individual. To determine if the scat samples within the same group were from one or multiple individuals, the genotypes at several variable microsatellite sites must be established to correctly assess the number of individuals present in a group. This new data would decrease the number of females to yield a more balanced sex ratio. From this opportunity, I gained experience working in a science research laboratory, enhanced my understanding of the scientific method, and increased my awareness of the conservation methods used to preserve the Amur tiger. The problems I most often faced during this summer were contamination of the PCR products and failure to amplify DNA. To determine the source of contamination, I would have to take a step back and screen each reagent to determine the source of contamination, thus providing me an opportunity to use the scientific method to resolve the problem of contamination. PCR reactions which yielded no products also provided me a chance to examine my methods and materials to establish the source of failure in a given screening. The opportunity to design my own small experiments to troubleshoot problems within my project gave me further confidence in performing experiments on my own and a better understanding of the methods for performing scientific research. Overall, this program was a worthwhile experience. Because of the funding provided by the Environmental Internship Program, I was able to gain valuable experience conducting scientific research and contribute to a project to improve the conservation methods for Amur tigers. I would recommend this program to students interested in spending the summer months gaining knowledge and experience in the field of environmental studies and conservation.

Without a doubt, China has been perhaps the biggest beneficiary in today's globalization – especially in the economic realm. At the same time though, environmentalists are witnessing what they would call a crisis in sustainable development in China. While multinational corporations (MNCs) have been active players in increasing the international exchange of goods and services in China, they are also often cited by environmental and social activist groups as the "bad guys" only aiming at making money out of the 1.3-billion population. However, what exactly have the biggest MNCs done in China in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is still to be examined. This is the purpose of my summer research – to lay foundations for my senior essay on this topic and collect materials that can be used to discover some interesting dynamics in MNCs' role in China's environmentalism. I used my summer time researching with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in China on MNCs' environmental performance in the country, and through UNDP, I was able to obtain some of the documents necessary to do the case-study of Shell/Royal Dutch in the building of the West-East Gas Pipeline from China's western Uygur province of Xinjiang to coastal city of Shanghai at the East China Sea (see Figure 1). The total length of 4,200 kilometers of the pipeline route covers seven provinces: Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Anhui. It is an enormous project that the country has decided to undertake, only second to the Three Gorges Dam in terms of financial investment. With the UNDP, I was able to obtain a copy of the Social Impact Assessment for this project that they had conducted per request of Shell. I decided to pick on this case mostly because the interesting dynamics involved in the decision-making of the MNCs involved. The Chinese partner of this project, PetroChina, a formerly state-owned company that still enjoys government support, has gotten an OK from the government in starting the project. However, when foreign ventures such as Shell joined in 2001, they informed PetroChina that they could not start the project in three months' time because there would be tremendous amount of preparation work to do, including the standard environmental and social assessment. The project was then delayed to early 2002; in the meantime, Shell persuaded PetroChina and other joint ventures in pursuing thorough environmental impact assessment (EIA) and social impact assessment (SIA). Shell's insisting on these assessments being done and its success in doing so reflect that it could potentially be a positive force in "racing to the top" instead of "racing to the bottom" in greening China's industrial facilities. After hearing from the people at UNDP and research institutions that carried out these studies, I was able to interview some people in Shell's China headquarters. An external affairs manager received me and we spent about an hour talking about Shell's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies in China – the rationale, the deeds, the controversies, and the outcomes. Throughout the session, my general impression is that he was a strong believer of a "corporate culture" and that in a big company like Shell, a "corporate culture" was formed by the good-willed people. Shell had some bad track-records in its conduct of business in many parts of the developing world, but with all its faults and failures to observe the responsible standards, it is now especially careful in any actions that are going to have negative environmental and social impact. We can claim that part of this is from public pressure and Shell's concern about its corporate image, which could influence its corporate image; however, after the initial stage of globalization in the late 1980s and early 1990s when most of the corporate environmental and social scandals took place (and Thomas Friedman has been talking about his so-called Globalization version 3.0 in the 21st Century), MNCs nowadays do seem to have formed a culture that's basically "good." Like other social groups, private firms are composed of individuals as well, and the individuals working in them are the ones that are going to form the culture of the company. Our expectation is that the most renowned firms usually hire the brightest and most talented people, who, in commonsense, are usually honest and good people. There are good reasons to believe that most of the employees within Shell are what we call "good people." That being said, the example of Shell in China could potentially be a point of slight optimism – the MNCs, with all their expertise and international prominence in their respective fields, are often considered the most important business partners, and even role models, by their Chinese counterparts. MNCs' strategies in sustainable development will be crucial in guiding the direction of growth in many industrial sectors in China. Another case-study I worked on was also with Shell – its Nanhai (South China Sea) petrochemicals project (Figure 2). In 2002, Shell gave the final go-ahead to build a large petrochemicals complex in Daya Bay, Southern China, a $4.3 billion project in which China National Offshore Oil Corp. Petrochemicals Investment Limited and Shell each have a 50% share in a joint venture company called CNOOC and Shell Petrochemicals Company Limited. It is Shell's largest investment so far in China. The joint venture has been working with the government to mitigate the impact on the environment and manage social issues related to the project according both to Chinese laws and Shell's Business Principles. As with many mega-projects in China, people needed to be relocated. The joint venture therefore developed a detailed Resettlement Action Plan in line with World Bank standards to help manage this process. The move is being carried out by the government in accordance with this plan. Nearly 1,500 families were moved in February 2002 to accommodation better than they left to allow site preparation to begin. Another 900 families living close to the site will be moved in the middle of 2003. The joint venture company is monitoring the resettlement, and a team of external experts started a program of checking progress of the resettlement every six months. The mitigation standard they used to measure impact is termed by insiders as "ALAPP", or as low as practically possible. My research internship over the summer also coincided with the UN conference on the Global Compact initiative that 1,500 companies from 70 countries signed up for. The problem in China today, however, seems to be that with all its stringent environmental legislation of the past twenty years, enforcement is lacking. On the one hand, local governments are gathering more and more autonomy and therefore more local power in enforcing laws and regulations; on the other hand, the tax revenue of local governments often comes mostly from the companies that are not meeting the environmental standards set up by the central government. A Shell officer provided a good story: right next to its Nanhai petrochemicals project was a local Chinese power plant, but with all its soot and dumping into the ocean, it kept its operations going, whereas Shell would invite government inspectors into its plants monthly to carry out monitoring work. The one time that Shell failed the test for air particulates was mostly due to the fact that the power plant next door emitted so much soot that the wind blew extra amount of particulates into Shell's project complex. These kinds of dynamics are the rule rather than the exception in China – small- and medium-sized local firms are often tolerated of their unsustainable practice, and this is a political structure problem yet to be dealt with. Of course, this is not to say that the government is not doing much – in fact the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has been elevated to the ministerial level by the State Council so that it would have more power. Structural reforms are being carried out, but the speed and the outcomes do not appear too satisfactory yet. Therefore, this leads me to think about the other two sectors of the society, namely, civil society and private sector – what they can do to contribute to the efforts by the government. Most of the unsustainable practice today in China come from small- or medium-sized companies that are aimed at only making profits, and most of them do not have a set of business standards that can make the rest of the society trust them in conducting in a socially responsible manner. MNCs, therefore, when venturing or partnering with local businesses, have the potential to push for more responsible practice in their projects, which, oftentimes are big projects that require foreign expertise and management skills. Through these kinds of cooperation, it is possible that local firms can be influenced and compelled to conduct business in an environmentally and socially responsible way. This initial sense of compulsion could in the long-run turn into one of obligation, and ultimately become the business standards that firms, big and small alike, will adopt in the country. An advanced version of this kind of CSR is what many big firms in Europe have recognized as a way to get a head of the game: to research on the perceptions from the public and jump ahead of government legislation in CSR standards. That way, companies need not panic when a set of newer, more stringent version of laws come out – instead, if they have already predicted the possible legal changes, they will have begun adapting to new standards even before the legislation, giving them strategic advantage in the future. This kind of business thinking, evidently, is not mainstream in China, but if firms start to realize the importance of CSR, this "jump-ahead-of-the-game" strategy can obviously be one that will lead to corporate successes. Currently, I'm still working on formulating a more focused, viable topic for my senior essay during the course of this term, through both the Environmental Studies senior seminar and professors working in this area at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.