ENVR251

Understanding how science, policy, and livelihoods interact is critical to citizen engagement with many issues related to the environment. This course provides some of the tools for such interdisciplinary engagement, using the case study of the Maine lobster fishery and ongoing debates over right whale conservation within that fishery. The course reviews the basics of how marine policy is made at local, state, and federal levels; explores concepts and models from population ecology and their application in conservation and fisheries management; and asks how policy can be responsive to livelihood needs that are in conflict with conservation goals. Prerequisite(s): ENVR 203 or BIO 206.