ESCI 260 - Conservation of Natural Resources

1 unit(s)

(Same as GEOG 260) Natural resources are perennially at the center of debates on sustainability, planning, land development, and environmental policy. The ways we conceptualize resources can be as important to understanding these issues as their actual distributions are. This course provides a geographic perspective on natural resource conservation, using local examples to provide deeper experience with resource debates. We focus particularly on forest resources: biodiversity, forest health, timber resources, forest policy, and the ways people have struggled to make a living in forested ecosystems. We discuss these issues on a global scale (such as tropical timber piracy and forest conversion), and we explore them locally in the Adirondacks of New York. This course requires that students spend October Break on a group study trip in the Adirondacks. Students must be willing to spend long, cold days outside, including some strenuous physical activity (unless special permission is arranged with the instructor).

Students wishing to register under Earth Science must have had at least one previous earth science course.

Two 75-minute periods.

Not offered in 2021/22.

Course Format: CLS