INTD 201 - Environmental Synergisms

This course will explore the multifaceted threats to biodiversity and how such threats also endanger food security and human livelihoods. The course will examine the state of global fisheries and their management as a case study in how the interaction of environmental problems (environmental synergisms) exacerbate threats to biodiversity, food security and human livelihoods. Well known examples of this from Africa include the following two. Fishing off the coast of Western Africa by European factory ships has depleted fish stocks there. Consequently, people in West Africa are forced to rely primarily on bushmeat (wild mammals killed for subsistence) for their protein need, which greatly endangers wildlife in West African forests. Although there is a strong cultural proclivity for bushmeat in West Africa, bushmeat, unless supplemented with fish, can’t substitute as a protein source without seriously compromising other biodiversity. Similarly, Japanese factory ships have depleted fisheries off the east coast of Africa creating serious livelihood hardships off the coast of Somalia. However, increased bushmeat harvesting is not a viable livelihood option in arid Somalia; instead people are forced to take drastic measures, such as piracy, to sustain their livelihoods. There are additional examples from North and South America and these will be interrogated in the course as well. The course will be taught seminar-style and will include classroom lectures, discussions and reviews of selected primary literature.

4 credits