Field Study in Peru
In June 2009, 2010 and 2011 I co-led a joint History-Biology program in Peru with Miles Silman. For four weeks, we traveled the country from the driest deserts of the coast to the rain forest of the Amazonian lowlands learning about tropical biodiversity and the history of nature conservation. It's quite simply the most amazing course ever.
Check out the course blog HERE
Check out the most recent syllabus HERE
Send me a message if you are interested in taking this course.
Here's a more thorough description:
Immersive Program in Sustainability: Biodiversity and Nature Conservation in Peru
The summer program in Peru is an immersive sustainability experience that takes students to some of the most important reserves in the western hemisphere for both biodiversity conservation and also the history of how these reserves are made, and the effects of humans on landscapes, extending back to the very first civilizations on the planet. The program combines Tropical Biodiversity with the History of Nature Conservation in Latin America.
Tropical Biodiversity is an introduction to the factors that structure biodiversity in terrestrial habitats, and travels from the absolute desert of the Atacama at Paracas, Peru, over the High Andes, and ends at Cocha Cashu in the Amazonian lowlands. The organizing question is simple, and I ask it on the first day while we are standing in the desert at the edge of the Pacific, “How is it that we are standing in the tropics, at ~13 deg S latitude, in a spot where there is zero terrestrial productivity and nearly zero terrestrial biodiversity, yet just several hundred kilometers away, on the other side of the Andes, is the area with Earth’s highest terrestrial biodiversity and highest terrestrial productivity? What controls terrestrial productivity and biodiversity? How did this come to be through time? What are the services that ecosystems provide and how are the affected by climate and humans? What can we expect in the future?” As we move across this gradient, students see how temperature and rainfall set these strikingly different biomes and set their biotic composition and control ecosystem function. It gives them a visceral understanding of how fine-scale changes in climate can have radical impacts on ecosystem structure and function and the potential impact of human-caused environmental change.
History of Nature Conservation in Latin America leverages these same sites to consider how different societies have used and conserved these lands over time. From the absolute desert in Paracas National Park to the cloud and rain forests of the Manu Biosphere Reserve, we examine how humans interact with nature across the millennia, how and why we choose to protect areas, and the role of humans in landscapes, as well as the effect of landscapes on humans. Close contact with indigenous groups gives us powerful insight not only into history, but also the conservation and sustainability challenges of the future.
One of the powerful aspects of the combination is that we have structured the two courses to closely parallel the environments we’re in. For example, in the Tropical Biodiversity course students will learn about large-scale global climate patterns and ENSO, read primary literature on sea bird foraging in the Humboldt current, and visit guano islands in the Paracas Reserve. The history course then examines the history of the Peruvian economy and the role of guano, and the innovative conservation strategies employed by Peru to protect its industry, all in the light of larger trends in the development of Latin American states. This occurs at all of the locations we working in on the course. It is an amazing experience for the students to read the primary literature to see how we have shaped and will shape the very environments that we are experiencing. More than that, it gives them a paired knowledge of scientific and historical/social science views of issues central to biodiversity conservation.
In June 2009, 2010 and 2011 I co-led a joint History-Biology program in Peru with Miles Silman. For four weeks, we traveled the country from the driest deserts of the coast to the rain forest of the Amazonian lowlands learning about tropical biodiversity and the history of nature conservation. It's quite simply the most amazing course ever.
Check out the course blog HERE
Check out the most recent syllabus HERE
Send me a message if you are interested in taking this course.
Here's a more thorough description:
Immersive Program in Sustainability: Biodiversity and Nature Conservation in Peru
The summer program in Peru is an immersive sustainability experience that takes students to some of the most important reserves in the western hemisphere for both biodiversity conservation and also the history of how these reserves are made, and the effects of humans on landscapes, extending back to the very first civilizations on the planet. The program combines Tropical Biodiversity with the History of Nature Conservation in Latin America.
Tropical Biodiversity is an introduction to the factors that structure biodiversity in terrestrial habitats, and travels from the absolute desert of the Atacama at Paracas, Peru, over the High Andes, and ends at Cocha Cashu in the Amazonian lowlands. The organizing question is simple, and I ask it on the first day while we are standing in the desert at the edge of the Pacific, “How is it that we are standing in the tropics, at ~13 deg S latitude, in a spot where there is zero terrestrial productivity and nearly zero terrestrial biodiversity, yet just several hundred kilometers away, on the other side of the Andes, is the area with Earth’s highest terrestrial biodiversity and highest terrestrial productivity? What controls terrestrial productivity and biodiversity? How did this come to be through time? What are the services that ecosystems provide and how are the affected by climate and humans? What can we expect in the future?” As we move across this gradient, students see how temperature and rainfall set these strikingly different biomes and set their biotic composition and control ecosystem function. It gives them a visceral understanding of how fine-scale changes in climate can have radical impacts on ecosystem structure and function and the potential impact of human-caused environmental change.
History of Nature Conservation in Latin America leverages these same sites to consider how different societies have used and conserved these lands over time. From the absolute desert in Paracas National Park to the cloud and rain forests of the Manu Biosphere Reserve, we examine how humans interact with nature across the millennia, how and why we choose to protect areas, and the role of humans in landscapes, as well as the effect of landscapes on humans. Close contact with indigenous groups gives us powerful insight not only into history, but also the conservation and sustainability challenges of the future.
One of the powerful aspects of the combination is that we have structured the two courses to closely parallel the environments we’re in. For example, in the Tropical Biodiversity course students will learn about large-scale global climate patterns and ENSO, read primary literature on sea bird foraging in the Humboldt current, and visit guano islands in the Paracas Reserve. The history course then examines the history of the Peruvian economy and the role of guano, and the innovative conservation strategies employed by Peru to protect its industry, all in the light of larger trends in the development of Latin American states. This occurs at all of the locations we working in on the course. It is an amazing experience for the students to read the primary literature to see how we have shaped and will shape the very environments that we are experiencing. More than that, it gives them a paired knowledge of scientific and historical/social science views of issues central to biodiversity conservation.