Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons^™

Tyler Clevenger: Advancing Climate Policy At Home And Abroad, Christina Nunez

Colby Magazine

"I appreciated pretty early on that [climate] would represent my generation's defining challenge, it would take the best that we as people have to offer." -Tyler Clevenger '18

Gail Carlson: Inspiring Students To Step Up, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

"When you become a doomsday person, when you're really pessimistic, it's because you can't see that you can make a difference." -Gail Carlson, associate professor of environmental studies

Missing The Trees For The Forest: The Socioecological Significance Of Dispersed Farmland Trees In Northern Ethiopia, Jacob A. Wall

Honors Theses

Scattered trees are prominent features in the agricultural landscape of the Ethiopian highlands. The dry Afromontane forests of the Amhara Region in northern Ethiopia have faced centuries of deforestation - the FAO estimates only 3% of the region is forested today. The remaining landscape has been largely converted into agricultural and grazing lands, with the exception of some limited government-protected lands, as well as thousands of small forest fragments left around Orthodox Churches (“church forests”). But while a growing body of scholarship has highlighted the ecological and cultural importance of church forests and other natural forest fragments, the roles of …

Cameras, Satellites, And Surveys: A Multi-Platform Approach To Monitoring Lake Conservation Behavior, Daniel D. Homeier

Honors Theses

Shoreline buffers are essential to maintaining lake water quality and there are numerous methods for their assessment. There is uncertainty in the benefits and drawbacks of different shoreline buffer assessment methods. In this study I explore three methods of remotely assessing shoreline buffers in the Belgrade Lakes Region of Maine: household surveys, geotagged shoreline photos, and satellite imagery. By comparing these three methods I will evaluate their accuracy and applicable scale when used to assess the presence and quality of shoreline buffers.

I used both parametric and non-parametric analysis to (1) evaluate the relative accuracy of 154 household surveys in …

Learning The Lay Of Their Land: Data Recording By Maine Land Trusts, Patrick John Roche

Honors Theses

Land trusts have led the recent, rapid expansion in private land conservation in the US. As they have grown, many questions have emerged as to the value of their conservation efforts, especially in the long-term. To address this data gap, studies have evaluated easement restrictions and the characteristics of land trust protected property. I take a novel approach by investigating the data that land trusts record about their protected properties and its impact on their capacity to protect conservation values. I surveyed 55 land trusts operating in Maine about data they record in baseline documentation reports. A majority (82%) had …

An Analysis Of The Pattee Pond Watershed In Relation To Lake Water Quality, Problems In Environmental Science Course (Biology 493), Colby College, Water Organization For Mending Yesterday's Nature, Colby College, Student Land Use Group Study, Colby College

Colby College Watershed Study: Pattee Pond (2008, 1992)

The purpose of this study was to analyze the water quality of Pattee Pond and to determine the factors that influence it. The study was divided into two major portions: 1) an assessment of land use practices that influence the water quality of the pond, and 2) an assessment of actual water quality of the pond and its tributaries. The investigation of the land use practices in the Pattee Pond watershed focused on determining the extent to which humans influence the water quality of the lake. Water from Pattee Pond and its tributaries was sampled and analyzed in the second …