Professor Michael J. Wiley has been named the Theodore Roosevelt Chair of Ecosystem Management at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE). Wiley, who has taught at the school since 1987, was nominated by fellow SNRE faculty and recommended by an internal screening committee. The announcement was made today by Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the school. "I'm honored that my peers recommended me and thankful to the committee members who reviewed the nominees," Wiley said. "I hope that during my tenure as the Roosevelt Professor, I can bring more attention to the science and policy of ecosystem management."
Allen Burton, professor and chair of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Wright State University, has been named director of the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystem Research (CILER) at the Universityof Michigan effective Aug. 1. Professor Burton will hold a simultaneous appointment as a professor in U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment, which houses CILER.
The New Jersey-size Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" will likely grow in coming years unless federal policies to control it change, in part because the demand for corn-based ethanol fuel will worsen the problem, University of Michigan scientists say. The dead zone forms each spring off the Louisiana and Texas coast when oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. This summer the oxygen-starved zone swelled to 7,900 square miles, the third-largest Gulf of Mexico dead zone recorded since measurements began in 1985.
A $10.5 million sustainability initiative has been created by the University of Michigan to advance the university's position as a global academic leader in a critical area of research and teaching. The Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute is being launched with a $5.25 million expendable gift from the Graham Foundation, a philanthropic organization established by Donald Graham and his wife Ingrid. The Office of the Provost will provide an additional $5.25 million to augment the University's extensive ongoing work in the field and bring the effort to a new level.
Bunyan Bryant, a prominent educator, social activist and pioneer in the environmental-justice movement, received national recognition on Oct. 20 for his personal contribution and dedication to environmental justice during a national symposium on the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University, which hosted the event in New Orleans on Oct. 19-21, presented Bryant, a University of Michigan professor, with the Damu Smith Power-of-One Environmental Justice Award. The award honors the late Damu Smith, an activist who advanced the cause of environmental justice and paved the way for the formation of the first-ever national network of Black environmental-justice activists.
Environmental injustice in people-of-color communities is as much or more prevalent today than 20 years ago, say researchers commissioned to conduct a follow-up to the 1987 landmark study, "Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States." The new report, "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism in the United States, " shows that 20 years later, disproportionately large numbers of people of color still live in hazardous waste host communities, and that they are not equally protected by environmental laws.
On June 8 University of Michigan students and faculty will meet with state and local stakeholders to kick off an innovative project intended to evaluate options for establishing sustainable eco-tourism in northeast Michigan. The Northeast Michigan Integrated Assessment project, coordinated by the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments and the Michigan Sea Grant program, is the largest collaborative effort of its kind in the state, according to Don Scavia, professor and associate dean of the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment.
It was like deja vu all over again as Alan D. Hecht, Ph.D., Office of Research and Development with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency visited the University of Michigan in early January to deliver a cautionary tale about the importance of sustainability to the global environment. Hecht was back in town recently (as he was 15 years ago to commemorate the EPA's 35th anniversary) to refresh the message as the EPA turns 50 years old.
The immune system of the Great Lakes is breaking down and the ecosystem is in danger of collapse, according to a new report released today by the region’s leading scientists. The report underscores the urgent need for comprehensive restoration to repair the “immune system” of the Great Lakes, and to reverse a pattern of decline that threatens to affect drinking water, swimming, fishing, tourism and other benefits derived from the largest body of fresh water in the world. “This report serves as a warning,” said Alfred Beeton, Ph.D., one of the lead authors and former director of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. “The Great Lakes are deteriorating at a rate unprecedented in their recorded history and are nearing the tipping point of ecosystem-wide breakdown. If we want to restore this resource, it is time to act now.”
The University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment is the only graduate environmental school in the nation to combine natural science, social science and design into one shared research and educational enterprise. Nine faculty members representing multiple disciplines are hosting five symposia that address distinct and complex facets of sustainability science.