The Desert Sea: Exploring the Social-Ecological Nexus in the Gulf of California

This course will explore a /holistic/ approach to studying the natural world. This approach integrates life sciences, anthropology, literature, art, politics and economics to understand the many changes that are occurring in marine environments. We will use /desert seas/, especially the Gulf of California immediately to our south as study areas to examine the many challenges facing marine environments and the people who depend on them throughout the world. We will reference ongoing social-ecological research in the Gulf, historical comparisons, local ecological knowledge, and literary records, especially Edward Ricketts and John Steinbeck’s /Log from the Sea of Cortez/.

About the Instructor Dr. Rafe Sagarin is a marine ecologist and environmental policy analyst. Sagarin applies basic observations of nature to issues of broad societal interest, including conservation biology, protecting public trust resources, and making responses to terrorism, climate change, and other security threats more adaptable. Dr. Sagarin is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on two upcoming books on ecology and on biologically inspired approaches to security. He was a AAAS Congressional Science Fellow in the office of U.S. Representative Hilda Solis. He has taught ecology and environmental policy at Duke University, California State University Monterey Bay, Stanford University and University of California, Los Angeles.