Jan. 24, 2008

Columbia Center Links NYC’s Environmental Research Institutions

If you go to the Web site for Columbia’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC), you’ll find a photograph of Shahid Naeem, with a scarlet-and-blue bird known as a Crimson Rosella resting on his outstretched palm.

It was taken in Lamington National Park in Queensland, Australia, where the bird has no natural predators, so the Crimson Rosella knows no fear and will approach anyone, naturalist or not. But it seems understandable that wildlife would be drawn to the soft-spoken Naeem, who studies how changes in the distribution of plants, animals and microbes affect how ecosystems function. Naeem chairs Columbia’s department of ecology, evolution and environmental biology, and he is also the science director of CERC, a consortium of five world-renowned scientific institutions.

Shahid Naeem holds a Crimson Rosella in Lamington National Park, Australia, where wild parrots fearlessly approach visitors who offer them parrot food.

In addition to Columbia, CERC comprises the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Wildlife Trust. (CERC, headquartered at Columbia, also is part of the Earth Institute.) The five institutions work together to teach and train students in ecology, evolution and the environment about the natural world, and they work collectively (and sometimes competitively) on research projects. CERC’s research programs are currently running in over 60 countries.

Climate change tops the list of CERC’s priorities. “We need to take a global view of climate change, not by trying to save one species or one area, but by thinking of the problem on a global scale,” Naeem explains. “The more poorly conserved our habitats are, the worse off we all are.”

Naeem cites as an example the erosion of wetlands in Louisiana. Scientists estimate the state has lost more than one million acres of wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River, a crucial buffer zone that once protected the Louisiana coast and environs from hurricanes. Since the devastation caused by Katrina, “suddenly,” Naeem says, “the conservation of wetlands takes on a new meaning.”

Some methods of offsetting the effects of global warming on climate change focus on mitigation: using alternative energy; offering credits for carbon management, such as carbon capture and storage, which captures carbon dioxide from fossil fuel power plants and stores it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere; and buying hybrid cars.

What CERC is exploring involves adaptation rather than mitigation. “Maybe that means not building our houses so close to the shore,” Naeem says. “Perhaps it involves planting trees differently—different species of trees, at different ages, at different intervals, to prevent the domino effect of trees being downed during big storms. Maybe it means preparing for some species like the Africanized honey bee and the fire ant to move north because of warming temperatures.”

The goal of the CERC consortium is to build environmental leadership through its collective resources and to become a world leader in conservation education, training and research. It is a goal that keeps Naeem ever hopeful.

- Story by Donna Cornachio