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Â鶹AV students in Ukupseni. PHOTO K. Gonzales

I. Core courses (required) in Neotropical Environment (total: 6 credits)

Foundations of Environmental Policy (ENVR-610) (3 credits)
Catherine Potvin

Tropical Biology and Conservation (BIOL-640) (3 credits)
Allen Herre & Sunshine Van Bael

Note: Some courses are offered in "alternate years", so please check with the department offering the course as to its scheduling.

ENVR 610 International Policy and Politics of the Environment (3 cr)

What is the nature of international environmental governance? How are international agreements negotiated and do they really matter? What affects their implementation and effectiveness? To what extent do international efforts to define and address common problems reveal deep fractures within the international system as well as national societies? In turn, how could these efforts help reorder international relations and national politics? To start a group reflection on these very general questions, we will specifically focus on two major treaties: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), two important building blocks of international environmental policies. The first week will provide basic knowledge and an historical perspective on environmental policy. The second week will focus on negotiations while the third week will examine implementation and effectiveness. The historical context in which these conventions were written as well as the tensions between the agenda of the different actors (states but also international governmental and non-governmental organizations, private sector) will be discussed, with a focus on North-South divergence. In the context of the implementation of the CBD, special emphasis will be placed on such issues as meeting the 2010 target, access and benefit-sharing, indigenous and traditional knowledge as well as biosafety. Links to other important international fora such as WTO and WIPO will be discussed. The importance of FCCC for Latin American countries will be examined. Differences between the CBD and FCCC regarding, for example, the role of scientists, financing, etc will be emphasized. The course will rely on lectures, discussions, readings as well as guest speaker presentations. Students’ oral presentations will explore issues related to the course’s main topic. A collective term paper will make up the remaining of the marks.

BIOL 640 Tropical Biology and Conservation (3 cr)

This course will provide a survey of strategic topics in neotropical econology, evolution, biogeography, and conservation biology, with an emphasis on lectures and student-led discussions of recent primary literature, and some field research. Long term research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute will be synthesized to examine the historical assembly and ecological maintenance of tropical communities. This synthesis will draw on evolutionary and ecological concepts to assess the potential resilience and vulnerability of tropical communities to global-change phenomena, habitat fragmentation, logging, fires, and other threatening processes. Both regional and local studies will be used to describe the evlutionary and ecological determinants of tropical species richness. Regional studies will examine the assembly and maintenance of avian communities in the Caribbean islands, freshwater fish assemblages in Central America, and plant and vertebrate communities in the Wet Tropics of Australia. In additiona, key findings will be highlighted from two long-term Smithsonian research programs, the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project in the Brazil Amazon, and a pantropical array of 50-hectare tree plots coordinated by the Center for Tropical Forest Science.

Information on these courses can be obtained either from danielle.lefebvre [at] mcgill.ca (Danielle Lefebvre) for ENVR 610 or from susan.bocti [at] mcgill.ca (Susan Bocti) for BIOL 640.

II. Complementary courses (elective) in Neotropical Environment (total: 3 credits)

Students have to take one additional course, deemed suitable by his/her supervisor and pre-approved by the NEO Director.

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Studying in Kuna Yala. PHOTO B. Anderson

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