The UCI’s Marine and Environmental Speaker Series welcomed Angela Abolhassani, postdoctoral fellow for the Ocean Nexus Center at the University of Washington, on Sept. 22 to deliver the virtual lecture, “The Empirics of Equity: Examining Tuna Management Decisions in the Western and Central Pacific and Indian Oceans.”

An open Q&A session was held following the presentation. The discussion was moderated by Rechnitz Family/UCI Endowed Chair in Marine Environmental Law and Policy Randall Abate, who also serves as director of the Monmouth University Institute for Global Understanding.

Lecture Abstract: Equity issues are often foregrounded in intergovernmental negotiations that address transboundary environmental problems. However, while equity issues are a common feature of negotiations and the subject of a large literature on international environmental law and governance, equity itself has been subject to little empirical study. Limited research has been conducted investigating how states negotiate equity and what forms of equity are ultimately reflected in negotiation outcomes.

This presentation will discuss an empirical study of equity in transboundary tuna management. Tuna stocks are currently managed by a collection of five intergovernmental organizations called “tuna regional fisheries management organizations” (TRFMOs). These organizations assemble states at the regional scale to cooperate for the conservation and management of tuna stocks that cross national and international boundaries under international law. TRFMOs derive their management authority from treaty law agreed to by member states and annually adopt regulatory measures on tuna fishing activities in their regions. Equity issues within TRFMOs often emanate from tensions that arise between the conflicting interests of developing coastal states, which possess resource rights to tuna stocks, and industrialized fishing states, which flag vessels that track and harvest tuna stocks.

This study examined the law and practice of two TRFMOs—the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission—to determine how these organizations respond to equity issues arising from their work. Ultimately, both organizations performed poorly in applying legal commitments to equity to specific management decisions. This finding corroborates the small but robust empirical literature on equity, which indicates that states struggle to apply broad, equitable principles to specific decisions. Perhaps most interestingly, this presentation will discuss the principal finding of the study, which was that legal commitments to equity provided negotiators with a discursive flexibility to reach compromises and produce management decisions.

About the Speaker: Dr. Angela Abolhassani is a postdoctoral fellow for the Ocean Nexus Center at the University of Washington. She has studied transboundary tuna management from an interdisciplinary perspective for nearly a decade. Her work is primarily concerned with improving the equity outcomes of tuna management for developing coastal states. In 2020, she completed her Ph.D. with the University of Tasmania, which was a joint project between the Faculty of Law and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. Prior to her Ph.D., she completed an honors thesis at Arizona State University which applied common pool resource theory to management of the South Pacific albacore tuna fishery. Dr. Abolhassani has also worked in the intergovernmental settings she studies, including with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

The Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) has received a $150,000 grant from the Jules L. Plangere, Jr. Family Foundation to extend and expand a program that partners scientists and students with community volunteers to monitor the health of coastal lakes.

The funding will allow the Coastal Lakes Observing Network (CLONet) project to continue through the summer of 2023 and facilitate the purchase of handheld probes that enable volunteers to measure harmful algal bloom (HAB) levels in their community lakes. The grant has also made it possible for the UCI to establish a citizen science coordinator position to oversee the day-to-day management of CLONet, including the analysis and monitoring of sampling data, organizing coastal lake summits on campus, and guiding multiple CLONet lake groups and individual samplers.

Through CLONet, university scientists and students have trained and equipped community members to sample Monmouth County’s beach-adjacent lakes for properties such as temperature, salinity, clarity and dissolved oxygen levels, then file their readings into an online database. Since the summer of 2019, citizen scientists have been sampling Deal Lake, Fletcher Lake, Lake Como, Lake Takanassee, Sunset Lake, Sylvan Lake and Wesley Lake. Monmouth students and scientists have supplemented the data by regularly sampling the same bodies, along with Silver Lake, Spring Lake, Sylvan Lake and Wreck Pond.

With two years of data now on file, CLONet has determined a baseline of normal conditions for each lake that can be used to discern how recent developments such as weather events, waterfront construction projects or the implementation of new stormwater filtration measures are impacting the waters. The detection of sudden shifts in lake conditions can be used to predict, and perhaps thwart, the onset of HABs, according to Endowed Associate Professor of Marine Science and CLONet coordinator Jason Adolf.

The new probes being provided to samplers will enable them for the first time to collect data on HAB biomass that can be contributed to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s (NJDEP) online HAB Interactive Map Reporting and Communication System. Prior, only Monmouth’s scientists and students had access to the equipment, limiting the collection of information.

“The HABs issue has received increasing attention in New Jersey in the last several years, particularly following the closures of Lake Hopatcong and Greenwood Lake in 2019 that caused major losses in tourism revenue,” said Adolf, who co-leads a HAB Expert Team formed by Gov. Phil Murphy to provide input to the NJDEP. “Unfortunately, we expect climate change will make HABS all the more common in urbanized areas like the Jersey Shore by overheating our lakes and allowing more intense coastal storms that overload the waters with nutrients. The data collected by CLONet’s citizen scientists can help us get ahead of HAB events by spotting the warning signs instead of repeatedly reacting to them after they occur.”

The roughly 650 samples collected by the volunteers as of July have already provided insights into the conditions of the lakes, among them:

• Poor Quality: On a four-tier scale ranging from oligotrophic (best) to hypereutrophic (worst) conditions, the lakes overall fell in the latter category. Typical characteristics of hypereutrophic water bodies include an abundance of nutrients that fuel HABs, low dissolved oxygen levels, occasional fish kill events, and the presence of thick scum and dense weeds.
• Ideal HAB Conditions: Data shows the lakes are most susceptible to HABs from June through September. Links between rainfall and HAB occurrence are suspected and are being investigated using CLONet data.
• Diversity of Lakes: Although they’re similar sized and only miles apart, the lakes vary significantly. Overall water quality (Takanassee consistently rated highest of the group), water properties and even water colors were distinct from body to body.
• Warming Waters: Historic data on the lakes’ conditions is scarce, but measures taken in a study of Deal Lake in the 1970s indicate that its temperature is significantly higher today.

Those interested in joining a CLONet lake sampling team are encouraged to email Citizen Science Coordinator Erin Conlon at econlon@monmouth.edu. Volunteers will be provided free sampling kits and training and can conduct the work as their schedules permit.

“No one knows more about the lakes than the people who live in their neighborhoods, and that local knowledge has been an important asset for CLONet,” Conlon said. “It’s been a pleasure watching the project strengthen our volunteers’ bonds with the lakes and I believe that will go a long way toward protecting these waters in the future.”

The UCI has awarded three Faculty Enrichment Grants for projects that will research whether sea level rise has impacted Jersey Shore home values, how engagement in climate activism influences young people’s social views and identities, and the psychological benefits of experiencing nature.

The UCI offers these grants on a competitive basis to Monmouth University faculty to support individual or collaborative projects for the enhancement of existing curriculum, new curriculum development, research and scholarship and team-teaching opportunities. Funding is available through the Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars program for faculty and student researchers of all disciplines whose work advances core elements of Monmouth’s Strategic Plan and supports the UCI’s mission. The following projects were approved for the summer round.

Counseling with Nature: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Ecotherapy Clients

Faculty researcher: Megan Delaney, associate professor, Department of Professional Counseling

Student researcher: Molly Malkinski

This research will continue work begun through a previous UCI grant exploring clients’ experience in ecotherapy (contact with the outdoors and nature as a method or element of therapy), including their connections with the natural world, connections to eco-grief and thoughts about climate change. Since many of the clients’ sessions will have been done in areas on and around the New Jersey coastline, the researchers will also explore if and how water affects their counseling experience.

Experiences of Youth Climate Activists

Faculty researchers: Alyson Pompeo-Fargnoli, assistant professor, Department of Educational Counseling and Leadership; Melissa Alvaré, lecturer, Department of Political Science and Sociology

The team will explore how engagement in climate activism impacts the development of youth and their broader understanding of social justice issues. The research questions guiding this study are: What is the developmental journey like for youth activists? What are their catalysts, supports, and impediments? Are these environmental youth activists making connections to other areas of social justice activism?

Sea Level Rise – Flood Risk, Property Values and Income Effects on New Jersey’s Coastal Communities

Faculty researcher: Gina McKeever, instructor, Department of Finance, Economics and Real Estate

Student researcher: Valentine Pane

To study the impacts of sea level rise on residential real estate values, an analysis will be conducted of 20 years of sales data for properties located within and outside of FEMA flood zones in coastal communities in Monmouth, Ocean and Cape May counties. The project will also seek to determine how income in these areas has changed and whether homeowners of low to moderate income are being priced out of their homes by rising flood insurance premiums and replaced with higher income buyers.

About the Program

The Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars program is funded through the generosity of many corporate and private donors. If you would like to make a tax-deductible gift to the UCI, please click here. For more information, contact UCI Associate Director Thomas Herrington at therring@monmouth.edu.