Many of the Chesapeake Bay crowd gathered at an Eastport pub on a snowy evening to toast farewell to Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Mark Belton. Mark was Secretary of DNR for four years, as part of the Hogan Administration. Mark and his colleague Ben Grumbles Secretary of Maryland Department of Environment (MDE), led the Maryland contribution to the Chesapeake and Maryland Coastal Bays restoration efforts and I have enjoyed working with them.

Throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, volunteer monitoring groups collect and assess important water quality and benthic macroinvertebrate data. Thanks to the hard work of the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative, many valuable resources, including methods manuals and factsheets, provide groups guidance in ensuring the quality-and therefore value-of their data.

Let us start this blog by saying that whenever … we travel to India, we are met with the warmest of hospitality from our … colleagues at the National … Center for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM). Dr Ramesh … Ramachandran, Dr Purvaja Ramachandran, Dr Ajit Pattnaik, and their wonderful team … always go above and beyond to ensure we have a wonderful and rich experience. So, thank you NCSCM!

My son, Rupert, and I decided to visit the National Gallery when he was home in Ottawa not long ago. A collection of photographs and videos called the Anthropocene has been drawing crowds all winter. An afternoon together at the art gallery seemed an ideal opportunity for some intergenerational bonding. As it turned out, if it weren’t for a virtual rhinoceros, I doubt that I could have survived with my parental dignity intact.

The tomato icon was used to represent the Food Security and Land Use Change CRA … IAN has been working with the Belmont Forum since December, 2016 to help communicate the added value of transdisciplinary and transnational … research approaches as a pathway to sustainability.

Photo credit: SERC … This blog post is the second of a two-post series examining cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) history and ecology in the Chesapeake Bay. Hauled aboard a fishing vessel on the Chesapeake Bay, most of the creatures caught in the net would never return to the sea. But one supple parallelogram with a kind smile was afforded a less adverse fate.

This blog post is the first of a two-post series examining cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) history and ecology in the Chesapeake Bay. In 2007, an article appeared in the reputable scientific journal Science asserting that declines in large shark populations along the eastern coast of the United States had led to an “explosion” of rays and skates due to lack of predation.

Belmont Forum participants worked together to create a sketch (top) for a conceptual diagram that represented 'Mountains as Sentinels of Change'. The finalized diagram (bottom) will be featured in the upcoming synthesis publication. Figure credit: Yesenia Valverde. Mountain regions are ecologically important worldwide. They are home to incredible biodiversity, providing critical habitat for many species. They also provide critical resources to people.

Emily Nastase, Andrew Elmore, and I traveled to Cottonwood, Arizona in November 2018 to kick off the Verde River Watershed Report Card project. This project is supported by the Forest Service, with partners from the Friends of the Verde River and The Nature Conservancy. We started the trip with a full day in the field on November 12th, driving around the Verde Watershed and getting a feel for the region.

UMCES hosted an environmental summit on November 30, 2018, which marked the official inauguration of our new president, Dr. Peter Goodwin. The event attracted attendees from all UMCES campuses and several other institutions within the University System of Maryland, as well as from outside of the academic community.