KINGSTON, R.I. — October 29, 2001 — The Coastal Institute at the University of Rhode Island will host a day-long symposium to examine the management of Rhode Island’s coastal ecosystems on Nov. 10 as part of the URI fall honors colloquium. The event is sponsored by The Providence Journal, the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-New England.
“Managing a Moving Target: Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island’s Coastal Ecosystems” will be held in Room 271 of the Chafee Social Science Center on URI’s Kingston campus from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
The event will focus on Narragansett Bay as a significant economic resource and an environmental management challenge. Speakers will discuss how to manage the changing ecosystems of the state in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner.
The speaking agenda includes:
– Lance Gunderson, associate professor and chair of the environmental studies program at Emory University, who will discuss how adaptive management methods can be applied to large complex ecosystems;
– Stephen Olson, director of the Coastal Resources Center at URI, providing a historic profile of the ecosystem changes that have occurred in Narragansett Bay and the response of resource managers to them;
– Ken Payne, senior policy director for the Rhode Island Senate, presenting his research on establishing links between economic opportunity and ecosystem health for Narragansett Bay;
– Rutherford Platt, a geographer and lawyer in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, discussing approaches to the development of sustainable urban waterfronts; and
– U.S. Senators Lincoln Chafee and Jack Reed offering opening and closing remarks.
The event will conclude with the play Buy the Bay: Rhode Island’s Coastal Resorts from the Gilded Age to World War I, written by URI Professors Maury Klein and Judith Swift, with music by Charles Cofone. The play was first performed in 1992 and originally sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the R.I. Committee for the Humanities and produced by the R.I. Historical Society and the Division of State Library Services.
For more information or to register for the symposium, call 874-6513 or visit www.ci.uri.edu/projects/sustainability.
For Information: Todd McLeish 874-7892, Sarah Emmett 874-2116