The School of the Environment at Saint Mary's University is home to a wide range of research on the environment and natural resources. Our professors are engaging in local Halifax initiatives, Nova Scotian research, cross-Canada studies and large international projects. There is a strong focus in the School of the Environment on research that will make a difference for people, society and the economy. The research includes work on developing tools to deal with climate change, supporting Indigenous and local community conservation, conserving water resources, monitoring environmental quality, building better parks, growing green roofs, and more. A few examples of this work are below. The School of the Environment is also active in outreach, linking with government, business and communities in our research, and engaging in the public in discussing environmental issues.
Research Examples:
Dr. Gavin Fridell (Political Science and Global Development Studies) has co-authored a new book with Dr. Ilan Kapoor on rethinking development and our addiction to consumerism and economic growth. The book rethinks development politics psychoanalytically, investigating its unconscious. Whereas mainstream development politics is organized around stability and rationality, psychoanalysis points to disharmony and irrationality, helping to explain the development subject’s often self-defeating behaviour — for example being seduced by growth and shopping, despite being aware of the inherent perils of inequality and climate crisis. The book explores the rationalization of the market, fantasy, and the search for “authenticity” by focusing on contemporary case studies, including digital and green modernization, trade, anti-racist training, and radical politics.
Daniel Jewell (Environmental Science) is developing multi-spectral remote sensing to identify tailing locations and extent, applying Google Earth Engine programming for modelling. His MSc research was recognized with the Georgia Pe-Piper Medal for Excellence in Applied Science in the Faculty of Science at Saint Mary's University. Dan's research article, co-authored with Dr. Linda Campbell and Dr. H. Peter White of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), has been published in Canadian Society of Remove Sensing (open-access paper here: https://lnkd.in/e7sXFRi6) (An Exploration of False Positives Following Multispectral Analysis of Mine Tailings Extent)
Dr. Jonathan Fowler (Anthropology) recently gave a presentation at Keble College, Oxford, to the Association for Environmental Archaeology, on new research quantifying the extent of Acadian dykeland agriculture in the pre-Deportation period. When Acadian farmers converted tidal wetlands to farmland, this involved installing a complex network of dykes and drains. Landscape archaeology is now being used to measure the extent of their reclamation program… and the areas reclaimed are really vast.
Dr. David Richardson (Dean Emeritus, Science) has co-authored an article “The Macrolichens of Barluk Mountain National Nature Reserve, Xinjiang Province, China” in the Open Journal of Forestry. He also wrote a review in the Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science, of the book “An Abundance of Curiosities: The Natural History of North Carolina’s Coastal Plain” (by Edric G. Bolan and James F. Parnell). In Britain, Dr. Richardson gave a talk in Bristol on his grandfather, the artist F.S. Richardson, and attended the Lichen Society meeting at the Natural History Museum in London, sixty years after first attending it.