University biology professor Richard Emlet has been captivated by the study of marine biology and invertebrates since he was a child growing up in Florida, and this spring that fascination will take him half a world away.
Emlet is one of three University professors to receive an annual grant from the Fulbright Scholar Program, a program that sends hundreds of American students and scholars abroad each year for academic and professional research.
With funds from the program, Emlet and a colleague will spend six months in Sri Lanka researching ways to help halt the devastation of the country’s coral reefs that is caused by commercial harvesting of marine life.
In Sri Lanka, as well as other tropical developing nations, the exportation of exotic marine life has become extremely popular, Emlet said. While interested buyers from all over the world are able to enjoy exotic creatures either for food or decoration, the impact that this trade has on the coral reefs is negative, Emlet said.
“The harvesting is just devastating to the reefs,” Emlet said. “People are taking things directly off the reefs; animals, sea cucumbers-all of these things being shipped off to some aquarium in a dentist’s office.”
After the 2004 tsunami, Sri Lanka’s coral reefs suffered further devastation. While the waves and debris undoubtedly had a huge effect on the reefs, Emlet said that the main reason the reefs were so badly hurt was because of previous human impact.
“The reefs were nailed by the tsunami, but it wasn’t just the waves that destroyed them,” Emlet said. “The waves hit reefs that were already degraded. It was the human impact that made it so bad.”
Emlet hopes to teach Sri Lankans how to cultivate marine animals that can be exported for food or for the aquarium trade. His hope is that he can create a viable alternative to harvesting the animals directly from the reefs.
Emlet became interested in this particular area of research after speaking with a Sri Lankan Fulbright Scholar, and after the 2004 tsunami devastated much of Southeast Asia, he decided to try and come up with a proposal for the Fulbright Scholar Program that would address issues of environmental conservation and coral reef preservation in Sri Lanka. After receiving a grant from the program for the 2006-07 academic year, Emlet and his colleague, a Sri Lankan professor and fellow marine scientist, began formulating ideas on how they could use Emlet’s expertise in the field of culturing marine invertebrate larvae to try and restore health to the reefs.
During his six-month stay in Sri Lanka, which Emlet intends to begin in March of 2007, he and his colleague will begin testing out methods of marine life cultivation. In the process, Emlet said that they hope to find a commercially and economically viable way of continuing the exotic marine life trade while preserving the future of the coral reefs.
“I have no idea if this is economically feasible,” Emlet said. “However, I do feel certain that we can develop methods and teach people how to do this.
“We want to teach them how to make a living without killing the environment.”
While he remains unsure whether the research will be able to provide an economically viable alternative to the current marine life trade, Emlet said that he might also look into developing a relationship with a specific community in order to facilitate an interest in eco-tourism. In doing this, it would be possible to teach Sri Lankans how to protect their natural resources and, in turn, to help with environmental conservation, Emlet said.
Currently, Emlet is on sabbatical in Australia, where he is studying the evolution of Southern Australian marine invertebrates until he begins his Fulbright-funded research. Although everyone may not be as passionate about marine biology as he is, Emlet said he believes that University students genuinely care about environmental and international topics such as the one he will soon tackle.
“Most of the students in Eugene are concerned about the role of the United States in the world,” Emlet said. “This is a place where faculty from the University of Oregon can reach out and have a positive impact on marine environment issues in Sri Lanka.”
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What’s a Fulbright?
The Fulbright Scholar Program was initiated by Senator J. William Fulbright in 1945. Fulbright wanted to create a program that would promote the “mutual understanding between people of the United States and the people of other countries of the world,” according to the program’s Web site.
The program was approved in 1946; since then it has sent more than 273,500 students and scholars abroad to research in places all around the world. Each year, the Fulbright Scholar Program sends 800 American scholars abroad, where they are given the opportunity to research and lecture in a wide variety of academic and professional fields, according to the Web site.
The program is funded by the U.S. Department of State and provides each scholar with money for travel, most living expenses and a small stipend.