Anitra Thorhaug
President, USACOR
What is the Future
of the oceans?
Can we reverse
the degradation?
Index
About the Presentation
What is the future of the oceans? The land-based run-off threatens the health and sustainability of the
coastal and nearshore ocean areas.
Much of the open sea is a desert, especially the volume in the deep sea beyond the photic zone.
The European ocean and sea basins are faced with eutrophication, sewerage, heavy metal and industrial run off,
soil erosion,petroelum and long lived compounds, direct displacement for land fill, ports, harbors, channels, and coastal construction.
Many rivers have extremely long drainage basins through which added nutrients and chemicals pass from
populations into the sea. A series of solutions for the chief pollutant types which are altering the sustainability of the seas and oceans is set forth.
About the Speaker
Professor Anitra Thorhaug is a scientist and advocate for restoring the earth who has influenced the protection of marine and coastal shallow-water habitats in the Americas, Asia, Africa and several island nations.
She has elucidated toxic levels of pollutants through field and laboratory experimentation and helped nations around the world to set scientific standards to eliminate a series of pollutants. She invented the first large-scale seagrass restoration process in the early 1970s to combat habitat pollution effects.
Having organized the first saltwater bay restoration effort in the world for Biscayne Bay, in Florida, she taught the methods to many nations as well the coastal zone management principals of restoration. She taught science, policy, long-term planning and advocacy of coastal protection of living resources to nations in Africa, the Americas, and Asia and the Pacific.
Professor Thorhaug's academic career includes faculty positions in leading Universities in the USA (Berkeley, Yale, University Miami, Florida International University). Currently, she is researching remote sensing of coastal tropical pollution at Yale, and serves as Chair of Physiology of the American Botanical Society, President of the USA Club of Rome, and is a member of the International Club of Rome.
She is author of 10 scientific books plus hundreds of scientific papers. She has led scientific exchange delegations to Asia, Africa and the former USSR. Her work has focused attention on series of critical issues: for example, on thermal and salinity pollution, heavy metals and radioactivity contamination, oil spill clean-up, pollution in specific nations, and on 'The Future of the American Hemisphere'.
Her consulting career includes United Nations Agencies (UNEP, FAO, IOC, UNDP), many national governments, and industry, where she has been influential in alleviating pollution as well as protecting and restoring near-shore resources.
Professor Thorhaug remains active in the restoration of coastal ecosystems. She planted a very large seagrass meadow in the Laguna Madre in Texas, the only bay shared by developed and developing nations. 75 acres have been sucessfully planted. She has also begun planting corals on sand where they have been killed.
She has planted a great many marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses in the heavily used, but damaged Florida Parks, and was on the Florida Governor's advisory committee to examine the effects of the restoration of the everglades in Florida on bays, particularly Biscayne Bay. This was almost a year's work with intense public debate between agencies doing the planning of various parts. It was a 25-year-later add-on to her book Biscayne Bay Past, Present and Future. Biscayne Bay was the first major bay in the USA to have a complete intensive examination by scientists, government and citizens followed a plan of action.
Curriculum Vitae (extract)
1958-1965: Studies at B.S. Smith College (History), University of Chicago and Roosevelt University (Zoology & Biology), University of Oslo, University of Miami (Zoology and Botany), M.S. University of Miami (Marine Biology),1965.
1969: Ph.D. University of Miami (Marine Science, both in Chemical Oceanography and Marine Biology).
1969: NOAA Fellow (Chemical Oceanography) with Harris B. Stewart.
1969: Visiting Professor, Donner Laboratory, School of Medicine, University of California, Berkeley.
1970-71: Weizmann Institute, Dept. Polymer Sciences, Rehovoth, Israel (Biophysics of plant cell membrane transport with Dr. Aaron Katchalsky).
1971-78: Research Assistant Professor (1973-78) and Research Scientist, Dept. of Microbiology, School of Medicine, University of Miami.
1981-82: Director of Joint Environmental Enhancement Program (JEEP) for Central America, Latin America and the Caribbean, International Affairs Center, Florida International University.
1978-92: Research Professor/Scientist/Scholar, Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University.
1991-1999: work for the World Bank (rules about mitigation of infrastructure projects), work for IOC and Secretary General Boutros B. Ghali to assess the oil spill on coastal resources in the Gulf of Arabia after Gulf War I.
1991-2000: work for various United Nations Agencies (FAO, UNDP) on bringing the technology invented in 1973 for seagrass restoration to developing nations along with policies.
2001-present: Research Professor, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University.
Selected Publications
2006: Thorhaug, A. A.D. Richardson and G.P. Berlyn. “Salinity effects on the Seagrass Thalassia testudinum.” American Journal Botany. 93(1):110-117.
1979: Thorhaug, A. "Restoration of Major Plant Communities in the United States." Elsevier Press, Amsterdam(proceedings organized from a conference organized and chaired by AT with introduction by AT in initial time of restoration science.).
1979: Thorhaug, A. "Botany in China " U.S.-China Relations, StanfordUniversity; Palo Alto, CA. 154 pp. (A.T. was the editor of book and wrote many sections herself.)
1976: Thorhaug, A. and A. Volker "Biscayne Bay: Past/Present/Future” Sea Grant Special Report No. 5, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL. 315 pp. (Large symposium bringing together for the first time original information about a major estuary for which AT organized, chaired, edited and wrote several sections.)
1970: Thorhaug, A. "Temperature effects on Valonia bioelectric potential." Biochim. et Biophys.Acta, 225:151-158.
Other Activities
Chair USA Club of Rome; Project Director “The Future of the American Hemisphere”; Member of International Club of Rome.
Botanical Society of America: Chair, International Outreach Committee, Member of Board 1973-83; 2004-present. Chair Physiological Section 1975-82; 2004-09
Ph.D. Honoris Causa. Philippines Women’s University. 1991.
United Nations Awards:
1. Recipient of the United Nations Environmental Program Gold Medal for "Decade of Distinguished Research in Tropical Pollution & Ecology” 1982.
2. Recipient United Nations Environmental Program Award “Global 500 Award” 1987
3. Earth Trustee award medal United nations Environment Program UNEP Women’s Conference for a Sustainable Environment. Miami 1991.
4. United Nations Environment Program award “ Who’s Who Women in Environment” 2006
Links
U.S. Association for the Club of Rome
http://www.global500.org/news_174.html
http://www.global500.org/news_58.html
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