My chosen baccalaureate major of study is Biology with a concentration in Marine Biology. This concentration could benefit me if I was tasked with the reduction of climate change and increased conservation efforts in the Bahamas and specifically on the island of San Salvador. There are many forms of conservation efforts including desalinating local water, coral rehabilitation, extracting invasive species, planting trees, etc. These are all examples of ongoing conservation efforts on the island, but there is still a challenging effect on climate change that is rapidly increasing.
A solution that could be implemented would be to introduce a laboratory that specifically identifies a climate change factor and creates a solution for it. A prime example of an institution that I could implement with my Biology degree would be a Marine Fishery. The main positive components of implementing aquaculture would be the decreased reliance on wild fish stocks, management of climate change stressors in a controlled environment, and allow the outside environment to retain resilience to global climate change factors. Aquaculture provides plenty of opportunity for research assessments on the health of the ecosystem in the ocean and provides information on how to reduce the total stress on the environment through short-term regulatory marine fisheries.
Research is one of the main components of discovering how to prevent climate change from affecting the marine ecosystem. A personal career preference of mine would be to introduce a laboratory on the island that specializes in studying coral and the rehabilitation of coral that would help reduce climate change factors. It is a known fact that coral reefs reduce a wave’s energy up to 97%. This ultimately is a helpful prevention to rising sea level and also allows organisms that uptake carbon dioxide to survive and function. Coral reefs have decreased by 50% in a half century therefore contributing to rising sea levels and an indirect increase in ocean acidification. Coral rehabilitation strategies include planting nursery-grown corals onto existing reefs, cleaning wild coral habitat, which ultimately builds coral resistance.The first step in rehabilitation would be to collect healthy detached corals and continue to nurture them in a nursery. These coral pieces then are reattached to coral in the ocean to continue to grow and produce more coral. This conservation technique incorporates a Biology major due to the intensive research and care needed to successfully preserve coral.
My solutions to preventing climate change challenges are extensive amounts of research and implementing facilities including marine fisheries and coral rehabilitation centers. There are endless amounts of positive factors that these facilities would exude which would all decrease factors of climate change. A degree in Biology would adequately prepare me to accomplish the amount of research needed to reduce ecosystem stress factors in the Bahamian Islands.
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