About Us
The Ocean and Coastal Policy Program
Millions of people depend upon the world’s oceans for food and economic livelihood. The ability of oceans and coasts to meet these needs has been compromised. Living resources are consistently overused; development, pollution and climate change threaten the productivity and resilience of their delicate ecosystems. The Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions focuses on finding ways to better manage the oceans and their resources for the benefit of mankind.
With partners across the world, the Program is identifying opportunities to lessen the impact of ocean acidification on society. It assists policy makers in finding new opportunities for success in ocean and coastal management as well as ways to safely plan policies for the management of deep sea mineral resources.
In the area of coastal policy, research focuses on identifying how preserving habitats such as mangroves and salt marshes could be an important step to curbing climate change. The Fisheries Leadership & Sustainability Forum, a partnership that includes the Program, facilitates the exchange of ideas and solutions between federal-level decision makers charged with managing sustainable fisheries in a changing world.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions improves environmental policy making worldwide through objective, fact-based research in the areas of climate change, the economics of limiting carbon pollution, emerging environmental markets, oceans governance and coastal management and freshwater concerns at home and abroad.
The Nicholas Institute is part of Duke University and its wider community of world-class scholars. This unique resource allows the Nicholas Institute’s team of economists, scientists, lawyers and policy experts to not only deliver timely, credible analyses to a wide variety of decision makers, but to convene these individuals to discuss and achieve common understandings regarding this century’s most pressing environmental problems.
Tim Profeta serves as founding director of the Nicholas Institute, which comprises the Duke Center for Sustainability & Commerce and six programs—Climate and Energy, Ocean and Coastal Policy, State Policy, Environmental Economics, Water Policy and Ecosystem Services.
