Osara.org

The Chilean Ministry of Economy, through its Commission for Innovation, has awarded the Omora Park a $500,000 grant to implement “Tourism with a Hand Lens“ as a specialty tourism offering for the subantarctic and Antarctic regions. According to Carlos Alvarez, executive vicepresident of the fund, “These projects have the objective of addressing the challenges related to innovation in specialty tourism in Chile. We hope that each of these proposals, found throughout the length of our entire contry, contributes to the development of distinctive, sustainable and high quality tourism offerings related to our natural and cultural patrimony.”

Since 2001, researchers in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve have focused on the diversity of mosses, lichens and liverworts found in what Dr. Ricardo Rozzi has termed the “miniature forests of Cape Horn.” In 2004, Rozzi and his collaborators began to promote “tourism with a hand lens” as a way to transfer this potentially esoteric information to development via tourism. Today, these efforts have been highlighted in numerous important newspaper articles, travel magazines and television documentaries. The grant given by the Ministry of Economy demonstrates the major committment from the Chilean Government to this initiative, as well as its ability to ally itself with important local and regional tourism companies, who must provide 30% in matching funds. Dr. Francisca Massardo, director of the project, says “This initiative, which we have developed in conjunction with local and regional tourism operators, is a tremendous opportunity to consolidate the years of efforts of the park to link research and society through ecotourism.”

We are pleased to announce that the Omora Ethnobotanical Park and Dr. Ricardo Rozzi are the 2008 recipients of a prestigious international award given by the Resilience Alliance and the Foundation for Scientific Symbiosis. This recognition highlights the relevance of our small initiative that was born in Cape Horn and is now projected to regional, national and international scales.

The Science and Practice of Ecology and Society Award is an annual recognition given to the individual or organization that is the most effective in bringing transdisciplinary science of the interactions of ecology and society into practice. Nominations are accepted from around the world (click here for information about previous recipients). The award consists of 1,000 € and an article in the journal Ecology and Society, written by the sponsors of the application. The application of Dr. Rozzi and the Omora Park was prepared by Drs. Mary Kalin, Gene Hargrove, Harold Mooney, Peter Raven and Christopher Anderson. This prestigious list of sponsors are themselves the winners of the Volvo Environment Award (Kalin), the BBVA Prize for Conservation in Latin America (Kalin and the 10 researchers associated with the IEB, including Rozzi) and the Tyler Award (Mooney and Raven).

Together with the Center for Environmental Philosophy, the UNT Program on Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation launched a special fall edition of Environmental Ethics, the oldest and most respected journal in this field. This special edition is dedicated to the preceedings of the international workshop entitled “Integrating ecological sciences and environmental ethics in the southwestern archipelago wilderness area of southern South America.” The event, held in March 2007, was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Chilean Ministry of Planning and held in Santiago, Chiloé and Punta Arenas, Chile. This workshop and the resulting journal are unique in bringing together ecologists, philosopher and policy analysts to explore the implications and methods of bridging sciences and the humanities to achieve the creation of a transdiscipline of biocultural conservation. Now, this special edition is being published simultaneously in Spanish with the University of Magallanes, as part of UNT and UMAG’s efforts to create a binational program and dual master’s degree.

From 16-17 October, researchers from the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve will conduct a bird-banding workshop in Ushuaia, Argentina, to expand the Omora Park’s 8 year program to a new site across the Beagle Channel. After the June 2008 workshop on long-term socio-ecological research, held in Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams, researchers at the Centro Austral de Investigaciones Cientifícas, in Ushuaia requested training to implement a complementary and coordinated study in their own area. This effort is being supported, as well, by the visit and participation of Dr. Chris Elphick (U. of Connecticut), who has advised the Cape Horn bird banding program since 2001.

During October, Dr. Ed Stashko, Vice-president for Global Programs of the Organization for Tropical Studies, will visit Chile in a project co-sponsored by OSARA and the US Embassy. While in Chile, Dr. Stashko will visit the major universities and field sites that constitute the partnership of organizations conducting research in the Chilean subantarctic archipelago. In addition to advising OSARA and others in their alliance-building initiative, Dr. Stashko will offer a talk and panel discussion at the American Academy in Santiago on “Capacity Building for Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation”, which will include Drs. Juan Carlos Castilla, Mary Kalin and Ricardo Rozzi as discussion panelists.

University of Magallanes master’s student Cristóbal Pizarro recently won first prize for best poster at the IX Chilean Ornithology Congress (26-28 August 2008) in El Tabo, Chile. The work, authored by Pizarro and his advisors Drs. Christopher Anderson and Ricardo Rozzi, was based on his thesis project, entitled Seasonality and habitat use by avifauna in coastal zones of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. In addition, this project has been financed by a scholarship from the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, and in 2007 OSARA obtained the donation of binoculars for this thesis through the American Birding Association program Birder’s Exchange (BeX).

From 18-23 August in the Slovakian village of Stara Lesna in the High Tatras Biosphere Reserve, representatives from more than 30 countries will convene for the annual International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Network meeting. In representation of the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity’s recently inaugurated “Chilean temperate and subantarctic forest long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) network,” Dr. Christopher Anderson will attend the meetings to present the new Chilean initiative and begin the process of application for membership in the ILTER. The global network will provide important links for the efforts in the austral part of South America to articulate itself with this global program to enhance and consolidate the national program that the IEB is pioneering.

UNT student Catalina Hungerford and Dr. Ricardo Rozzi recently received the award for “best student poster” at the 11th International Congress of Ethnobiology, held from 25 to 30 June 2008 in Cuzco, Peru. The poster, entitled Biological and cultural diversity in the forests of southern Chile: Biocultural verses in Pablo Neruda and Lorenzo Aillapan’s love poetry, is one more example of the biocultural research and conservation initiatives being pioneered in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. In addition, Ximena Arango and Tomas Ibarra traveled to Cuzco to present their work on the implementation of a charismatic flagship species and the cultural landscape of Cape Horn, respectively.

Based on the positive experience in January 2008, the organizers of the Peace Boat have requested that representatives of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve collaborate again in their 2009 voyage to explain the biocultural conservation initiative taking place in the subantarctic archipelago. To learn more, read the article written about the previous visit to Punta Arenas.

OSARA was awarded recently a grant from the US Embassy in Chile to help consolidate the consortium of organizations working in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. The support will help bring the Vice-president for Global Programs of the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) to Chile in October to advise the creation of OSARA as a broader and stronger alliance of US and Chilean organizations. OTS, founded 45 years ago, has become a leader in tropical research and brings together the efforts of 60 institutions on 4 continents to realize this work, making them an ideal partner in our effort.

The journal Nature, the world’s leading scientific periodical, recently published a piece on the proposed control/eradication program for beavers in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. The article now has sparked broader interest, and currently the German magazine Der Spiegel is preparing an article. The articles cite OSARA President Christopher Anderson, who has advised and reviewed the projects and proposals. While acknowledging the challenges and difficulties of such an initiative, Dr. Anderson is quoted as saying “invasive species are an extremely important subject in Cape Horn, which is one of the world’s last wilderness areas. While it may not be feasible to eradicate beavers, it is certainly technically possible, as they were nearly exterminated in North American in the 1800s.” Anderson goes on to point out that “even if it is not possible to completely eliminate problem species in the archipelago, we will learn a great deal our our natural resources by working on binational (Chile and Argentina) conservation programs.” Click here to read the article in Nature.

Eugenia Mancilla, Intendenta of the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic Region, was able to experience “Tourism with a Hand Lens” directly in the Omora Park in the context of the inauguration of the Chilean Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Network on Friday, June 13th. Ms. Mansilla presided over the launching of this network, which links research in Cape Horn, Chiloé and the Atacama Desert, in the presence of invited scientists and authorities from Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain and the US. During the week preceeding the inauguration, national and international invitees and dignitaries participated in a week-long workshop entitled “Confronting global change with a long-term socio-ecological research network in Chile.”

Recently, the University of Magallanes edited a clip on the concept of Tourism with a Hand Lens to show on their newly created local-access cable station. To see the video, click on the link above. Other recent appearances of Cape Horn online include an Ecological Society of America podcast with Dr. Ricardo Rozzi and other online videos produced by park volunteer Bryan Ruegg.

The researchers of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve have been promoting a novel tourism activity in the austral archipelago since 2004 known as “Tourism with a Hand Lens”, a term coined by Dr. Ricardo Rozzi. This initiative attempts to utilize the surprising biodiversity of mosses, lichens and liverworts (the “Miniature Forests” of Cape Horn) in the ecotourism projects being developed by local operators. In 2006, this idea was supported by the regional government via the publication of ecotourism guide books by the Omora Park and then a series of training courses both in Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams.

This week, Chile’s leading newspaper El Mercurio has highlighted Tourism with a Hand lens first in a full page, color article and then subsequently in the Sunday Magazine, which reports Puerto Williams’ potential as a world-class ecotourism destination.