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).

UNT News Service article.

Resilience Alliance article.

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.

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.

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.

In 2004, the United States and Chile signed a free trade agreement, whose environmental cooperation chapter is reviewed annually to define a work plan on related matters between both countires. In the context of the IV Planning Meeting of the agreement, embassy officials invited representatives of the Cape Horn consortium to participate in elaborating this document. OSARA President Christopher Anderson presented to US Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Science Ambassador Reno Harnish and his staff the activities in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve that could be reinforced by this treaty, including setting goals for sustainable ecotourism, capacity building of park administrators and creating volunteer programs to improve infrastructure. Working together with staff from the US Embassy, the State Department and the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, OSARA will continue to promote these concepts with the goal of linking conservation and sustainable development in the extreme south via this binational agreement.