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In 2006, the Omora Ethnobotanical Park and Bellunesi National Park (Italy) became “sister” parks. The collaboration initially included receiving a group of 15 students and authorities from Italy, including the director and president of Bellunesi N.P. Now, our Italian partners have made a donation of 3,000 Euros to the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity to support the implementation of the Miniature Forests of Cape Horn Garden, a new trail being implemented in the Omora Park to demonstrate to visitors the diversity, beauty and importance of these tiny plants. In June, the Omora Park will present this initiative in Italy as well in the context of the anniversary of Bellunesi National Park.

The American Birding Association program Birder’s Exchange (BeX) approved an application submitted by OSARA for UMAG master’s student Cristóbal Pizarro to obtain birding equipment to conduct his thesis on the sea birds of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve and their possible role as vectors that link marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The donation also proved useful in January as part of this year’s Tracing Darwin’s Path course for students involved in the elaboration of a new ethno-ecology book for which they had to obtain new photos and sound recordings of island birds.

A multi-national group of scientists, lead by Spanish lichenologist Dr. Leopoldo Sancho from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain, returned to the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve (CHBR) for a second major expedition in January. The trip continued work begun in 2005. This year the multidisciplinary team included taxonomists, geomorphologists, botanists, philosphers, UMAG masters students and UNT undergrads. The scientists and students navigated through the Northwest Arm of the Beagle Channel, studying principally the lichen flora found along recently receeded glacial valleys.

The taxanomic and ecological study will be linked to work done by Dr. Sancho and his colleagues in Antarctica and included the installation of a climate station in the Omora Park. Future work will continue to explore the effect of climate change and Antarctic-Subantarctic connections by using lichens. In addition, the team is helping Dr. Ricardo Rozzi, UMAG master’s student Yanet Medina and UNT undergrad Kelli Moses develop content for the narrative of the new “Garden of the Cape Horn Miniature Forest,” a trail being implemented in the Omora Park to bring this hidden aspect of biodiversity to tourists’ attention.

OSARA President Dr. Christopher Anderson will give the keynote address at the University of North Texas Biology Graduate Student Association’s Annual Symposium. The invitation to participate in the “Annual Research Day in Life Sciences” continues the existing work between OSARA and UNT and offers a new possibility to strengthen collaborations with science graduate students.

Anderson’s talk, entitled “Biocultural Conservation: A ‘Southern’s’ Perspective from the South” will focus on the history and existing programs in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. Dr. Anderson will also use this case study and his personal experience to show how students interested in science and conservation can create and implement meaningful programs and initiatives, not just at the ends of the earth, but anywhere they find themselves.

During her first visit to Puerto Williams this week, President Michelle Bachelet spent the day reviewing public work projects in the town before embarking with the navy to visit Cape Horn.

After inaugurating the new public nursery school, masters students from the University of Magallanes presented the Minister of Education Yasna Provoste and the National Director of the JUNJI (the state-supported nursery school system) Estela Ortíz with gifts that included the books and educational materials that researchers of the Omora Park (Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity and University of Magallanes) have prepared in conjunction with the local teachers for pre-school children.

In the afternoon, before embarking for Cape Horn, Drs. Ricardo Rozzi, Francisca Massardo and Christopher Anderson were asked by Congresswoman Carolina Goic to present the President, the head of the Chilean Navy Admiral Rodolfo Codina, and Rear Admiral Felipe Ojeda with these educational materials, plus ecotourism guide books and other publications produced by the scientists of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve.

At the meeting with the president, the researchers explained the importance of the Omora Park as a long-term ecological study site, as well as the urgent need to continue implementing the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve as a model of sustainable development being created “from the South”.

President Bachelet received the ad hoc class with enthusiasm, showing her own knowledge of important issues in the archipelago, such as invasive species, and was very pleased to find out that this was one of the research groups to recently receive the “Fondos Basales” award through the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, which will help consolidate the infrastructure, investigation and outreach activities that are being conducted in the region, thus reenforcing this long-term, world class initiative.

As Dr. Rozzi explained to President Bachelet, “We are working so that the Omora Park will be to the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve what the Darwin Station has been to the Galapagos Islands Biosphere Reserve, providing a critical link between science and sustainable development to improve social well being and biocultural conservation.”

The University of Magallanes recently received the good news that the Chilean national science commission (CONICYT) will fund its proposal to integrate two new faculty members whose functions will be to study invasive exotic species and fisheries management in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve (CHBR).

The grant, written by Dr. Andrés Mansilla (OSARA Advisor) and Dr. Christopher Anderson (OSARA President), will significantly strengthen the team of investigators in the CHBR and also re-enforce the new priority of marine-terrestrial studies.

The project is a first for the UMAG, which as a regional university is often at a disadvantage to receive important national funding. The current program will be funded by the prestigious Bicentenniel Initiative of the Chilean government and is meant to strengthen research teams by providing three years of funding for Ph.D. scientists that are subsequently incorporated into the full-time staff of the sponsor institution.

The work conducted by scientists in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve is getting broader attention than ever these days in the major scientific journals of ecology and conservation. In the upcoming issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, you will be able to check out a new article written by Dr. Ricardo Rozzi and others that challenges the scientific community to “change the lenses” through which biodiversity is viewed.

Co-author, Dr. Christopher Anderson (OSARA president) points out that “in this article we use the case of the surprising diveristy of mosses, lichens and liverworts (bryophytes) in Cape Horn to show how we can be blind (or not have the right lenses) to even perceive the most diverse organisms around us. While Cape Horn lacks great diversity in mammals and trees, it is truly another ‘Amazon’ when it comes to the ‘miniature forests’.

However, the invitation these scientists make is to explore and discover unseen aspects of our natural world, in order to value, conserve and use them. This is the work that the scientists of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve are committed to and for which OSARA has the stated mission to support.

For a reprint of the article, please contact us!

Since 2004, OSARA together with the University of North Texas and the Omora Park have been searching for the appropriate way to achieve the construction of a field station in Cape Horn. Various people have been involved in this effort, whose complexity has required a slow, but steady march to arrive our goal.

We are, therefore, pleased to announce that in October, OSARA joined a coalition of organizations to create the Cape Horn Field Station. The new cosortium is lead in Chile by the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity together with the University of Magallanes and the Omora Park and coordinated in the United States by the Univeristy of North Texas with the participation of various other universities and the Center for Environmental Philosophy.

This new team is now applying for funds from the Chilean government that will supplment the IEB’s current budget by $1 million dollars US per year for 10 years. The IEB has in the past two years taken a leadership role in managing the Omora Park as a long-term ecological research site, and these new new funds specifically will be used for infrastructure in the IEB’s three LTER sites, which also include Fray Jorge National Park (semi-arid ecoregion) and Senda Darwin Biological Station (Valdivian rainforest ecoregion).

OSARA is priviledged to be invited to participate in this initiative. In this way, our small effort is being re-enforced by a strong collaboration with organizations that provide at the same time a foundation, and also a projection for our joint projects.

Thanks to those who have helped with their donation of time, effort and money to help coalese this consotrium. We will be reporting on the progress of this initiative as time goes on.

Former Earthwatch Institute volunteer (and professional cellist) Roger Emanuels recorded a radio program based on his experience at the Omora Ethnobotanical Park, Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. Now this “audio tour” is available online at: http://osara.org/research/audiotour.htm

Geoff Fellows, Michelle Moorman and various others have been working over the last year to make information about the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve available online. OSARA is now pleased to present the CHBR Digital Atlas: http://osara.org/research/atlas.htm.

We hope this format helps expose students, researchers and the general public to the information being generated by the scientific and conservation activities taking place in the Chilean subantarctic archipelago.

I have great news. We went fishing this past weekend to Lago Pollollo with Rigo and encountered another species, Aplochiton zebra (in Wulaia we found A. tenatius). If you need info on these fish try fishbase.org. That’s really exciting because they seemed to be living happily with the trout which Bob McDowell (osmeriform expert) didn’t expect. Also, puye seem to be a plenty on the island. So I don’t think you have to worry to much about the trout - but there were definitely more puye on Hoste (2500 in one reach of 100 m long and 3 m wide - I’m serious on that one.) We did a site at Puerto Inutil - no fish, but we did see some puye in the coast and the fishermen caught some robalo with gill nets while we were working, Wulaia - only puye and A. tenatius, Douglas (2 sites) - puye, rainbow and brown trout, 2 sites on Murray Channel - one had no fish and one had puye and small browns and 3 sites at Kanasaca - one had 2500 puye, and the other two had less puye and brown trout.

By the way, the puye do seem to like beavers - the sites with the most puye have a beaver pond just upstream. So there’s lots interesting going on. We’ve done about 22 sites and have 3 left - if the weather is good. Oh one more interesting thing - we went upstream of the dam at Robalo today - no fish - we sampled both sites. Probably due to the dam.

Un abrazo,
Michelle

I hope all is well in the United States. I have just gotten back for an awesome trip collecting fish in the Murray Channel and on Isla Hoste. I have attached some photos, but don’t worry I have tons more. At one site, we came across a different species (I’ve attached a photo for the fish nerds) which was very exciting and at another sites we caught over 2500 galaxiids in 100 meters of river - the native fish - and the river was less then 2 meters wide. We were counting fish until 12:00 at night. We also had an asado one night with various fishing boats - which was a wild experience - cooking the freshly killed lamb over the fire and then devouring it with our hands afterwards. And one of the fishermen happened to be the cousin of another scientists I have worked with here in Omora. How strange to be at the end of the world - at an estancia in the middle of nowhere and run into another person who knows one of the 15 people I know in Chile - raro! (Although they probably thought it was strange there is a gringo in the middle of nowhere shocking fish in rivers). Well I hope everyone has a good week.

Un abrazo para todos,
Michelle

I hope all is well in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ve been working hard down here on the other end of the world and catching lots of fish. I’ve attached some pictures so you can see me at work (and at play - I went on a great hike the other day). Friday I leave for a week to go sample the western and southern part of Isla Navarino and Isla Hoste - I am really excited to go back to the glaciers another time. If the weather keeps up, it will be an incredible trip. So four of us (myself, Paul (my helper) and two fishermen (Ricardo and one yet to be named) will pile into a fishing boat for a week. It should be an adventure. I will definitely send pictures when I get back. Have a good week!

It is really exciting to be here on Isla navarino studying fish and the relationship between the native and exotic species. We have started sampling streams on the island and we are already seeing a dichotomous distribution between the presence of the natives and the presence of exotics. It appears that the introduced trout has eradicated the presence of the native galaxiid (G. maculaus) in most streams, but there are some streams dominated by galaxiids where only a few small trout are present. This is exciting to see and I look forward to sampling many more sites to find out what environmental mechanisms are related to this distribution. I´ll keep you posted.

Talk to you soon,
Michelle