Osara.org

Cristóbal Pizarro, a master’s of conservation student at the Omora Park-University of Magallanes, has been chosen to receive a Rufford Grant For Nature Conservation from the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation (United Kingdom). Pizarro’s project is based around the consolidation of the Omora Park’s bird observatory to include marine species as part of long-term global change monitoring. The award of £5,700 is part of the foundation’s efforts to support small conservation programs and pilot projects around the world. This latest award in recognition of Mr. Pizarro’s efforts is in addition to receiving the prize for the best poster at the Chilean Ornithology Congress in August and being the recipient of a scholarship from the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity.

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.

As announced previously, the Chilean Network of Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Sites hosted a two day workshop in Ushuaia, Argentina on bird banding and monitoring to expand the Omora Park’s 8 year program to both sides of the Beagle Channel. More than 35 individuals from divers backgrounds, including the Austral Center for Research (CADIC), the provincial government for natural resources, administrators of the national parks systems and local tourism operators. This activity is one in a set of activities that began in 2003 with the goal of linking researchers from the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve with adjacent Argentine colleagues.

Radio Magallanes
Radio Polar

The Minister of National Lands Romy Schmidt recently visited the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve as part of an initiative to return ancestral property to the Yahgan Community in the area of Wulaia Bay on Navarino Island. During her visit from from 20-21 October, Minister Schmidt also visited the Omora Park, where she re-confirmed her committment to the University of Magallanes and the Omora Foundation’s efforts to use this site as a natural laboratory and “outdoor classroom” that also is a priority conservation site identified by the Chilean National Environment Commission. The minister’s activities were guided in the field by Dr. Andrés Mansilla (director of research and postgraduate programs at the UMAG), Rodrigo Medina (station manager of the Omora Park), and Ximena Arango (local education coordinator of the Omora Park).

See local press articles:

Radio Magallanes
Radio Polar

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.

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.

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.

The scientists and philosophers involved in the creation and implementation of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve are firmly committed to putting their research into practice. Part of this work involves the definition of the new trans-discipline of “biocultural conservation,” which requires overcoming significant challenges such as “translating” between academic disciplines, languages, cultures and ways of perceiving the world.

In this effort, Drs. Ricardo Rozzi and Francisca Massardo, as well as others from the CHBR, have been working for the past few years to create a seminal body of work that will serve as a foundation for environmental philosophy in Latin America and for biocultural conservation in general. Now a special edition of the journal Revista Ambiente y Desarrollo has publish these texts in Spanish and included commentaries from well-known thinkers from the realms of policy, ecology and philosophy from throughout the Americas and Europe. To learn more visit the CIPMA website, download the pdfs from the journal directly with the link above, or read the Introduction (in Spanish).

Dr. Ricardo Rozzi and colleagues’ article in the April edition of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment has already received attention in various news outlets.

Now, in addition to achieving the cover of this highly prestigious and widely distributed journal, Dr. Rozzi has been interviewed for an ESA podcast that highlights the journal’s most important publications.

The attention Rozzi and his colleagues bring to bear on the previously unrecognized biodiversity found in non-vascular flora in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve is used as an illustrative example of how cultural viewpoints (”lenses”) influence not only what we study and value, but what we chose to prioritize and conserve.

To learn more, visit ESA, read the article or listen to the podcast.

See local press in Radio Polar.

Since 2007, Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Leah Dudley has been collaborating in the thesis of University of Magallanes student Ana María Caicheo, under the direction of Drs. Ricardo Rozzi and Francisca Massardo. In March, Ana María and Leah finished one of their final field expeditions as part of this innovative thesis that seeks to determine the role of insects in dispersing the spores of Tayloria mirabilis. The relationship of insects and non-vascular plants is a completely undeveloped field of inquiry in the Southern Hemisphere. This project is a collaborative effort between the IEB, UMAG and Omora with international associates from the University of Labrador, University of Connecticut and Cornell University and is a pioneering activity in the CHBR to determine the ecological role of the “miniature forests” of Cape Horn, which not only are some of the most diverse organisisms in the subantarctic biome, but could potentially also fulfill key ecological functions.

During her OSARA internship in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in 2007, Clare Brown worked long and hard to check and fix the Omora Park’s 8 year database of bird banding information, accumulated since 2000 by numerous field technicians and volunteers. She then helped put those data into a manuscript on the autecology and natural history of one of the subantarctic forest’s few long-distance migratory bird species: the fío-fío (Elaenia albiceps). Clare will now use the experience gained with OSARA to conduct a masters in environmental science at Evergreen State Univeristy.

To view the resulting paper, please visit the website of the Anales del Instituto de la Patagonia.

From UNT Research News Highlights >>>

UNT and the Chilean Institute for Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB) are using a 10-year, $15 million grant to build a high-tech field station in Chile’s Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve that will support researchers and students working to protect, preserve and sustain one of the last true wilderness areas in the world. <continue reading>

In a public ceremony presided over by President Michelle Bachelet and Minister of Education Yansa Provoste, the Chilean Science Commission awarded the prestigious “Basal Financing” awards to the 8 institutions chosen as Centers of Scientific and Technical Excellence. The funding will provide 10 years of support and is part of Chile’s Innovation Program meant to promote development in key areas that will affect the nation’s future stability and wellbeing.

Dr. Mary Kalin received the award on behalf of the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, which was also represented by researchers Drs. Juan Armesto, Ricardo Rozzi, Pablo Marquet, Julio Gutiérrez and Andrés Mansilla who represent the IEB’s network of universities, including the Catholic University, the University of Chile, the University of Magallanes, the University of La Serena and the University of Concepción. Part of the new funds will also be used to implement a national network of socio-ecological research sites, taking advantage of the IEB’s 3 existing study sites in the Omora Park-Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, Senda Darwin Biological Station and Fray Jorge National Park.

To see an article in Spanish, visit the CONICYT site.

Since 2004, UMAG masters student Ximena Arango has worked in Puerto Williams to define and implement a “charismatic flagship” species that would promote conservation of old-growth forests in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. Arango, a native of Columbia, early on identified the Magellanic woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus) as a keystone species that was also very beloved and recognized by diverse social sectors of the local community.

Arango used her scholarship from the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (2004-2007) to position this species as a symbol that motivates the local community to participate in conservation in the subantarctic archipelago. To date, her work has inspired a host of woodpecker-oriented activities, including: a municipal-sponsored drawing contest for school children, various art expositions, postcards, calendars, cloth bags, and presentations, among others. To consolidate this initiative and project it “from the South”, in June 2008 the Omora Park will offer a training course, led by Ximena, to teach this methodology to other conservation initiatives in the region and throughout Chile.

To learn more about how the Omora Park is working to implement charismatic flagship species for conservation see the recently published article in Magallania entitled: “Discovery and implementation of the Magellanic woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus) as a charismatic flagship species for the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve.” Download the pdf by clicking here (in Spanish with English abstract).