Facilities Improvements for the Prescott College Kino Bay Center for Cultural and Ecological Studies

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Established in 1991, The Kino Bay Center for Cultural and Ecological Studies is Prescott College's field station on the Sonoran coast of the Gulf of California, Mexico. This award will allow the Center to upgrade facilities in order to better support undergraduate education and training, field research, conservation activities, and local capacity-building and outreach programs. The Center is uniquely poised to bring scientists, resource managers, students, and community members together in effective and creative collaboration to address complex research and conservation priorities in the region. The Center offers unparalleled access to the eastern Midriff Island Region of the Gulf, and directly contributes to the understanding of local ecosystems and populations, as well as the management and preservation of fragile island ecosystems supporting world-renowned endemic populations and seabird nesting areas. Use of the field station has increased dramatically over the past 5 years to a current level of over 4,000 user-days. The Center's involvement with regional research and conservation projects and demand from visiting researchers has outstripped its ability to provide adequate lodging, office, and bench space for this constituency. This award will address this shortcoming by renovating existing buildings, expanding the communal bathroom and shower complex, and laundry room, and adding a modest visiting researcher dorm building. In addition propane gas water heaters will be converted to solar systems in an effort to be more environmentally friendly and economically sustainable. These activities follow a plan that was first articulated in a strategic plan, funded by an NSF FSML Planning Grant (1998), which addressed programs, research priorities, equipment needs, and physical plant development.