Assessing the Effects of Human Activity Related to Sustainability and Biodiversity Conservation on Tropical Forests and Primates

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Assessing the effects of human activity related to sustainability and biodiversity conservation on tropical forests and primatesMichael D. Wasserman & Peter A. Beck, Environmental Science & Policy, St. Edward's UniversityNon-technical Project DescriptionBiodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution are major threats to ecosystem functioning and quality of human life, especially for societies that directly depend upon the local environment for resources. Addressing human-environment interactions is particularly important for tropical forest ecosystems. These ecosystems contain approximately half of all living species, play an important role in climate change mitigation through carbon storage, and filter pollutants from water and air. However, traditional conservation strategies that exclude local populations have often been ineffective leading to significant forest loss over the past several decades. This NSF IRES research program will evaluate the effectiveness of alternative conservation strategies to maintain tropical forest ecosystems and primate populations, while also maintaining the livelihoods of local communities surrounding the forests. Through this research program, underrepresented students in the environmental sciences will gain international field research experience. The investigators will integrate ecological and social research methods to address questions critical to fields of ecology, anthropology, and environmental policy, address current environmental issues such as habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss, and provide STEM training for underrepresented students at two biological field stations in Costa Rica (La Selva and Las Cruces) in collaboration with the Organization for Tropical Studies. Students will work closely with Costa Rican field assistants and local communities during their research, thus providing multiple opportunities for cultural exchange. Interested Costa Rican university students will be included in the projects and encouraged to apply for the master's program in environmental management and sustainability at St. Edward's University. At the end of the 10-week program, students will present their initial results to local communities and Costa Rican scholars at a public forum and will be encouraged to communicate their final results through peer-reviewed publication and presentations at professional conferences. An additional end product associated with this program and utilized by the IRES students will be a fully functioning laboratory capable of running immunoassays for quantifying primate hormone levels in the field, thus transferring scientific knowledge and infrastructure to a developing country. Results from this research program will provide important insight useful to the design of policies for sustaining both biodiversity and human livelihoods, particularly in tropical forest regions. Technical Project DescriptionTropical forests are one of the world's most important ecosystems, containing at least half of all species, regulating climate, purifying air and water, and providing resources for local communities. Nonetheless, over the past few decades widespread deforestation has significantly reduced the extent of tropical forests, leading to declines in wildlife populations that depend on them through habitat loss and fragmentation. Primate populations have been especially affected with more than 60% of all species considered vulnerable or endangered by the IUCN. Efforts to preserve the remaining forests and threatened species dependent on them have largely focused on creating protected areas, such as national parks. However, citizens often rely heavily on natural resources for subsistence and environmental laws are regularly breached in developing countries, thus weakening the effectiveness of protected areas. As a result, conservation policies have evolved from exclusionary protected areas to strategies that focus on local communities by providing economic and other incentives. Despite the increasing promotion of community-based alternatives by both scholars and practitioners, little evidence exists that they are any more effective than protected areas at maintaining forest quality or sustaining primate populations. Therefore, this NSF IRES research program has two main objectives: 1. To quantify how policies integrating conservation and development objectives, such as ecotourism, academic research activities, and multiple-use protected areas, influence tropical forests and their primates, as well as how effective these environmental policies are at maintaining human livelihoods. 2. To provide international field research experience to underrepresented students in the environmental sciences. To meet these objectives, student projects will examine differences in forest condition (e.g., fragment size, % canopy cover, carbon storage, diversity) and primate biology (i.e., physiology, behavior, population size) across a number of forests at and surrounding Las Cruces and La Selva Biological Stations in Costa Rica that are protected for various objectives (i.e., ecotourism, research, national conservation). Students will also examine the effects of these strategies on local community livelihoods and how this influences local perception of environmental policy. Specifically, 15 ten-week independent master's student research projects will occur across a three-year period to survey primate populations, quantify behavior, measure primate fecal hormone levels with immunoassays in country (an environmental endocrinology laboratory will be established in Costa Rica), conduct interviews and surveys of local landowners, other stakeholders, and tourists, and quantify forest characteristics. By examining interactions between people, parks, and primates through independent, yet interrelated, student projects, we will be able to provide a thorough analysis of the effectiveness of private ecotourism, public protected areas, and academic research stations to maintain livelihoods for human populations and promote conservation of biodiversity. Results from this project will add significantly to the knowledge of how economic, participatory, and research incentives can affect conservation decisions and outcomes. As a breakdown in either natural ecosystems or human society will negatively affect the other, quantifying the effectiveness of various environmental management strategies to maintain both biodiversity and local community livelihoods is necessary to ensure that these policies are actually promoting sustainability and conservation.