Kenya

Kimana Group Ranch, which encompasses more than 6,000 square km within the Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem around Mt. Kilimanjaro, is a property communally owned by a group of Maasai families, which they use to graze their livestock. Recently, however, non-Maasai migrants have established permanent agricultural fields around the Ranch’s important wetland areas. As a result there have been increasing conflicts over water resources, not only between pastoralists and agriculturalists, but also between wildlife and livestock. Evidence shows a clear link between environmental degradation and human well-being: water scarcity and contaminated water both lead to hunger and illness, which not only results in a health care burden on a community, but also makes it difficult for laborers to work and children to study, thereby reducing productivity.

The SFS faculty team in Kenya, led by Dr. John Kiringe, drawing on their strong relationship with local Maasai communities, collaborated with Noomayianat Community Development Organization (NCDO) in Kenya to secure funding from the European Union’s Community Environment Facility to implement the Kimana Community Water Resource Conservation Project. The project goals include, rehabilitation of degraded water catchment areas to improve water quantity and quality through tree planting, soil erosion control, and protecting water springs by fencing; constructing new and rehabilitating existing water distribution canals; capacity building for the community through outreach and education; and developing systems for domestic water harvesting through installation of earth dams and storage tanks.

Costa Rica

SFS is working with the officials of Carara National Park and others to update visitor management plans. Students and faculty initiated a long-term bird monitoring program examining the distribution and abundance of bird species throughout the park, identifying those that could serve as bioindicators of habitat quality and/or of special interest to visitors. In addition, the impact of road noise on bird species is also being investigated in Carara and Santa Rosa National Parks. SFS is also working with Costa Rica’s Ministry of the Environment, Energy, and Technology (MINAET) and local stakeholders on the development of a management plan for the Cerro Atenas Protected Zone. SFS students are evaluating ecosystem services in fragmented agricultural landscapes in order to assess the potential for landowners to pay for environmental services. The ecosystem services include biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, as well as soil and watershed protection. The project is going to be extended to other protected zones to improve management strategies and analyze how effectively this protected area category is conserving natural resources.

Mexico

Mexico has one of the lowest recycling rates in the world at less than one percent. In Bahía Magdalena, plastic bottles and other recyclables often end up in the sea where endangered sea turtles frequently mistake them for sea grass, one of their favorite foods. Globally, one billion marine mammals and birds die every year from eating plastics. In August of 2008, SFS Student Affairs Manager, Brady Wheatley, fashioned a giant sea turtle out of 2,000 plastic bottles as a display at Puerto San Carlos’ annual Sea Turtle Festival, created by SFS students and local community members to promote responsible fishing and turtle conservation. A small sign adjacent to the turtle read, “We used 2,000 plastic bottles to make this turtle, which is less than .001% the number of plastic bottles used in North America every five minutes.”

Thanks to a festivalgoer who connected SFS with a distributor, the bottles were trucked to a recycling plant in Tijuana and a fledgling recycling program was soon born in town. SFS procured and fixed-up a warehouse the following semester that, by year’s end, would house 3,500 kg of aluminum, plastic, and cardboard collected by SFS students. The program was awarded $7,000 in grant money in the spring of 2009, which will be used to buy compactors, bags, and more bins for the town and its schools. To ensure sustainability, an outreach component has also been added to the program to bring recycling education into the town’s secondary school system.

Australia

One of the most crucial and endangered types of forest in the Atherton Tablelands is Mabi 5b rainforest, home to the highest densities of rare green ringtail possums and Lumholtz’s tree kangaroos in the world. SFS students have been conducting research on existing Mabi 5b forest fragments and have been working closely with the Mabi Forest Recovery Team to implement forest conservation and restoration initiatives.

When Tropical Cyclone Larry swept across the southern Atherton Tablelands, many forest fragments experienced extensive tree fall and defoliation. This research culminated in five scientific papers authored by SFS faculty and students in a special edition of the journal Austral Ecology (vol. 33). SFS is using those research results in collaboration with the Mabi Forest Recovery Team and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to inform management and restoration plans.

Additionally, SFS students have continued to work with local Landcare groups on rainforest restoration, contributing technical expertise, providing seedlings from the SFS nursery, and planting trees. Because of the extent of students’ work on the ground, miles of the Peterson Creek have been revegetated, abandoned pasture has been restored, and previously isolated fragments of Mabi 5b forest are now buffered and connected, with green ringtail possums and Lumholtz’s tree kangaroos starting to be seen utilizing the restored forest.

The Turks and Caicos Islands

In the spring of 2008, SFS entered into an agreement with the Reef Ball Foundation (RBF) to restore marine reefs around South Caicos Island. With the help of RBF, SFS will create, deploy, and study underwater groupings of specially designed artificial reef structures that will provide new habitats for coral, fish, and other marine organisms. Reef Balls, which are dome-shaped concrete structures with a Swiss-cheese of holes, are designed to imitate natural reef formations, giving nature a jump-start by supplying what would take many years of biological growth to accomplish, and providing a medium to promote new growth. They provide ideal habitats for fish, lobsters, and other marine life, which move in soon after deployment.

South Caicos is fringed by one of the more pristine marine habitats in the Caribbean. These reef areas face die-off due to the effects of global warming, unsustainable and destructive fishing practices, and physical destruction due to storms and anthropogenic factors such as unregulated development. It takes thousands of years for a reef to form naturally, and the degradation or outright destruction of a reef can be devastating to ocean and coastal life, with entire ecosystems being wiped out.

“This has been a wonderful opportunity to combine state of the art technology with research opportunities for students,” says SFS lecturer Catherine Jadot.