The International Behavioral Ecology Congress (ISBE) took place at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Great Wilderness (GW) was there.  Executive Director Soraya Delgado led the GW team of Karl Berg (GW and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), Vicki Breazeale (GW and Integrated Science Program, California) and Chris James (Biologist, Jatun Sacha Foundation, Quito, Ecuador).

Great Wilderness co-founder Karl Berg, now at Cornell University, presented results from his ongoing research on parrots in Venezuela.  

We met researchers from around the world who are working on a staggering array of projects broadening the understanding of how animals behave in their natural settings.  GW had a booth that introduced the Congress attendees to the Jatun Sacha Biological Stations as venues for future research projects in Ecuador.  The stations provide excellent opportunities to observe animals in healthy habitats and study the function and dynamics of social networks.

The congress included presentations on decision making during predator-prey encounters, experimental design and philosophy, the evolution of male ornamentation in the mating process and the reproductive control (or not) of dominant members in animal groups (reproductive skew).  And these are just a few of the hot topics addressed at this prestigious gathering on this beautiful campus.

GREAT WILDERNESS ART SHOW

Mrs. Dalloway’s bookstore in Berkeley, California is hosting the first Great Wilderness Art Show. The flora and fauna of the Bilsa Biological Station in the Esmerades Province of northwestern Ecuador is wonderfuly captured in these pictures by the great photographer Juliet Bermingham.  Julietta has lived at the station for many years, welcoming volunteers from around the world to this magical place and supporting conservation efforts at the reserve. Additionally, Julieta has developed several projects, mostly focus on gender equity,  around the Bilsa's area to improve the living standards of rural communities.

Her photographs exude love and a sense of the patience required to be the steward of such a place.  The forests of Ecuador are not unique in their diminishing size.  Wild places worldwide are under increasing pressures from human activity and in Ecuador this is especially true.  Everywhere one travels, including the deep forests, there is the mark of human intervention.  The country is the most diverse in South America in so many ways, biodiversity, culturally (can’t beat the food) and geographically from the Galapagos Archipelago, coastal marine habitat, high Andean soaring peaks and the Amazon region in the east.

Visit the show at:

Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary & Garden Art

2904 College Avenue

Berkeley, California 94705

(510) 704-8222

Artist:

Julieta Bermingham

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Project Coordinator

Bilsa Biological Station

Jatun Sacha Foundation

Ecuador

REGIONAL OFFICE IN ECUADOR

We are pleased to introduce Romina Ordonez, who joined GW as our Regional Representative for Latin America in January 2008. Among her responsibilities, Romina works closely with GW’s partner organizations and communities providing coordination, supervision and support for current programs in Ecuador.

Based in Quito-Ecuador, Romina specializes in visual arts, video, edition, and photography. She has made several videos for GW as well as other organizations such the Municipio de Quito, UCLA LatinAmerican Research Center, and has collaborated with several other independent productions. She received her bachelor’s degree in Broadcasting at San Francisco de Quito University and she is currently working towards a Master in Liberal Arts.

Great Wilderness participated in the presentation of “National Policies for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Ecuadorian Andean Ecosystems” held on October 17, 2008 in the Swiss Hotel in Quito, Ecuador. The event was organized by the Ministry of Environment and supported by several conservation organizations such Ecopar, Conservation International, ECOBONA, Inter Cooperation etc. Almost 100 people attended the conference and cocktail reception, among them The Minister of Environment, Marcela Aguinaga, and representatives of several governmental and non-governmental institutions, including IUCN and The Nature Conservancy.

The conference session took a broad and cross-disciplinary approach to addressing policies for the Andean Ecosystems of Ecuador, and included topics such as:

FTDE and Great Wilderness will attend the Orchid Exhibition in California 2010  to introduce buyers and collectors to an opportunity to support rural communities in Ecuador by purchasing orchids grown sustainably by women in rural western Ecuador.  With the blessing of the Ecuadorian government this project will benefit hundreds of families and generate income for increased education, healthcare, conservation awareness and thwart the illegal collection of plants in national parks, forests and private reserves.

FTDE has identified and photographed 2000 species of orchids in the wild, far more than previously recorded, and is linking the well being of their habitat directly to the well being of the people living with these primitive flowers in the forests of western Ecuador.  For the past eight years, FTDE has been developing an orchid propagation and cloning project that will employ scores of people, mostly women, in the orchid industry.

Ecuador has a thriving flower export business that accounts for a large percentage of GNP.  Orchids will be a great fit in this market, including the specialized collectors market for previously unavailable species that will be cloned under the strict regulations of the government and international regulations.  Currently orchids are “poached” in the wild.  FTDE is creating an alternative to this practice, which is devastating to the biodiversity of the region.