Earthwatch Conference Notes

I attended Earthwatch's annual conference last Saturday. While it was a somewhat interesting affair, I suspect it would have been more fun had I gone (or met up with) others. My overall impression was that continuing connections with others (team members, scientists, etc) was happening all around me. While Early Man scientist Luis had intended to attend, the recent arrival of a new family member (congrats Luis!) seems to have upset his travel plans. Not surprising I guess.

The morning session consisted mainly of presentations by three scientists of their work. First Nithya Balaji talked about community education in southern India (Tamil Nadu). Next Ralph Riley talked about researching the critical role salmon plays in the Pacific Northwest, and about how local community (fishermen and loggers, for example) are included in their work. Then Chris Joyce talked about research into wetlands in Estonia, and how agriculture there had interestingly worked to increase biological diversity, and how abandonment of agriculture in Soviet times was leading to its decrease in this area.

After these presentations came a forum discussion that I decided to skip, preferring to spend some time in the "Global Village", where a variety of researchers had poster-style presentations of their work, and were themselves present (or had staff there) to answer questions about their work. I had an interesting chat with Karl Laumbach about his work in the American Southwest, digging up Pueblo artifacts.

Following a break for lunch came a presentation by two women, Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, who have done much work for National Geographic over the last 30 years, photographic and documenting indigenous African cultural traditions. A fascinating kaleidoscope of pictures and short video clips was studded with personal reminiscences and a sense of impending loss, especially in areas such as the southern Sudan, only now starting to recover from civil war, where they fear things they documented before the violence began may be irrevocably lost. They have lots of books available.

The afternoon session continued with three more scientist presentations. Marcos Santos talked about Brazil's need to better understand its marine mammal populations, given two challenges: (1) a relative lack of expertise (there are few marine scientists in Brazil, a significant problem given the amount of coastline and rivers), and (2) an increase in coastal development for tourism. Then Mark Huxham gave a spirited presentation on trying to restore damaged and destroyed mangrove stands in Kenya. The importance of these has come to the fore since the Indian Ocean tsunami... The final presentation was by Peter Kershaw, a leading researcher on the impact of global warming in the Arctic. The pictures and data he presented give a particularly compelling message, and he didn't mince the words that had political overtones. Are our politicians listening?

The final event of the afternoon was the keynote speech by E.O. Wilson, probably the world's leading expert on biodiversity. (Do you detect a theme here? Good.) He made some interesting observations on the relationship between habitat preservation and the amount of biodiversity that can be supported when habitat is reduced. If 90% of a habitat is lost, you can expect to lose 50% of the biodiversity, but it only gets worse from there.

If any Earthwatchers read this, did I miss you?