Boston Blog

Meet legendary biologists and support conservation, research in Costa Rica

Guanacaste on the west coast of Costa Rica, is a popular destination for toucan-watching, comidas tipica-eating families, like mine.

But it is also home to the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) , which is described as “163,000 hectares of stunning marine and tropical forest habitat in northwestern Costa Rica, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 2% of the country, and 2.6% of the world’s biodiversity.”

You can help protect and expand this unique project by attending this week’s fundraising dinner in Harvard Square.

The conservation area offers more than protection for hiking paths. Organizers say it offers a broad range of research opportunities such as the study of complex systems, management of stochasticity and genetic barcoding.

And not just for biologists on field trips. The ACG includes community members in conservation and research programs by hiring “parataxonomists” — local residents trained to do taxonomy.

In addition to supporting this effort, the fundraiser comes with two big bonuses. It is being held at one of Harvard Square’s tastiest, funkiest restaurants – Upstairs on the Square. (The dining room has an appropriate animal print theme.) And you can meet two legends of biology and conservation. Here’s how the organizers bill them:

Daniel H. Janzen Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Pennsylvania is a a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Costa Rican National Academy of Sciences, he has received a MacArthur Fellowship and more for his work in tropical biology and conservation. Janzen and his biologist wife Winnie Hallwachs were instrumental in establishing Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, and have been working for the last 25 years to expand it and endow it into perpetuity. Today ACG is nearly its full size, and the heavy lifting lies in the word “perpetuity.”

Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University. A member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a two-time Pulitzer prizewinner, Wilson’s pioneering work on evolution, ecology, behavior, and biodiversity have earned him the National Medal of Science and more Wilson published his first novel, Anthill, earlier this year.

What will your requested $250 donation support?: The Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund has purchased and enabled the addition of more than 13,500 hectares of land to ACG and has started 50,000+ hectares of degraded land on the path to being once again majestic tropical forest. Current priorities are purchasing critical margin pockets of land, creating its own permanent endowment so that ACG need not rely heavily on donations and grants, and securing the employment of 30 Costa Rican parataxonomists, whose life work is cataloguing and knowing ACG’s rich biodiversity.

Granted, my little family’s footprint was kind of small. But just google “retiree” and “Costa Rica” and you’ll see the impact of all the US seniors who are flooding down there looking for cheap waterfront views.

So we can have a Costa Rica that looks like this and offers opportunities for researchers here and there:

Or we can have one that looks more like this, where the jobs for locals involve cleaning swimming pools:

So, check out this event:

BIODIVERSITY: CONSERVING THROUGH KNOWING

Public Lecture and Benefit Dinner with E.O. Wilson and Daniel H. Janzen

Friday, October 1, 2010

Dinner: 8.00pm, UpStairs on the Square, in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA (map); seating limited to 80, tickets $250 and up.

Public lecture: 6.00-7.30pm, Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge. Lecture is open to the public, admission is free and donations encouraged.

If you can’t go to the dinner, consider a donation. Click here to do that.

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