Workshop Resources
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After a number of discussions with people in the region on content, logistics
and potential participants, the Stroud Center's scientific and education staffs
decided that the best way to reach the most diverse and significant audiences
and to maximize the impact of the work we were doing was to give a series of
daylong workshops geared specifically to the following participants: (a) local
public- and private-sector decision makers; (b) teachers; (c) conservation
planners, non-governmental organization staff members, and university faculty;
and (d) eco-tourism guides. This focus enabled us to target our
educational efforts at groups that could both use the information in their own
work and influence a range of audiences that would ensure a broad dissemination
of the issues, information, knowledge and monitoring techniques. It also
enabled us to engage in discussions with local leaders and workers who are
currently in positions to make decisions about the use and protection of water
resources and with teachers whose students will become the stewards of the
future.
Presented
in Spanish and offered free of charge, the workshops bolstered the
conservation efforts of core preserved areas in the neo-tropics, discussed
the latest scientific and educational knowledge on issues affecting fresh water,
offered practical and affordable methods for monitoring streams and rivers,
taught stewardship practices that the participants can both use themselves and
transmit to others, and encouraged appropriate conservation policies in the
region - particularly the importance of maintaining forest cover.
Each workshop began with a discussion on the local and global importance of
clean fresh water, the many roles clean water plays in their personal lives and
local economies, a basic understanding of the ecology of streams and rivers, and
usable ways to determine the health of the water in their communities. The
opening lecture set the stage for the rest of the day by framing the issues,
providing simple but essential statistical and general information about water
resources, explaining the relationship of land use to stream health and the
impact of human activities on water quality, and discussing the critical role
that streams flowing through conserved areas play in the region.
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Workshop participants then visited a nearby stream where they perform actual
measurements of water quality and to collect aquatic macroinvertebrate animals -
insects, snails, crabs, and worms - that provide a biological measure of stream
health. The group learned how to make basic measurements of water flow and
chemistry and to collect and identify aquatic organisms. An
introduction
to macroinvertebrate identification and the role the stream animals played as
indicators of water quality was presented prior to a laboratory session spent
sorting and identifying the animals they had collected that morning.
While North America and Europe have a long history of biomonitoring,
including well-defined sampling protocols and analysis methods, protocols for
Central and South America are in earlier stages of development.
Development of simple macroinvertebrate analysis tools, widely used in the
United States, is difficult when the macroinvertebrate community is not well
known.
In Peru we focused on the abundance and types of taxa identified as
indicators of stream health. A comparison of 4 streams in the Madre de
Dios representing different land uses illustrated how basic chemical and
biological monitoring could help determine future conservation restoration or
conservation priorities. During the Costa Rica workshops we also tried
using the Virginia Save Our Streams metrics with fairly good success. The
need for simple macroinvertebrate analysis tools remains a future need.
Perhaps the most consistent message that came through in both verbal and
written commentary on the workshops was "we want more" - more information, more
time to learn, more and better tools to make a difference, more workshops in the
future for people to attend. A corresponding message was "we want it
now"...because, with the rate of change in the region, time is of the essence.
We encourage others to utilize the training template and
resources provided.
