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Visits to Conservancy projects provide International Leadership Council members with the opportunity to see firsthand how conservation principles and tools are applied on the ground. Members also interact with local landowners, community leaders, non-profits and other Conservancy partners as well as local Conservancy staff.
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The Fall 2005 ILC trip to Brazil, included a site visit to a nursery in Guaraquecaba, where members learned about the Conservancy's Atlantic Forest restoration efforts. General Motors, American Electric Power and Chevron (all ILC members) have invested more than $18 million to restore and protect 50,000 acres in the Atlantic Forest . © TNC
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Recent site visits include:
Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico (November 2006)
The first destination on this trip was Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Mexico’s greatest wetland area, which lies two hours south of Cancun. With its close proximity to Cancun, one of the main threats to this area is pending coastal development. In addition to the encroaching stress of tourism, members heard about other threats to the region, including poor wastewater management practices, over-fishing and unsustainable farming operations which all have an adverse effect on the Mesoamerican Reef system that lies off the coast of Sian Ka’an. Participants also learned about the Conservancy’s work with partner organization Amigos de Sian Ka’an (ASK) and our efforts to reach out to local communities.
Following the visit to Sian Ka’an, the group traveled to the Maya Forest, the second largest intact tropical forest in the Western Hemisphere. On this leg of the trip, participants learned about the approach that the Conservancy and its governmental and NGO partners are taking to protect the Mexican portion of the Maya Forest at the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Slightly larger than the state of Delaware, Calakmul harbors the largest tracts of tropical forests in Mexico and contains several archeological centers.
Local Conservancy and partner staff detailed two main threats facing the reserve: deforestation (from slash and burn agriculture, timber poaching and poor forest management techniques by neighboring communities) and population growth (which has resulted in higher rates of illegal hunting and an increase in road construction). Participants visited with local communities living outside the reserve and saw firsthand the strategies that the Conservancy and its partner organizations are offering as an alternative to unsustainable land management practices.
Atlantic Forest, Brazil (October 2005)
Brazil’s Atlantic Forest contains one of the world’s highest concentrations of biodiversity. Yet, only seven percent of the forest remains. As a result, restoration and connection of remaining fragments is The Nature Conservancy’s primary conservation objective in the region.
The International Leadership Council trip to the Atlantic Forest focused on three strategies the Conservancy is promoting to encourage restoration by businesses and local communities of degraded lands. They included:
· Payment for ecosystem services (carbon financing and watershed protection)
· Sustainable enterprises (cocoa, bananas, ecotourism)
· Economic incentives for private landowners to create legal forest reserves and restore riparian forest
The purpose of the Council trip was to (1) provide participants with firsthand exposure to conservation strategies and results in a developing world setting; and (2) solicit advice from members on how the Conservancy and its partners can make these strategies more efficient and effective.
The Disney Wilderness Preserve, Kissimmee, Florida (December 2004)
The Disney Wilderness Preserve is a 12,000-acre sanctuary of natural communities that sustains 16 endangered and threatened species. Located just south of Orlando at the headwaters of the Everglades ecosystem, the preserve is bordered by two large swamp systems and two lakes--Lake Russell and Lake Hatchineha. The Conservancy has owned, managed and worked on restoring the preserve since 1992.
The preserve’s pine and scrubby flatwoods, dry and wet prairies, freshwater marshes, and forested wetlands harbor more than 300 wildlife species, such as bald eagles, Florida scrub-jays, sandhill cranes, Sherman’s fox squirrels, eastern indigo snakes and gopher tortoises. In addition, more than 50 butterfly species have been documented at the preserve.
In an innovative approach to mitigation, the preserve was established through the cooperative actions of The Walt Disney Company, Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, The Nature Conservancy and several public agencies in 1993. Conservancy scientists, stewardship staff, resource managers and volunteers work togehter to repair drained wetlands, restore uplands, reintroduce a natural fire regime, remove non-native plants, plant native vegetation and monitor threatened and endangered species.
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