CONTRIBUTION
In 2011, Asociación Calidris began monitoring migratory shorebirds during their stopovers on Colombia’s beaches. It was not long before they made contact with similar groups in other countries, leading to the launch of the Migratory Shorebirds Project, which now brings together organizations from all eleven countries with Latin American Pacific coastlines, from Mexico to Chile. In its fourteen-year existence, the association has not only been a key actor in shorebird conservation, it has also worked hard to support and strengthen the local communities whose livelihood depends on the birds’ ecosystems. It is for these achievements that it now receives the Award for Biodiversity Conservation in Latin America.
When Luis Fernando Castillo was studying Seabird and Shorebird Ecology at the Universidad del Valle (Colombia), he and other students formed a group to band and release the migratory birds stopping over on Colombian beaches, in the hope that their efforts would help towards a better knowledge of the animals’ behavior. “Back then,” he recalls, “the study of shorebirds was a new thing. But we were excited to think that what we were doing was part of a far bigger exercise, and that our beach was part of a chain linking Alaska to Patagonia.”
The group would shortly form itself into the Asociación Calidris, which Castillo now heads. And given the migratory nature of the birds, it quickly joined forces with similar initiatives in other countries. With the support of the U.S. Forest Service, they came up with a monitoring project that would take in the whole region the birds traveled. Little by little, more countries came on board and, as of 2019, the project encompasses Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, along with organizations in the two countries bordering on the North American Pacific, the United States and Canada. In the last five years alone, they have established or enlarged 18 protected areas – regional, municipal, ethnic or private – in priority areas for threatened endemic and migratory bird species.
When bird counts identified human activities that potentially threatened their survival, the network began to engage directly in conservation activities. “People enjoying themselves on the beach tend to think that their behavior is not doing any harm,” explains Diana Lucía Eusse, a Calidris researcher and the project’s coordinator.
“A key resource to mitigate this impact has been bird festivals, which have been hugely effective in teaching people in a fun way about the importance of birds,” the coordinator continues. “We have run campaigns directed at beach users with signs explaining what they can do to protect birdlife. And we have also worked with property companies to create exclusion zones at certain times of the year, so the beach space is shared between birds and humans. In Chile and Mexico, we even managed to get changes made in the regulations governing traffic access or the passage of motorbikes.”
In this and many other cases, the network has found that conserving birds means involving people: “That’s very much the story of Calidris,” Castillo relates; “the progression from counting birds to thinking about how you can work with people and address their needs.”
Eusse expands on this point: “In Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America, biodiverse sites are shared by people who may be facing complex situations in terms of physical, educational and health capital. And sometimes, as working biologists, we can reach places no one else can get to. Bird conservation is also about strengthening the agency of local communities, because when you work with communities, nature feels the benefit.”
The network has also forged links with salt and caridean shrimp producers in a number of countries. “Salt pans and shorebirds do not actually compete for resources,” Eusse explains, “but the truth is that salt pans are occupying a habitat that once belonged to the birds.” Some member associations have come up with recommendations to ensure that water levels in salt ponds allow passing birds to rest and feed there. And in a similar initiative, in the case of shrimp farms, ponds have been adapted to include vegetation so birds can land and feed, without this getting in the way of the owners’ business activity.
But the real key to getting these recommendations put into practice has been to stress the economic benefits they bring to producers; in terms of corporate image but also through the birds’ usefulness as quality indicators – their presence or rather absence may indicate that ponds are in poor condition and need intervention. “Why would a salt or shrimp producer want to get involved in a project like this?” Castillo reflects. “The key is to talk to them in economic terms.” For Eusse, indeed, “this has been one of our principal lessons as conservationists. The goal is not to make money out of everything, but to be truly successful you do need to talk in terms of sustainable production.”
One of the day-to-day challenges the network faces is the huge diversity of its member organizations. “Each country’s reality is different, the political situation, the economy, the inhabitants…. So it’s vital that we address the needs and particularities of each place,” Castillo observes, adding that frequent meetings and the ability to listen are vital in this regard.
The Calidris founder also relates how the project initially relied on voluntary workers as its main resource for counting birds. “Our reasoning at the time – he recalls today – was that in the United States and Canada, people say ‘let’s count birds’ and set off to do so, arriving at the beach with their telescopes and binoculars…” Not so in Colombia, he adds, “and not in most of Central and Latin America either.” The reality there is that most people have neither the equipment nor the vehicles, and, at times, not even a road that will take them to the coast, as happens in the Colombian Pacific.
A different approach was required, so rather than using volunteers, they opted to base the project on the needs of local communities in target areas. Part of their thinking was that the work of monitoring and conserving shorebirds could generate virtuous circles with the preservation of a large number of other species. In some places, shorebirds may not be a priority for the communities living there, but they are also easy to count and their numbers can indicate whether the beach is in good condition to support fish and mollusks that can provide food for local people or for the turtles and vaquita porpoises which, for diverse reasons, are of more interest to them.
“There’s this place where fish come to spawn just as the shorebirds arrive,” Eusse says. But the data now suggest this synchrony is breaking down due to climate change, so the birds cannot find enough food. Yet bird and fish conservation go hand in hand, and the project is trying to exploit this connection to foster the right conditions for both to survive. “People in the community are interested in the fish, because that’s their food source. And we are interested in the birds. When you bring the interests of the community together with our interests as conservationists, you find connections that put us on the same course,” the researcher adds.
Similarly, the conservation approaches used by Calidris and its partner associations are informed by the diversity of the communities they interact with. “In Colombia, for instance, we have two neighboring sites. One community’s priority was to have its voice heard more widely and get conservation agreements put in place, while that of the neighboring national park was the monitoring of birdlife. Meeting these different needs and realities has been fundamental for Calidris,” Eusse observes. This emphasis extends to the whole network, which encourages all work to be done locally. In this respect, says Castillo, “despite the undoubted North American influence, the project has been a way of positioning Latin America and advertising the fact that here too we have well qualified people.”
Photo credit: with permission from Asociación Calidris