Chile - In its 1991 report, The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative, the Ecological Society of America stress the necessity to integrate three levels of action of ecology, that is research, education, and environmental-decision making, has been recently emphasized by the Ecological Society of America.
This integration will provide a new context for understanding and changing the present relationship between human societies and nature, with the aim of insuring the long-term sustainability of the global environment. To address the critical problems related to global change it is essential to act at both the regional and local scales. These actions can change people's perception of their environment, while critically examining traditional land use and resource management practices. It's important to understand the biological and cultural relevance of each local system in terms its impact on the global environment.
Furthermore, the approach of landscape ecology has made explicit to ecologists that our task is not only to describe the natural patterns and processes, but also to become actively involved in the design and management of the environment that surrounds us.
With these goals in mind, a group of Chilean and international ecologists have decided to take the first steps toward the establishment of a new academic institution in southern South America, the Institute of Ecological Research ChiloŽ (IIECH). This institute is conceived as an open research center that will encourage scientists to communicate their findings to the public and other professionals, and to develop research programs to solve local and regional environmental problems.
The institute is based in the heart of the temperate forest region of southern South America, on the Island of ChiloŽ, Chile. In addition to being the geographical center of the temperate forest region, the ChiloŽ archipelago and its neighboring mainland currently represent a zone of transition between increasingly human-impacted landscapes towards the north, and almost pristine ecosystems towards the south.
The ChiloŽ region was described as nearly pristine in Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. Most severe land cover changes have occurred only in the past 50-100 years, due to expansion of the agricultural frontier and large scale deforestation around human settlements. The southern half and coastal ranges of the Island still hold large expanses of undisturbed, primary forest.
A major research focus of the IIECH are the temperate forest ecosystems of southern South America. These forests are isolated from other forest formations within South America by large orographic and climatic barriers. As a consequence, austral forests have evolved a rich and largely endemic biota. Some community and ecosystem properties, such as the importance of plant-animal interactions for plant reproductive processes, the high nutrient retention within forested watersheds, and the chemically pristine quality of freshwater, air, and soils also seem remarkable among temperate forests of the world.
In the last decade, however, scientists and environmentalists alike have expressed great concern for the survival of the southern forest ecosystems, in the face of high rates of deforestation, species losses, and particularly, large scale substitution of native forests by monocultures of exotic pines and eucalyptus associated with commercial forestry. The Institute expects to contribute to change this trend, by promoting sustainable forestry practices based on scientific knowledge, and increasing the appreciation of the value of native ecosystems by local people.
With respect to its culture, ChiloŽ Island has maintained a restricted connection to the mainland since the Spanish Conquest, broken only in recent decades by the ferry service and the construction of major roads. This limited contact has determined the conservation and development of a peculiar and deeply rooted Hispanic-Latin American tradition.
In addition, some sectors of the ChiloŽ archipelago are sill inhabited by indigenous people (Huilliches), descendants of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the region, and keepers of a rich legacy of knowledge of their natural environment . The subsistence of these long-lasting traditions, together with the new relations established between modern society and the environment, provide an opportunity to examine how the social and cultural circumstances influence the relationship between people and their land.
As a way of implementing the program of the IIECH, we have established a Biological Station, Senda Darwin (Darwin's trail), located 10 km north of the town of Ancud in the northern coast of ChiloŽ Island, with easy access from the main highway and one hour away from Puerto Montt airport on the mainland. Sections of the old road from Ancud to Chacao, traveled by Darwin in the 1830s are found within the property. The 53-hectare property include patches of second-growth and riparian forests, shrublands, and reclaimable pastureland. In addition, through agreements with the Forest Service, scientists may have access to 45,000 hectares of forested landscape within Chiloe National Park, 1-2 hours away from the Station. The IIECH has also access to private forest lands granted by local owners. At present, a residence house is available to visiting scientists, and in the future we plan to add laboratory facilities, conference and exhibit rooms. A library facility and a data base on South American temperate ecosystems are being planned. Senda Darwin will be open to Chilean and international scientists as a natural laboratory.
One goal of current research activities in Senda Darwin is to understand how land use practices influence and transform the landscape, and alter communities and ecosystems. Presently we are evaluating the effects of forest fragmentation and land cover changes on 1) the structure and composition of the forest biota, 2) the interactions between plants and birds for seed dispersal and pollination, and 3) the recovery of degraded forests. Native forests, in ChiloŽ National Park, provide an additional opportunity to compare the functioning of ecosystems that remain largely untouched by people, with those of areas under increasing degrees of anthropogenic influence (Hedin et al. 1995).
Given that native trees and shrubs are almost excluded from urban habitats, rural environments, and productive land, we decided to begin our educational program by developing three related projects: 1) Learning to construct and appreciate the local environment, a series of courses and activities planned for school teachers, students, and park guards, that consist mainly in the recognition of the native flora and fauna, and planting native species in school yards. 2) To support these activities, and future ecological restoration programs, we are developing a native tree nursery in the Biological Station Senda Darwin. 3) To provide citizens and the large number of tourists that visit ChiloŽ Island with an opportunity to learn about the native forest ecosystems, we are constructing a botanical garden that include a sample of each major forest type in the temperate region. of South America. This garden and its associated educational materials are part of a collaborative effort with scientists of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Edinburgh, UK.
The flexible organization, and integration of multiple scales and disciplines, required to achieve the goals of the IIECH, is hardly possible within traditional academic institutions or government agencies within Latin America. Some of the limitations of traditional institutions are the fragmentation of related disciplines in different professional schools, large burocracy, and excessive centralization. The recognized complexity of global and local environmental problems makes it necessary to develop effective channels for communication between scientists and people in charge of land managing, environmental policy, and decision-making within each region.
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