OSARA President Dr. Christopher Anderson will give the keynote address at the University of North Texas Biology Graduate Student Association’s Annual Symposium. The invitation to participate in the “Annual Research Day in Life Sciences” continues the existing work between OSARA and UNT and offers a new possibility to strengthen collaborations with science graduate students.

Anderson’s talk, entitled “Biocultural Conservation: A ‘Southern’s’ Perspective from the South” will focus on the history and existing programs in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. Dr. Anderson will also use this case study and his personal experience to show how students interested in science and conservation can create and implement meaningful programs and initiatives, not just at the ends of the earth, but anywhere they find themselves.

During her first visit to Puerto Williams this week, President Michelle Bachelet spent the day reviewing public work projects in the town before embarking with the navy to visit Cape Horn.

After inaugurating the new public nursery school, masters students from the University of Magallanes presented the Minister of Education Yasna Provoste and the National Director of the JUNJI (the state-supported nursery school system) Estela Ortíz with gifts that included the books and educational materials that researchers of the Omora Park (Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity and University of Magallanes) have prepared in conjunction with the local teachers for pre-school children.

In the afternoon, before embarking for Cape Horn, Drs. Ricardo Rozzi, Francisca Massardo and Christopher Anderson were asked by Congresswoman Carolina Goic to present the President, the head of the Chilean Navy Admiral Rodolfo Codina, and Rear Admiral Felipe Ojeda with these educational materials, plus ecotourism guide books and other publications produced by the scientists of the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve.

At the meeting with the president, the researchers explained the importance of the Omora Park as a long-term ecological study site, as well as the urgent need to continue implementing the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve as a model of sustainable development being created “from the South”.

President Bachelet received the ad hoc class with enthusiasm, showing her own knowledge of important issues in the archipelago, such as invasive species, and was very pleased to find out that this was one of the research groups to recently receive the “Fondos Basales” award through the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, which will help consolidate the infrastructure, investigation and outreach activities that are being conducted in the region, thus reenforcing this long-term, world class initiative.

As Dr. Rozzi explained to President Bachelet, “We are working so that the Omora Park will be to the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve what the Darwin Station has been to the Galapagos Islands Biosphere Reserve, providing a critical link between science and sustainable development to improve social well being and biocultural conservation.”

The University of Magallanes recently received the good news that the Chilean national science commission (CONICYT) will fund its proposal to integrate two new faculty members whose functions will be to study invasive exotic species and fisheries management in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve (CHBR).

The grant, written by Dr. Andrés Mansilla (OSARA Advisor) and Dr. Christopher Anderson (OSARA President), will significantly strengthen the team of investigators in the CHBR and also re-enforce the new priority of marine-terrestrial studies.

The project is a first for the UMAG, which as a regional university is often at a disadvantage to receive important national funding. The current program will be funded by the prestigious Bicentenniel Initiative of the Chilean government and is meant to strengthen research teams by providing three years of funding for Ph.D. scientists that are subsequently incorporated into the full-time staff of the sponsor institution.