Symposium discusses use of long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) sites

During the 6th Southern Connection Conference in Bariloche, Argentina (15-19 February 2010), a symposium was held to address the use of long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) sites as a platform to affect conservation and management of the southern temperate forest biome found in Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and Australia.

The Southern Connection Conference is a tri-annual meeting of ecologists, geographers, geologists and paleobiologists, begun in 1993 as an effort for the countries that were once part of the Gondwana supercontinent (Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand), to have the opportunity to share experiences and to generate collaborations.

Participants to the LTSER symposium included representatives from Chile, Argentina and Tasmania, in the Program’s broader effort to promote LTSER initiatives in the Southern Hemisphere. The event was co-organized by Dr. Christopher Anderson, Subantarctic Program Coordinator, and Dr. Guillermo Martinez Pastur, a forest ecologist at the Austral Scientific Research Center in Ushuaia, Argentina.

The meeting was intended to further on-going work by the University of North Texas, the University of Magallanes and the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity to implement a Chilean network of LTSER sites that work also on the integration of academic disciplines and the academy with society. Additionally, the Program will launch (in March) a special edition of the Revista Chilena de Historia Natural, which shares the proceedings of a previous workshop on this topic held at the Omora Park in 2008.

The symposium was co-sponsored by the Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program and its Chilean and Argentine colleagues.

[Text adapted from an article that first appeared on the OSARA blog]