| Ecosystem Science Program Overview | Espaņol |
Program Description, Conservation Status, and Key Staff
Program Description:
The “Ecosystem Science Program” at Laguna San Ignacio strives to promote social awareness and stakeholder participation in the conservation of this unique marine protected area, while promoting science based sustainable development alternatives, and local economic development that is in balance with the natural components of the region.
It is the intent of the Laguna San Ignacio Ecosystem Science Program to establish a long-term sustained science based monitoring program to provide scientific information relevant to lagoon resource management questions and concerns about development, ecotourism, and the sustainability of the Laguna San Ignacio Wetlands Complex (LSIWC) over time. The status of the lagoon ecosystem is monitored routinely by measuring a suite of key physical and biological parameters or “ecological indicators” that: (1) provide an index of the ecological health of the lagoon and its living marine resources (e.g., whales, dolphins, turtles, select finfish & shell fish, birds, plankton, water quality), and (2) ensure over the long term that scientific information is available to evaluate trends in the marine life that depend on Laguna San Ignacio as a primary habitat. The program provids a training ground for graduate students to experience applied wildlife conservation field research and to learn the skills that will serve them as they pursue careers in wildlife conservation. The program sponsors annual workshops to present the program findings to peer reviewers, lagoon resource managers, stakeholders and the public, and to take recommendations from the review to update the content of the science program. The program forms partnerships and coordinate its activities with other groups investigating various aspects of the LSIWC (e.g., Pronatura-Noroeste). The Laguna San Ignacio Ecosystem Science Program builds upon previous research and monitoring of specific species (e.g., gray whales) in the lagoon, but also initiates additional areas of investigation that complement ongoing studies including establishing baseline values for the lagoon’s water quality and primary production, and surveys of marine mammals other than gray whales (i.e., dolphins and sealions), sea turtles, marine birds and waterfowl, (e.g., apex predator monitoring). In the long-term it is our intent to add new scientific components to the program to broaden the scope and duration of the studies that will make up the "ecosystem approach" for studying and monitoring this unique wildlife area, and to expand into all four seasons of the year. See: An Ecosystem Approach for Scientific Monitoring and Assessment of Laguna San Ignacio
Key Personnel:
Jorge Urban R., Ph.D., Autonomous University of Mexico, La Paz, B.C.S., Mexico is a graduate and Professor of marine biology at the Autonomous University de Baja California Sur and has led gray whale research in Baja since 1996. He is widely published in the scientific literature on marine mammals and marine conservation. He serves on the IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group, the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission, and is as past President of the Mexican Society for Marine Mammalogy (SOMEMMA). He currently teaches marine science and conducts research on large whales. Steven L. Swartz, Ph.D., Maryland, USA is a 1986 graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz and has researched gray whales in Baja California since 1977. He has published numerous books, scientific and popular articles on gray whales and their breeding lagoons in Baja California, served as a marine mammal and protected species researcher, consultant and scientific director for the Mexican government’s Ministry for the Environment, Natural Resources, and Fisheries (SEMARNAP), the Ocean Conservancy (previously the Center for Environmental Education), the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the International Whaling Commission. He currently conducts research on gray whales and on ecosystem approaches to marine science to support sustainable development and marine conservation.
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