Conservation

Melanesia, which includes the island of New Guinea and several archipelagos in the
South Pacific, harbors one of the greatest region of intact lowland rainforest on earth.
Unfortunately, commercial logging and clear-cutting is threatening this region. For
instance, in the last 15 years (1990-2005), over 20% of the rainforest in the Solomon
Islands have been lost to logging. With such imminent danger, we are combining our
research goals in the Solomon Islands with educational and conservation programs.

Various organizations like Conservation International and World Wildlife Fund have
initiated programs to conserve important islands or regions throughout the archipelago.
To complement these large scale projects and approaches, we have initiated grass-
roots programs throughout the Solomons. Our approach is three-fold. First, we involve
local, young people in our research. This provides hands-on training, such as mist
netting and diversity survey techniques, to local land stewards. Second, using
information from our academic research, we give presentations to local schools and to
tribal leaders. These presentations provide key information that forms the basis of
successful long-term conservation initiatives. For instance, our work indicates that
several island chains harbor unique endemic and newly-formed bird species, and we
use this information to help local landowners realize that their flora and fauna are unique.
Finally, with support from the National Science Foundation and the College of Arts and
Sciences at Syracuse University, we are developing a field course that partners students
from the United States with those from the Solomon Islands. This course will expose
students to basic ecological and evolutionary theory, as well as explicit training in field
research techniques and development of outreach programs. This type of partnership
benefits both American and local students, by providing a unique and practical
experience in conservation biology. Like the research component of this project, these
programs are being developed in close collaboration with Dr. Chris Filardi from the
American Museum of Natural History.

Much of this work are still at its infancy; however, we believe that this grass-roots and
personal approach should prove to be an effective way of establishing a long-term
program to conserve this unique region of the South Pacific.