How can sustainable development be achieved? What evidence of it did you find in Monteverde?
What is Sustainable Development?
Sustainable development is a pattern of economic growth in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come.
How can we achieve it? It is little actions we can all do that make immense changes in the environment. Simple examples such as planting tree seeds whenever one is cut, will make prevailing differences in the future. By doing this, Earth's resources are being used, nevertheless, planting the seeds will compensate what is being cut. This is the process of making sure our interaction with the environment is pursued with the idea of keeping the environment as natural as possible.
There are many ways to contribute to environmental sustainability such as:
Mixed Farming: Mixing different crops and animals. Examples: Using crop residues to feed animals, using animal manure as nutrients to crops.
Multiple Cropping: Growing two or more crops in the same land in the same season.
Crop Rotation: growing two or more dissimilar or unrelated crops in the same piece of land in different seasons.
Monteverde's Sustainable Development evidence:
Projects were being started in the campus of UGA in Monteverde, to start using pigs' manure to produce natural cooking gas.
For product disposal a process with an organic compost took place.
Most of the food in the campus is naturally grown in the same university.
Fences were built with natural resources such as fallen trees instead of contaminating materials.
How can geographic positioning systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) contribute to advance scientific research in general and in Monteverde?
The GPS and GIS are evidence of how advanced science is today. In a great majority of today's electronic devices, with a click, a tap, a button, you can know the almost exact position or location of specific objects or yourself in the entire world. Having so many satellites in space, the location given in the system, is very accurate and precise.
By having this systems it is very useful to control aspects of biodiversity itself. By placing a GPS in certain animals of the same specie, they can be tracked for control of their location and therefore keep track of them being safe and free from harm. They are also used to keep track of biological corridors and make sure they are working for the species they were at first intended for to protect. GPS's are also useful for ordinary events such as driving the car or finding specific places in a map to get directions.
GIS's are used to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographical data. GIS's create spatial areas such as digital maps to later on be used for the control of this area.
In Monteverde they are used for the same purposes mentioned above. They create maps of surrounding areas, and capture, store and analyze them.
GIS map created in Monteverde's GIS lab
Why is taxonomy important to sustainable development?
What is taxonomy?
Taxonomy can be defined as the classification of organisms.
Classification
With this classification, organisms can be related, and distinguished with one another. Through it is also easier to analyze them now that they are properly categorized in their Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species, as seen in the chart on the right-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Why is it important to sustainable development?
By knowing what their characteristics are, wether they migrate or not or what their diet depends on, there will be a better chance of protecting and sustaining them. Why? By knowing what threats this certain organisms face, the way to protect them will be clearer. You need to know what you have to protect it.
What are the most critical factors causing ecosystem changes?
Many natural factors affect the world's ecosystems. However, it is human actions that threat them. Because of the existence of humans, serious ecosystem changes are taking place.
Human actions that are affecting ecosystems are:
Illegal Hunting: Unauthorized hunting can affect ecosystems and bring harmful consequences. By excessive hunting many species can decrease drastically and can even get to the point were they become endangered. As of now, because of illegal hunting, species are in danger of even becoming extinct. The African and Asian Elephant for example, has had an alarming drop in population because of illegal hunting. Illegal trade is taking place in wildlife for economic matters. People illegally kill many species and sell their skin, horns, or anything valuable taken from the species. This over-hunting is causing a crucial reduction in numbers and diversity of wildlife.
To decrease it, protocols and strict regulations should take place. Having surveillance to prevent and to alarm with serious punishments to whoever commits this crime, may diminish this threatening problem.
Introduced Species: They are species living outside their native distributional range, which have arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental. By being introduced to a habitat where they are not originally from, they affect organisms already established in the habitat and they mess up their food chain that has been for a long time intact. This introduced species threaten entire ecosystems now that they can become pests which will spread and can even kill other species. Other species depend on the species being killed by the introduced species, which means that long prevailing consequences can even end vital organisms to the ecosystems.
Pollution is the introduction of a contaminant into the environment. Pollution is mostly created by us humans. It affects any living organism in an environment, and if it is not controlled or decreased, it will continue to be imperatively difficult to sustain life for the long term.
There are different types of pollution:
Land Pollution: It is the pollution of the Earth’s natural land surface by industrial, commercial, domestic and agricultural activities
Air Pollution: It is the accumulation of hazardous substances into the atmosphere that danger human life and other living matter. By being the air polluted, many diseases can be created and bring dangerous consequences to people in general and even more serious matters to people that already have respiratory problems such as asthma.
Water Pollution: It is the introduction of chemical, biological and physical matter into large bodies of water that degrade the quality of life that lives in it and consumes it.
All of this types of pollution hugely affect ecosystems and make it hard for them to be healthy and continuously going with threatening disturbances.
Habitat Loss: Population is expanding at an alarming rate. As human population expands, the need of resources for living is more demanding. We are invading other organisms' habitats for us to live. By doing this, we are destroying the homes of millions of species and habitat loss takes place. To prevent these, certain barriers should be created. What this means is, making restricted areas in which it is prohibited for humans to live, such as national parks. This will protect the habitat of many species and they will be safe from harm. This will make it much easier to control and decrease the habitat loss of many organisms.
It is of extreme importance that all these threats to ecosystems are decreased immediately!
I close my eyes and listen well,
the chirping crickets and the singing birds.
Then breathe in the fresh good smell
of green plants and trees that spare some words:
We’re safe from knives and mortal stabs
and we live to grow large and tall,
not like others that get cuts and jabs,
we’re here to give air, shelter, shade and all.
So ask yourself who made us.
Why are we here and what are we?
There’s a mystic power behind all of us
So when you look, look cautiously.
I open my eyes and carefully see
the puzzling natural world around
with butterflies flying around with glee
and grasshoppers jumping high on the ground.
Such a complex place this is,
Nature here and nature there,
I wonder what it’s all about and what this beauty is,
Then I realize, it’s God here and it’s God there.
Purpose: Point out a religious view towards conserving the environment. Let's not destroy what God has given us.
What is the purpose of identifying, classifying, and collecting plants and insects?
Identifying, classifying, and collecting plants and insects is very important for important reasons:
To know their properties and how to protect them: By analyzing and identifying plants and insect scientists come to learn what there properties are. By knowing what they can be used for, and how they play an important role in the environment, then will it be clear how important it is to conserve them. It can relate to taxonomy, now that a classification of this insects and plants is important to understand their characteristics to know to to protect and sustain them better.
It is also important to know what can this insects and plants be used for. With advanced studies and invesitgations, new ways of creating certain fundamental elements of life can be discovered. Without insects or plants, an inmense amount of resources humans use daily would not exist. An example of what can be discovered with plants, is medicine. Not only can medicinal plants (natural medicine) be discovered, but medicine can be developed with this plants. Insects also provide many resources and primarily food, for example honey bees give us honey.
Did you know? About 60% of all medicines we have for cancer come from rainforest plants!
It is the designation for a continuous geographic extent of habitat linking ecosystems, either spatially or functionally; such a link restores or conserves the connection between habitats that are fragmented by natural causes or human development.
Four main factors influence the operation of biological corridors:
Residential Development: The development of residential constructions may come between a biological corridor. This can either affect in a positive or negative way. If the construction goes through a very conservative and "green" process, and commits to help control the biological corridor, it will influence it in a positive way. In the other hand, if there are no strict regulations regarding the biological corridor, and a contaminating residential development takes place, it will negatively intervene the corridor and may even make it no longer be useful as a corridor.
Oil and Gas Development: If a development of oil or gas takes place near a biological corridor, it will have a negative influence on the corridor now that it will scare species away and make them stay away from the corridor or get harmed in the process using the corridor.
Agricultural Conversions: Agriculture might come in the way of biological corridors. It will depend on the way the agricultural movement takes place if it has negative or neutral effects. If it has environmentally friendly processes, it will not affect species, in the contrary, it might scare away species or harm them.
Abundance of Regulations: Regulations in certain areas might not allow commercial use of natural resources in protected areas and therefore may not permit the construction of a biological corridor.
Protocols are made to keep the control of biological corridors. This protect them by creating strict rules that can later on be approved to become environmental laws. If this laws are not followed, serious punishments can be held against anyone who disobeys and can will count as a crime.
Table of Contents
Write Workshop Questions
How can sustainable development be achieved? What evidence of it did you find in Monteverde?
What is Sustainable Development?
Sustainable development is a pattern of economic growth in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come.
How can we achieve it? It is little actions we can all do that make immense changes in the environment. Simple examples such as planting tree seeds whenever one is cut, will make prevailing differences in the future. By doing this, Earth's resources are being used, nevertheless, planting the seeds will compensate what is being cut. This is the process of making sure our interaction with the environment is pursued with the idea of keeping the environment as natural as possible.
There are many ways to contribute to environmental sustainability such as:
Monteverde's Sustainable Development evidence:
Learn more about environmental sustainability today: http://epi.yale.edu/
How can geographic positioning systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) contribute to advance scientific research in general and in Monteverde?
What does GPS and GIS mean?
The GPS and GIS are evidence of how advanced science is today. In a great majority of today's electronic devices, with a click, a tap, a button, you can know the almost exact position or location of specific objects or yourself in the entire world. Having so many satellites in space, the location given in the system, is very accurate and precise.
By having this systems it is very useful to control aspects of biodiversity itself. By placing a GPS in certain animals of the same specie, they can be tracked for control of their location and therefore keep track of them being safe and free from harm. They are also used to keep track of biological corridors and make sure they are working for the species they were at first intended for to protect. GPS's are also useful for ordinary events such as driving the car or finding specific places in a map to get directions.
GIS's are used to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographical data. GIS's create spatial areas such as digital maps to later on be used for the control of this area.
In Monteverde they are used for the same purposes mentioned above. They create maps of surrounding areas, and capture, store and analyze them.
Why is taxonomy important to sustainable development?
What is taxonomy?
Taxonomy can be defined as the classification of organisms.
With this classification, organisms can be related, and distinguished with one another. Through it is also easier to analyze them now that they are properly categorized in their Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species, as seen in the chart on the right-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Why is it important to sustainable development?
By knowing what their characteristics are, wether they migrate or not or what their diet depends on, there will be a better chance of protecting and sustaining them. Why? By knowing what threats this certain organisms face, the way to protect them will be clearer. You need to know what you have to protect it.
What are the most critical factors causing ecosystem changes?
Many natural factors affect the world's ecosystems. However, it is human actions that threat them. Because of the existence of humans, serious ecosystem changes are taking place.
Human actions that are affecting ecosystems are:
Illegal Hunting: Unauthorized hunting can affect ecosystems and bring harmful consequences. By excessive hunting many species can decrease drastically and can even get to the point were they become endangered. As of now, because of illegal hunting, species are in danger of even becoming extinct. The African and Asian Elephant for example, has had an alarming drop in population because of illegal hunting. Illegal trade is taking place in wildlife for economic matters. People illegally kill many species and sell their skin, horns, or anything valuable taken from the species. This over-hunting is causing a crucial reduction in numbers and diversity of wildlife.
To decrease it, protocols and strict regulations should take place. Having surveillance to prevent and to alarm with serious punishments to whoever commits this crime, may diminish this threatening problem.
learn more: Threats to species
Introduced Species: They are species living outside their native distributional range, which have arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental. By being introduced to a habitat where they are not originally from, they affect organisms already established in the habitat and they mess up their food chain that has been for a long time intact. This introduced species threaten entire ecosystems now that they can become pests which will spread and can even kill other species. Other species depend on the species being killed by the introduced species, which means that long prevailing consequences can even end vital organisms to the ecosystems.
Pollution:
Pollution is the introduction of a contaminant into the environment. Pollution is mostly created by us humans. It affects any living organism in an environment, and if it is not controlled or decreased, it will continue to be imperatively difficult to sustain life for the long term.
There are different types of pollution:
All of this types of pollution hugely affect ecosystems and make it hard for them to be healthy and continuously going with threatening disturbances.
Habitat Loss: Population is expanding at an alarming rate. As human population expands, the need of resources for living is more demanding. We are invading other organisms' habitats for us to live. By doing this, we are destroying the homes of millions of species and habitat loss takes place. To prevent these, certain barriers should be created. What this means is, making restricted areas in which it is prohibited for humans to live, such as national parks. This will protect the habitat of many species and they will be safe from harm. This will make it much easier to control and decrease the habitat loss of many organisms.
It is of extreme importance that all these threats to ecosystems are decreased immediately!
Learn about IMPACT: Impact
Learn about CONSERVING: Conserve
Let's conserve the environment learning its true beauty, read the beautiful, reflexive poem by Daniel Majluf:
The Trees Talk
I close my eyes and listen well,
the chirping crickets and the singing birds.
Then breathe in the fresh good smell
of green plants and trees that spare some words:
We’re safe from knives and mortal stabs
and we live to grow large and tall,
not like others that get cuts and jabs,
we’re here to give air, shelter, shade and all.
So ask yourself who made us.
Why are we here and what are we?
There’s a mystic power behind all of us
So when you look, look cautiously.
I open my eyes and carefully see
the puzzling natural world around
with butterflies flying around with glee
and grasshoppers jumping high on the ground.
Such a complex place this is,
Nature here and nature there,
I wonder what it’s all about and what this beauty is,
Then I realize, it’s God here and it’s God there.
Purpose: Point out a religious view towards conserving the environment. Let's not destroy what God has given us.
What is the purpose of identifying, classifying, and collecting plants and insects?
Identifying, classifying, and collecting plants and insects is very important for important reasons:
Did you know? About 60% of all medicines we have for cancer come from rainforest plants!
Learn more about medicinal plants: Medicinal Plants
What factors influence the operation of biological corridors? (legal, policy, local organization intervention and household livelihood strategies)
What is a biological corridor?
It is the designation for a continuous geographic extent of habitat linking ecosystems, either spatially or functionally; such a link restores or conserves the connection between habitats that are fragmented by natural causes or human development.
Four main factors influence the operation of biological corridors:
Protocols are made to keep the control of biological corridors. This protect them by creating strict rules that can later on be approved to become environmental laws. If this laws are not followed, serious punishments can be held against anyone who disobeys and can will count as a crime.
Bibliography:
"The Global Positioning System." GPS.gov: GPS Overview. U.S. Government, n.d. Web. 08 June 2012. <__http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/__>.
"Green Student U." Pollution, Water Pollution, Air Pollution. Green Student, n.d. Web. 08 June 2012. <__http://www.greenstudentu.com/encyclopedia/pollution__>.
"Medicinal Plants - Health Benefits of Medical Plants for You!" Plants. Live and Feel, n.d. Web. 08 June 2012. <__http://www.liveandfeel.com/__>.
"Environmental Performance Index." Environmental Performance Index. Yale University, n.d. Web. 08 June 2012. <__http://epi.yale.edu/__>.