Cape Horn Field Station

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Long-term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER)

ltserThe Omora Ethnobotanical Park (www.omora.org), located in the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve (55º South latitude), was inaugurated in 2000 as an initiative to “integrate biocultural conservation and social wellbeing from the southern ends of the earth” (See Figure 1).  Since that time, a consortium of academic institutions, including the University of North Texas (UNT), the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB), the University of Magallanes (UMAG) and non-profit organizations, including the Omora Foundation, the Center for Environmental Philosophy (CEP) and the Omora Sub-Antarctic Research Alliance (OSARA), have worked to integrate ecological and social aspects of research, education and conservation into a long-term initiative that will make the Omora Park a formal long-term ecological research site (LTER). Given the social and interdisciplinary focus of the Omora Park’s work, however, the traditional LTER focus perhaps is best expanded into a long-term socio-ecological research site (LTSER). Currently, researchers are also beginning to couple the terrestrial and marine components of the Cape Horn Archipelago, making this Chile’s first marine-terrestrial LTSER.

In 2006, the Omora Park was a founding member of Chile’s nascent LTSER network (www.ieb-chile.cl/about/stations.php), coordinated by the Millennium Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, thus linking it with similar efforts in Fray Jorge National Park (30ºS), Farellones LTER (33ºS) and Senda Darwin Biological Station (45ºS). To date, the work conducted at the Omora Park includes projects that range in scale from the local to the global and span a panoply of disciplines from philosophy to ornithology (for information on specific projects, please see Description of Research). LTSERs are a systematic attempt to insert research and academic inquiry into the decision-making and social process of a particular place, allowing investigators to have contact with local people and authorities, as well as other academics. The challenge and ultimate benefit of this type of program is to move beyond simple research and monitoring and pass into social integration, whereby scientists, academics and investigation are an integral and meaningful part of society and social processes.