An innovative mathematical analysis of global coral reef fisheries offers hope for sustainable management of multispecies and artisanal fishing, especially in the global South.
The Smithsonian Bird Friendly coffee and cocoa certification program just opened its new Latin American office at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, making it easier for regional coffee and chocolate industries to join the global movement to produce sustainable coffee and chocolate.
A groundbreaking study assessed the extinction risk of more than 8,000 amphibian species worldwide and concluded that two out of five amphibians are threatened.
Existing conservation policies rarely reward local people who care for old-growth forests. In this study, Indigenous Emberá residents worked with scientists to show how, through their sustainable lifestyle in communities established during the 1960’s-1980’s in one of Central America’s most pristine, old-growth forests, they act as custodians, conserving this, shared space.
My research interests span a broad range of subjects from conservation biology and restoration ecology to collaborations with social scientist and economists on subjects related to human behavior and land management. The common theme is the applied nature of my work and the effort to provide...
My primary research focus is on Panamanian frogs that are likely extinct in the wild due to a fungal infection but are kept alive in captive breeding programs in Panama and the United States. Our lab has collected founding individuals for these amphibian colonies, devised methods to sustainably...
During the 1970s and 1980s, I worked in community development, land-tenure and environmental projects with rural and indigenous communities in Panama and Central America. It helped me gain lots of hands-on experience and to work, within the government, towards the creation of Panama’s National...
A steady income stream incentivizes tropical landowners to reforest.
My research seeks to optimize the conservation of birds and biodiversity in tropical working landscapes, especially coffee and cocoa growing regions of Latin America. I lead the Smithsonian Bird Friendly® program, which offers a gold standard certification for coffee and cocoa farms that...
Six Latin American students received funding to join the Neotropical Environment Option (NEO) course through the new Social-Ecological Field Science Fellowship
