PROGRAM TITLE: SI/MAN and the Biosphere Biological Diversity Program ACTIVITY STREAM: Assessment SCIENCE ELEMENT:Ecological Systems and Dynamics SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE SCIENTIFIC MERIT: In 1986, the Smithsonian Institution in conjunction with UNESCO Man and the Biosphere created a special program to monitor and conserve biological diversity in tropical and temperate areas. Called SI/MAB, the program has two primary components -- long-term monitoring at permanent research sites and training courses, led by professionals, that extend beyond the classroom to give participants practical experience in the field. Important to the success of the program is our concentration on host- country conservation priorities. We locate projects where host-country resource managers have identified environmental problems and then work with those experts, other researchers and international organizations in designing and carrying out monitoring and training. This cooperative approach helps ensure that the projects will be continued by host countries into the future. After all, they have a significant stake in seeing that their reservoirs of biological diversity -- the "stuff of life" -- remain intact. SI/MAB integrates long-term research and education through international and national cooperation to help conserve global biological diversity. Long-term monitoring is the most basic step in conserving biological diversity. The objectives of this program are to: (1) Determine the past, present and future viability of forest diversity within the conservation unit, (2) Detect and estimate anthropogenic changes in forest ecosystems and in species diversity, while providing guidelines to generate practical mitigation problems, (3) Gain an understanding of the catalysts of change, many of which are associated with economic development (logging, mining, mineral exploration and exploitation, zoning that attempts to accommodate growing human populations), and (4) Define the fundamental limits of change of tropical forest resources. With developing country counterparts, we are continuing to develop International Biodiversity Monitoring in forest ecosystems through the world. Professional biodiversity training and education is provided internationally to help establish and maintain the biodiversity monitoring in a network of protected areas throughout the world. Increased funding in future years will allow the development of two important aspects of the program: (a) the training of human resources to accomplish long-term monitoring, and development of the educational packages and (b) the establishment of long-term monitoring research sites in a network of protected areas world wide. STAKEHOLDERS: The SI/MAB's measuring and monitoring program is operating in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Puerto Rico and St. John in the U.S., and training programs have been conducted in additional countries of Brazil, Guatemala, and Panama. Several additional countries from Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Asia and Africa will join SI/MAB international effort in the next few years. To date, over 35 national and international activities have collaborated with the SI/MAB program and this number continues to grow. POLICY RELEVANCE: The SI/MAB Program addresses the need to incorporate the social factor in measuring, monitoring and management biodiversity in the tropical rainforest, where it has operated for the last seven years. The Program also addresses the ecosystem's natural and human induced changes, and contributes directly to the goals of International Cooperation, Education and Public Awareness, and Ecological Change and Biodiversity. PROGRAM CONTACTS:SI SGCR Representative: Ted A. Maxwell NASM MRC 315 Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560 202 357 1424 FAX: 202 786 2566 Email: tmaxwell@ceps.nasm.edu Bureau Representative: Francisco Dallmeier Office of International Activities MRC 705 Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560 202 357 4792 FAX: 202 786 2557