From Honduras with Love

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Honduras and hope to return in the near future. The people were friendly and hardworking, the landscape beautiful, the birds abundant, and the food delicious.

One of the things I loved most about Honduras was the peoples’ pride and sense of obligation to protecting the land. Signs preaching the importance of conserving water sources and protecting the flora and fauna were scattered throughout many of the farms we visited. The coffee pickers that regularly surrounded us were genuinely interested and often stopped to chat as Fabiola and I processed birds.

Unfortunately it was common to observe children picking coffee during the hours they should have been in school. One morning as Fabiola and I banded, a young girl of about 8 or 9 approached us. Her curiosity was apparent and immediately she began asking questions, even following us on a few net runs. We learned that she did in fact attend school, but during coffee picking season her studies were infrequent. Will this brief experience somehow influence or guide this girl in the future?

It seems as with most conservation issues there are always pitfalls and roadblocks, at times eliciting a sense of despair in even the most optimistic of people. For example, in the middle of an attempt to recapture one of our radio-tagged Wood Thrush, we discovered that that particular forest remnant was destined to destruction and a future as a sun grown coffee plantation. Machetes hacked away at the trees and vines as we hopelessly looked on, pondering the fate of the birds that will likely perish. Damn the man!

Towards the end of our field season, the Mesoamerican Development Institute and COMISUYL organized a workshop for faculty of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH). Presentations highlighted sustainable coffee growing and processing practices, jetropha-based biofuels, the theory of integrated open canopy (IOC), and songbird conservation.

An integral part of the workshop was to organize and initiate a monitoring program for neotropical migrants in coffee plantations. Fabiola and Brett both gave great talks and faculty joined us in the field for a banding demonstration.

I truly believe that consistent outreach, education, and collaboration can help promote more biodiversity friendly and environmentally sustainable actions. It will take a lot of effort and patience, particularly in less developed countries where money is hard to come by and everything is that much more logistically challenging.

In the coming weeks we will release one of two or three webisodes documenting our work in Honduras. Maybe it will persuade some of you to further support research and conservation or simply buy shade-grown, bird friendly coffee.