Planning Grant:: Developing a strategic plan and infrastructure needs for the Laguna Bacalar Field Station, Bacalar Mexico

University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee WI

Investigators

Abstract

This project will lay plans for development of an international, educational and research field station and marine laboratory in Bacalar, Mexico, located in the southern Yucatan Peninsula 30 km north of Belize on the shores of Laguna Bacalar. Laguna Bacalar lies within a globally unique ecological and archeological complex and environmentally sensitive corridor that connects terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine, and marine systems, and that has been extensively inhabited by humans, dating back to the Mayans, for well over 3000 years. As Mexico's second largest natural lake, this pristine system also lies at the doorstep of major ecological changes and socio-economic forces driven largely by tourism that are sweeping the Yucatan Peninsula. The Bacalar corridor contains highly dynamic and diverse regional groundwater flow regimes, high and low growth tropical forests, dense freshwater and marine mangrove forests, active sublacustrine springs and deep cenote sinkholes, estuaries, and unique fringing reef areas of the 1000 km long Mesoamerican barrier coral reef. Virtually unknown to the scientific community, the Laguna also contains the world's largest and most extensive living stromatolite complex, considered by many as living examples of one of the earliest life forms on earth. This ecosystem also epitomizes one of the great challenges of our time - understanding and managing the interactions between human activity and vulnerable environmental systems. Establishment of an internationally recognized field station will not only serve the scientific community, but will also provide the data, information and understanding for sustainable development as well as the economic benefit of hosting research and researchers from around the world. Opportunities to enhance the local economy in the areas of technology, research and education have been rare, but in a broader context such opportunities are at the heart of the ongoing employment forces affecting Mexico and the U.S. This project will initiate and facilitate planning the establishment of an international education and research field station located on Laguna Bacalar, Quintana Roo, Mexico. This planning will be a collaborative effort by the School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (SFS); El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) at Chetumal, MX; the Institute of Ecology, UNAM; and the Municipio Bacalar, MX. The goal is to solicit input from a variety of scientists, field station managers, educators, and Mexican governmental groups (municipal, state, federal leaders e.g., Comisión Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA)) to delineate scientific needs and opportunities, to outline a robust research agenda, to assure the implementation of the best planning practices for field station development, and to identify the basic requirements for a broadly available facility for professionals with diverse backgrounds. The station will serve the scientific communities from an array of institutions with the common interest of studying local to international challenges in the field of water and natural resources, including interface studies of science with policy, economics, and social structure with a strong educational component e.g., STEM programs, Mexican COBACH high school programs. The field station planning goals will be achieved by engaging working groups with targeted outputs: by convening an international symposium to summarize research previously accomplished, to identify new research frontiers, and to conduct facilitated planning sessions to develop field station future directions; by conducting interactive seminars for regional lay persons and the indigenous Maya; and by soliciting advice and feedback from successful Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (FSML) directors and managers on station management, budgeting, and use policies.