Our approach

Will Simonson, A Rocha International's Scientific Director, lives in the Algarve and is also a part-time member of the A Rocha Portugal team. Here he describes the approach to science common to all the established A Rocha projects.

Team members and visitors examining moths caught overnight at Cruzinha

Visitors to A Rocha projects may come away with a number of lasting impressions: enjoyment of the countryside, nature play schemes for schoolchildren, convivial mealtimes, impressive wildlife photography and, very often, purposeful scientific activity. The experience of science may not just have been as an observer because whether counting egrets at their roost or orchids in a quadrat, participation is the name of the game!

Such involvement is important to A Rocha, for the study of the natural world is a privilege and responsibility in which we can all share. That is why Colin Jackson runs a Fundamentals of Ornithology course with the National Museums of Kenya each year, and here in Portugal we are encouraging final year undergraduate students to do field-based projects from Cruzinha. It is also why, outside of this more formal training role, we encourage all visitors to "get their hands dirty." In the field-based ecological sciences, much can be achieved by extra pairs of eyes or hands, working as teams in amongst the raw material of nature. The fact that this work is often conducted in a milieu of other activities at A Rocha centres may sometimes cause tension for the team but often brings added benefits - for example, where research and environmental education meet in a bird ringing demonstration.

Why do we believe that the work is both a privilege and responsibility? The privilege is in studying the elegance and fruitfulness of a wonderfully created world, and working with some of its most beautiful creatures. I often marvel at nature's sheer diversity, demonstrated by Cruzinha¹s inventory of well over 500 moths on Quinta da Rocha, or A Rocha Czech¹s exhibition of 200 different mushrooms and toadstools from the Orlicke Mountain area of South Bohemia. When you consider that each moth or fungus has a unique mode of life and way of interacting with its environment, you realise that it is nothing if not a "field" ripe for a further harvest of scientific knowledge.

The urgent responsibility comes hand in hand with this privilege, for the world is experiencing an unprecedented destruction of its biological wealth. Everyone will have on their own doorsteps examples of loss of habitat and crashing populations of animals and plants. A Rocha chooses to commit itself to special wildlife areas where there are no future guarantees, and inevitably finds itself working against a rising tide of threat, be it hunting on the Ilon Marsh, draining of the Aammiq Wetlands, or gradual encroachment of built development in and around the Alvor Estuary.

Campaea honoraria moth trapped at Cruzinha

Campaea honoraria, one of the 500 moth species identified on Quinta da Rocha

Often it is only a mixture of persuasion and practical conservation or restoration, backed by scientific investigation and prayer, which can win the day.

The science is important because it is all too easy for well-intentioned intervention to wreak damage to a natural environment by lack of ecological understanding. Science helps create that understanding, and becomes an important tool for the biblical mandate to care for God's world.

The last two issues of A Rocha International News highlighted two areas that shape our particular approach to science: community and partnerships. In community we consider not just the bringing together of A Rocha teams and visitors, but also our part in the whole community of God's creation. We are part of the ecology that we study, as consideration of our own "ecological footprint" can sometimes make us all too aware. This sharing of being with God¹s creatures also demands ethical good practice and respect as we recognise that God himself actively sustains the creatures that we handle.

Partnerships for A Rocha are also important, as the advantages of exchanging data, information and experience become increasingly apparent. One of A Rocha's strengths is in the depth of information created by a resident A Rocha team carrying out long-term studies on a single site. This creates an important resource that we can share with the wider scientific community, and in turn we can gain from an input of expertise. The potential in the future for increased collaboration on transnational conservation challenges, both within A Rocha and with other conservation partners, is an exciting one.

As we look towards an increasing capacity within a growing A Rocha to undertake high quality, applied research, there will be more and more opportunities for our members to become involved. In particular, I am developing a network of people upon whom we can call for advice or help across a range of natural science disciplines. If you are interested in being part of this, please drop me a line at portugal@arocha.org .

Bird monitoring in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest

East Coast Akalat after being ringed by the A Rocha Kenya team

A Rocha Kenya is co-ordinating a bird monitoring programme in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, an Important Bird Area (IBA) on the Kenyan coast. With the help of two forest guides, 27 transects through representative areas of the forest are followed, and "point counts" of birds within a 25 m radius circle made at intervals of 200 m. Each transect is covered twice a year. The aim is to detect any significant increases or decreases in certain species and to feed the results into management strategies for the forest with the help of a Geographical Information System. An additional part of the programme involves a survey of East Coast Akalats, a globally threatened species. This uses play-back of the akalat song, to which the birds respond strongly in the breeding season. East Coast Akalat population changes can be tracked in this way.

Colin Jackson explains the motivation behind this research: "Being made in God's image, we have within us some of his potential for creativity and healing. To me this shows how we can bring healing to a land and be creative in what we do with it, for example studying a given part of the environment (the bird fauna of the forest), seeing how it functions, and identifying what needs to be done to make it better."