The Rufford Small Grants Foundation

Final Report

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Congratulations on the completion of your project that was supported by The Rufford Small Grants Foundation.

We ask all grant recipients to complete a Final Report Form that helps us to gauge the success of our grant giving. We understand that projects often do not follow the predicted course but knowledge of your experiences is valuable to us and others who may be undertaking similar work. Please be as honest as you can in answering the questions – remember that negative experiences are just as valuable as positive ones if they help others to learn from them.

Please complete the form in English and be as clear and concise as you can. We will ask for further information if required. If you have any other materials produced by the project, particularly a few relevant photographs, please send these to us separately.

Please submit your final report to .

Thank you for your help.

Josh Cole

Grants Director

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Grant Recipient Details
Your name / Mauricio Nunez-Regueiro
Project title / Conserving biodiversity in the face of massive forest loss with agricultural expansion: Does current policy of allocating forest in strips maintain wildlife?
RSG reference / 8133-1
Reporting period / 2010 - 2011
Amount of grant / £6000
Your email address /
Date of this report / 15/8/2011

1. Please indicate the level of achievement of the project’s original objectives and include any relevant comments on factors affecting this.

Objective / Not achieved / Partially achieved / Fully achieved / Comments
To provide the first evaluation of the conservation value of agricultural forest strips for mammals in Chaco forest / X / Our project fully accomplished this objective and served as a source to establish new lines of work based on the numerous questions that our work originated.
To aid on-going national land use planning in Argentina by working closely with government agencies responsible for forest policy in Chaco / X / This process is much more extensive than what we had anticipated. However, this created a synergistic working group that will continue to develop Argentine’s land use planning in the years to come
To increase local knowledge about biodiversity impacts of forest conversion to agriculture by conducting workshops with local workers and giving oral presentations to landowners / X / Landowners and local workers, who are one of the main stakeholders, showed a supportive attitude toward our project. What is more, they will stand behind and actively participate in future activities related to redesigning remnant forest in agricultural landscapes. This process will engage participants to find structural alternatives to maintaining remnant forests in strips that will better conserve biodiversity in the long term.
To encourage research groups to bridge across organizations and disciplines to study forest loss and forest strips from multiple perspectives / X / We felt that this is a long term objective and therefore cannot be accomplished in a 1-year term. We did however stimulate research in the areas of forest loss and forest strips. As a result, two specific projects were generated that involves researchers and students for both universities of Salta and the ministry of environment. In short, these projects will be aimed at understanding the plant-herbivore interactions, and its relation to different levels of livestock pressure.
To involve undergraduate students from the National University of Salta in all aspects of the project. / X / As a result of involving undergraduate students, now one senior student applied for a graduate scholarship in conservation of mammals, and two students chose conservation related themes to develop in their undergraduate thesis.

2. Please explain any unforeseen difficulties that arose during the project and how these were tackled (if relevant).

The most important difficulties were all related to logistic and financial restraints. The price for car-rentals increased dramatically over the last year which made it financially unsustainable to rent a vehicle for all trips. As a result, some sampling activities fell behind schedule. Fortunately, in-country partnerships (especially with the provincial government of Salta and with the National University of Salta) helped tacking these constraints.

3. Briefly describe the three most important outcomes of your project.

1) Our understanding of how functional strips of forest are to conserve biodiversity has increased. Generally, mammals with greater needs for space and other resources, such as the puma, the collared peccary, tapirs and giant anteaters are found more frequently in the forest than in forest strips. On the other hand, mammals with lower space requirements, like the deer, Geoffrey’s cat, and grey fox seem to make more frequent use of the forest strips.
However, in this study, we have never detected an animal in forest strips that was more than 5 km from the continuous forest. What is more, this distance decreases drastically in narrower strips (<100 m wide). Also, results suggest that the probability of finding these animals in forest strips decreases with high hunting pressure levels. Given these results, the current configuration of the remaining forests (forest strips) in the agricultural landscape of Chaco Salta, would only be effective to conserve the group of animals with lower space requirements and resources (deer, etc.), assuming strips of forest are attached to continuous forest and hunting pressure is low. What is more, this current configuration excludes mammals with the greatest requirements of resources (collared peccary, giant anteaters etc.), which in turn are the most endangered animals.

2) Key stakeholder involvement was encouraged and assured. Land-owners, local field workers, local universities, and governmental natural resource agencies have been involved in every step of our project. Moreover, these stakeholders have shown keen interests in participate in future activities related to this project which is key to the success of future conservation actions.

3) This project generated publishable scientific information that will aid the in the on-going land use planning process of Argentina. A manuscript is being written to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal which was originated using adequate research design protocols and statistical tools to model and interpret the results. This manuscript will serve as a basis for future investigations and also function as a document that will endorse future modifications of the current environmental policy.

4. Briefly describe the involvement of local communities and how they have benefitted from the project (if relevant).

Local communities have been involved in this project. Some local farm workers were hired to work in this project, which positively affected their financial situation. Some of them practised hunting, which supplied valuable natural history information to the project’s team member and created conservation awareness among all people involved in the project. Students from local universities also were involved, which helped develop their interest in conservation related areas of study, increased field experience, and augmented their knowledge about research design and statistical analyses.

5. Are there any plans to continue this work?

The main plan to continue this work is to conduct further landscape-scale studies aimed to provide alternative remnant-forest configurations that will increase the conservation of wide-ranging mammals. A key step for the inclusion of this group within conservation priorities could be to study agricultural landscape designs with a system of interconnected blocks of forest remnants (as opposed to the current system of forest strips). This configuration could increase the area ratio of forest / edge, which would increase connectivity between forest blocks, and improve agricultural ecosystem services in Salta.

Another complementary step is to study the conservation effectiveness of national parks and their relation to remnant-forest structures. Especially at a landscape scale, the national park system interacts with agricultural landscapes modulating the size and structure of wildlife populations. Unraveling this relationship will be key to develop synergistic conservation strategies for South America.

6. How do you plan to share the results of your work with others?

1) An article has been published in the magazine of the Rural Society of Salta. This article included the project’s description as well as results and general insights about conservation of Salta.

2) Several informal workshops/meetings have been carried out to share the results of this work in local universities, governmental agencies, and in field sites. As an example, I am enclosing the following web site that advertises a workshop given at the Provincial Ministry of Environment (http://ministeriodeambiente.salta.gov.ar/index.php?option=com_content&id=320:capacitacion-sobre-conservacion-en-areas-protegidas )

3) A manuscript is in preparation to be submitted to a peer-reviewed scientific/conservation journal that includes all aspects of research design, results, and their interpretation.

4) Our team will present our findings at the next International Wildlife Management Congress.

7. Timescale: Over what period was the RSG used? How does this compare to the anticipated or actual length of the project?

Field activities (field surveys, community outreach and policy recommendations) were planned from June 2010 until January 2011, although these activities extended until May 2011, mainly because of logistical difficulties that were solved thanks to our in-country partnerships with local organisations.

8. Budget: Please provide a breakdown of budgeted versus actual expenditure and the reasons for any differences. All figures should be in £ sterling, indicating the local exchange rate used.

Item / Budgeted Amount / Actual Amount / Difference / Comments
In-Country Transportation / £1020 / £2480 / £1262 / Difference due to the increase in cost of transportation and gas.
Meals / £1776 / £1776 / £0
Camera traps / £2860 / £2860 / £0
GPS unit / £98 / £98 / £0
Camping Equipment / £100 / £100 / £0
Miscellaneous expenses / £146 / £1024 / £878 / Difference mainly due to the amount of batteries needed for the camera traps.
TOTAL / £6000 / £8338 / £2338
The difference ($2338) was covered with the help of the ministry of environment and personal funds.

1 pound sterling = 6.5 argentine pesos.

9. Looking ahead, what do you feel are the important next steps?

Important next steps would be to carry out the ideas exposed in point #5 of this report (i.e., developing more effective designs for forest and biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes including the relation between national park system and remnant-forest in terms of conservation of wide-ranging endangered mammals).

10. Did you use the RSGF logo in any materials produced in relation to this project? Did the RSGF receive any publicity during the course of your work?

I used the RSGF logo in all oral and written presentations and workshops. In those activities RSGF received publicity.

11. Any other comments?

Please feel free to contact me if you have any further inquiries.