Tropical dry forest

Title: Tropical dry forest / Bosque tropical seco
Convener: Charlie de la Rosa
Overview of session theme: Una discusión libre sobre hoyos en nuestro conocimiento del bosque tropical caducifolio (BTC) y retos de la conservación y ciencia en este ecosistema.
Overview of session discussion: The discussion began with a call for field guides to plants and herps for the Alamos region.  Several large themes grew from this point.  A need for basic documentation of biodiversity presents an opportunity to engage students and local non-science experts, especially indigenous groups.  Participant brought up using and developing a community of users of Naturalista as another way to begin to index knowledge of the region.  Several undergraduate students brought up their willingness to help with a project like this (or other science projects) in their gap years, or in order to fulfill field work requirements of their programs.  Depending on how the product is marketed, partial funding for student assistants and other needs could come from NGOs (Naturaleza y Cultura Internacional – Reserva Monte Mojino, Wildland Without Borders), CONANP, or CONABio.  Participant asked whether we had talked to local indigenous community leaders about a field guide.  Possible connections to Guarijio community suggested (Comisión de Desarollo Indigena).  Comcaac participant discussed what she and other indigenous communities want out of collaborative projects with scientists.  Including ethnobotanic data as well as western taxonomy and natural history would be included in a product produced in collaboration with local indigenous groups.  Sneak preview of CONANP plans to extend an ANP to the Rio Mayo watershed shared by participant, but tempered by institutional incapacity and the lack of existing partnerships between government agencies and regional NGOs.
Action items

• Follow up on Guarijio connection
• Follow up on student contacts
• Look into CONABio resources for field guides

Participants: Charlie de la Rosa, Alejandro Sauceda, Lydia Lozano-Angulo, Jesús Adrián Bojórquez Valdez, Rafael Lara, Sergio Avila, Angelina Martinez Yrizar, Gerardo Garibay Melo, Oscar enrique López Bujanda, Juan Manuel Haro Medina, Kurt Andersen, José María Martínez R., Mariclaire Joseph, Jennifer Lawton, Claudia López López, Valenzuela González Milka, Delia Marina Acuña Acosta, Jazmín Martínez Salido, Gilberto Valenzuela Encinas, José Raúl Romo León, Anna Fimbres Miranda, Anayely Gonzalez Luna, Jennie Duberstein, Jenna Stanek, Mary Whitfield, Thanairi Gamez, Emmanuel Bernal, Phil Rosen
Detailed notes

• Narrow down to región: northw mexico?
  • Share information between regional specialties, but probably going to focus on Alamos
• We need a field guide to plants
• Hacer un guía de campo?
  • Students in gap year could take photos
  • Monte mojino help support something like that?
    • Possibly
    • Conabio, conanp, Wildland Withouth Borders
    • Informaion para que se difunde la información
  • Gente indígena?
    • Guarijio- comunidad
      • Información de contacto de Laura Monti
    • Si involucran las comunidades locales, hay que hacerlo útil e interesante para ellos
    • Estudiantes tienen que pasar tiempo con estas comunidades
  • Naturalista- upload information,
    • Students need to put hours into a project
      • Use students from Alamos
    • How to synthesize these things?
    • Descripcion breve de BTC

• Buena noticia: Conanp: ampliar cobertura de programas Rio Mayo con una nueva ANP
  • Mala: incapacidad institucional