| "They are realizing how important Old Woman Creek is to this area and how it can be a wonderful research tool for them." | |
| Betsy Baerenklau, McCormick Middle School |
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Ohio coastal resource managers are reaching across 1,800 miles and the Gulf of Mexico to partner with managers in Belize to help protect and build public awareness about migratory birds that call both places home. What they have found, however, is that this partnership isn't just valuable for the birds.
"The cultural exchange that has developed throughout this project has been an unexpected bonus for our schools and communities," says Linda Feix, education coordinator at Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve in Huron, Ohio. "At first, our educational efforts were very much focused on migratory birds as an international resource both countries shared, but as time went on, learning about each other's culture, history, and people also became an integral part of the project."
The "Birds with Two Homes" project began in 2000 with a staff exchange between Old Woman Creek and the Belize Audubon Society's Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. "It has developed," Feix says, "into a dynamic, international partnership that engages resource managers, educators, students, tourism officials, and the public in addressing the decline of migratory birds and the destruction of their habitat." No state or federal monies are used to fund the project.
Old Woman Creek and Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary staff first met in 1992 at the First World Congress on Tourism and the Environment in Belize, a tiny country about the size of New Hampshire that lies on the Caribbean coast of Central America bounded by Mexico and Guatemala. Discovering the reserve and sanctuary shared similar research, management, and resource protection goals, staff from the two organizations stayed in touch. "We kept saying, 'we should do something together,'" Feix says.
The first opportunity came in 2000, when Friends of Old Woman Creek funded the first staff exchange. Since then, natural resource managers and educators from Ohio and Belize have participated in joint technical training on topics such as "status and trends of neotropical migrant birds, nature-based tourism, monitoring, data collection techniques, and law enforcement."
The reserve and sanctuary also have partnered to develop exhibits and educational materials that link classrooms and visitor centers in both countries. Feix says teachers have been exchanged, and more than 400 students and teachers in communities near the sanctuary and reserve correspond by mail and the Internet.
"The Belize project has been wonderful for our students because they have been learning about other cultures and countries, as well as attaining a new appreciation for the birds of Belize and this area," says Betsy Baerenklau, a 5th grade teacher at McCormick Middle School in Ohio. "They are realizing how important Old Woman Creek is to this area and how it can be a wonderful research tool for them."
Coastal managers also have been learning, says Feix. "We've all gained so much from our participation. Not only are we more aware of the importance of protecting coastal habitat for migratory birds, we now have a partnership and communication network in place to sustain our efforts. The benefits to us and to them are beyond what we ever imagined in the beginning."
For more information about the "Birds with Two Homes" project, contact Linda Feix at (419) 433-4601 or Linda.Feix@noaa.gov.
