Even at the uttermost ends of the Earth: how seabirds telecouple the Beagle Channel with regional and global processes that affect environmental conservation and social-ecological sustainability

RAYA REY, ANDREA N.; PIZARRO, J. CRISTOBAL; ANDERSON, CHRISTOPHER B.; HUETTMANN, FALK

ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY

RESILIENCE ALLIANCE

Año: 2017 vol. 22

1708-3087

Human-wildlife dynamics exhibit novel characteristics in the Anthropocene, given the unprecedented degree ofglobalization that has increased the linkages between habitats and people across space and time. This is largely caused by transnationalmobility and migration, international labor, resource markets, and trade. Understanding the relationship between humans and wildlife,and their associated telecoupling processes, helps to promote better management practices and governance for reconcilingsocioeconomic and conservation interests. Even remote places on the globe exhibit these features. For example, in southern Patagonia?scoastal and marine ecosystems, seabirds are not only very abundant and charismatic members of the wildlife community, nowadays,their colonies are a main tourism attraction of global significance, and in the past they were used for consumptive and scientificpurposes that also linked the ?uttermost ends of the Earth? with distant places. Thus, in this study, we review human-seabirdinteractions in the iconic Beagle Channel (BC) in the Argentine portion of the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago. We adapted andemployed the coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) approach and telecoupling framework to integrate disparate social andbiological information and obtain a more holistic understanding of current human-seabird dynamics and trends in the BC. Althoughour assessment includes the temporal scale of human-seabird relationships, we centered the CHANS and telecoupling analysis onthe modern seabird-tourism interaction, focused on the channel?s Argentine sector, in which tourism is most intensively developed.Our synthesis of the BC?s telecoupled CHANS allowed us to recognize the strong historical local-to-global interactions betweenboth human and natural subsystems and the sharp increase in distance telecoupling during the 20th century. Despite this globalizingtrend in seabirds connecting the BC?s local ecosystems to distant places, ironically we found few linkages between Argentina andChile, despite both countries sharing political sovereignty over this single biogeographical unit. Recognizing and studying thetelecouplings identified in this study would help multilateral efforts to incorporate the spillover systems (especially with Chile) andsending systems (i.e., transnational tourists? countries of origin) into extant regional policies (e.g., state protected areas) and globalinitiatives (e.g., the United Nations? sustainable development goals). It would also enable more informed decisions regarding specificproposals based on market-based incentives (e.g., payment for ecosystem services), certification schemes (e.g., Distintivo Onashaga)and participatory approaches (e.g., comanagement of natural resources with local communities). Integrating these scales into themanagement of the BC would help ensure that humans continue to enjoy meaningful relationships with this unique and charismaticwildlife and at the same time reinforce responsible tourism as a local-global strategy for sustainable development and globalconservation.