General Information

The information and knowledge derived from scientific research are integral to realizing the ACG's mission to restore and conserve into perpetuity a complete tropical dry forest ecosystem along with its associated rain forest, cloud forest, and coastal-marine ecosystems. In order for a wildland such as the ACG to be conserved into perpetuity, current and future generations must internalize its intrintisc value by visualizing the wildland as a "productive sector" that generates multiple "goods and services" from its biodiversity and ecosystems.

This biodevelopment of a wildland is only possible with a base of scientific knowledge about its species and ecosystems, including the natural history of species, the state of their populations, their interactions with their surrounding environment as well as knowledge of ecological processes and relationships. This knowledge coupled with that of the history, archeology, and local culture of the area are a source of information indespensable to not only the biodevelopment of the protected area but also the associated administration, conservation, and management of the ACG.

Research and scientific knowldedge have been essential to establishing and cementing the fundamental philosophy the ACG: Conserve, Know, Use.

Research Program

Since the conceptualization and founding of the ACG, scientific research has always been a driving force.  In 1986 it became apparent that a research program was needed to serve as a bridge between the administration of the protected area and the scientific world that was so important to its development. (see a brief history of the Research Progam)

From this necessity the following mission and primary objective of the program was established and continues to drive its operation today:

Mission:

Make the ACG a world-class scientific research destination dedicated to its users where the scientific process and the information obtained are integral to the biodevelopment and conservation into perpetuity of the biodiversity that is being restored and conserved in the 120,000 terrestrial hectares and 43,000 marine hectares of this protected area.

Primary Objective: 

Stimulate, facilitate, utilize, and actively participate in the basic and applied scientific research of the biodiversity and ecosystems that are protected, restored and conserved in the ACG.

User Group:

  • National and international research scientists.
  • Universities and other centers and institutes of higher education.
  • Graduate and post-graduate students.
  • Courses in biology, ecology, and other associated areas.
  • Professional photographers and film groups.

The Research Program has two coordinators who facilitate and support protected area users to develop their research and related activities in the ACG from processing permissions and other administrative actions to organizing logistics and accompanying, supervising and guiding field work or other activities.

The Research Program visualizes the ACG as an immense biological research station with a series of facilities and services available to the user group and themselves as facilitators and problem solvers for those users. The objective of this program is to be more than just a bureaucracy that researchers have to deal with. The goal is for the Research Program to be seen as on-site faculty that students, professors, and scientists can look to as collegues for discussing, sharing and developing their research projects

The aim of the Research Program is to reach past a solely administrative relationship with the researcher and build one in which collegues and friends work towards a common goal. 

What types of research are welcome in the ACG? 

All types of studies are welcome in the ACG as long as they do not cause any impact on the species, biodiversity or ecosystems studied and a "leave no trace" practice is applied. In fact, the Research Program makes an effort to foment and facilitate scientific studies in many fields in an effort to generate the knowledge necessary to create a better understanding of the ACG's natural environment. This is necessary for the proper management and conservation into perpetuity of the ACG as well as to enable society at a local, national and international scale to value the ACG through wise-use practices.

There are also obvious gaps in the scientific knowledge of the ACG that need to be filled as well as new challenges to study in order to understand them and have a chance of managing their effects such as climate change, over fishing, acidification and contamination of the oceans, and other anthropogenic impacts on the species, biodiversity and ecosystems of the ACG.

On average, researchers initiate around 20 new projects each year dealing with a wide variety of organisms such as insects, marine species, plants, birds, and bats. There  are also more than 10 long-term research projects active in the ACG that cover many areas including the ecology of aquatic ecosystems, seaturtle monitoring, insect inventories, studies of birds and geological investigations. (Long-term Studies in the ACG) 

Another area of ongoing research in the ACG involves the Parataxonomists Program where baseline scientific information is generated by people trained from local communities in a effort to integrate the wildland's nieghbors into the scientific processes being developed here.  A true example of Biodevelopment.  

Besides facilitating research in the protected area, the Research Program also particiaptes directly in projects of special interest to the ACG, in particular investigations that monitor the state of marine ecosystems in the protected Marine Sector and Santa Elena Bay such as monitoring coral, marine fish species, marine currents, and red-tide events.

The maintenance of a geographic information system (GIS), a good system of roads and trails, basic housing facilities, diverse habitats and ecosystems, internet availability, a system of weather stations, and most importantly the availability of biological information, knowledge of sites and a good actitude towards the scientific community by Research Program and ACG staff make the ACG one of the most attractive sites for scientific research in Costa Rica.

A great quantity of scientific knowledge and data is accumulated in the ACG due to its importance as a tropical research site. In order to facilitiate instantaneous access of this knowledge and data with local, national, and international communities, the ACG coordinates with a group of researchers who have developed the IACG (investigadores (researchers) ACG), an organization of ACG researchers interested in sharing their data and communicating  with researchers, administrators and other users of the ACG through the internet. 

November 2012.