When I joined Audubon Florida’s coastal team this past spring, I was eager to work to protect native sea and shorebirds. While shorebirds already have intrinsic value, their presence serves as an important indicator of ecosystem health and resilience. What’s my process for sharing my love of birds with beach visitors? I’ll tell you!
Biodiversity and Benefits
Biodiversity allows ecosystems to self-organize and adapt to changes, providing a buffer to external stressors, such as habitat loss, overfishing, pollution, and storm erosion. However, when these stressors are extensive and too frequent, ecosystems can lose their ability to self-regulate and function due to the reduction in variety of species and wildlife population size (Rockström et al., 2009). Climate change makes this problem worse, pushing plants and animals to adapt faster than they are capable of doing (Stocker, 2015).
Areas that are naturally high in biodiversity are often the most threatened (Salzman & Thompson, 2014), so it is no surprise to hear that coastal habitats are among the most vulnerable environments on Earth. They are also the most highly densely populated by humans (Barbier, 2013).
The same forces that are driving biodiversity loss are also threatening the long-term sustainability of human populations in coastal regions (Kremen, 2005). When these ecosystems decline, so do the benefits they provide to nearby communities such as clean water, healthy fisheries, and protection from storms (Earth Economics, 2010).
Here in Southwest Florida, protecting shorebird nesting sites is one piece of a bigger picture, which is preserving the coastal habitats that sustain life and livelihoods. Connecting the dots to our rationale is easy when we consider the many ecosystem services our coastal habitats provide. These habitats maintain fisheries, produce food, filter water, reduce erosion, buffer communities from storm surge, and store carbon. These services offer immense value—often at no cost—to human communities.
Connections and Customization
Being able to communicate our conservation goals requires us to embrace a more inclusive approach to outreach strategies. As stewards, we need to be great storytellers, but also the stories we tell cannot be scripted. We need to be flexible, tailoring our message and conservation framework to each person we interact with on the beach. Understanding their body language, actively listening, asking follow-up questions, and remembering local visitors’ names builds rapport and trust through genuine human connections. Mutual understanding and respect for why each of us love and cherish our shores, whether it be recreational, aesthetic, or environmental, only increases the support and scope for our mission—it certainly does not diminish it.
I find joy in the unique conversations that arise each weekend. Rather than delivering a lecture or rehearsed speech, I follow a simple structure with three key elements: (1) introductions and rapport-building, discovering what motivates each person to visit the beach; (2) connecting those motivations to a relevant ecosystem service; and (3) empowering each individual with a practical action to help conserve coastal biodiversity.
A few memorable public engagements illustrate the transition between these three elements:
a. Shelling on Big Marco:
1) Engaging a fellow shell enthusiast and sharing excitement for marine invertebrates.
2) Pointing out physical features like the wrack line, scarp, and sandbar, explaining how pioneer plant species prevent sand erosion.
3) Discussing shorebird foraging behaviors along the wrack line, emphasizing the importance of giving them space and picking up microplastics.
b. Aiding a Fellow Boater:
1) Assisting a boater stuck in the receding tide while answering questions about our research vessel and survey routes.
2) Describing other research teams in Rookery Bay—such as the Sea Turtle Program, Water Quality, and Fisheries—who use similar vessels.
3) Recruiting an experienced boater to join our community outreach initiatives with Audubon and Team Ocean in Rookery Bay.
c. Monitoring our Fish Crow Visitors:
1) Introducing myself while alerting a kayaker to inquisitive Fish Crows disturbing their belongings.
2) Sharing our mutual interest in outdoor recreational sports and highlighting local ecotourism opportunities in the Reserve.
3) Explaining how crows can threaten shorebird nests and encouraging proper disposal of trash and food to prevent attracting predators and keep wildlife safe.
A Holistic Approach
Community outreach and stewardship are essential to the success of any long-term conservation program. A holistic approach to conservation needs to be grounded in a systematic understanding of the ecological, social, and economic relationships that shape environmental problems. Conservation efforts thrive when built on scientific foundations, strategic partnerships across public, private, and nonprofit sectors, informed decision-making, and a deep commitment to improving lives through protecting nature as we collaboratively build a more sustainable future. The Shorebird Stewardship role encompassed these essential elements resulting in a successful nesting season on multiple levels.
References:
Barbier, E.B. (2013). Valuing ecosystem services for coastal wetland protection and restoration: Progress and challenges, Resources 2013, 2, 213-230.
Earth Economics. (2010). Gaining Ground: The Value of Restoring the Mississippi Delta. Retrieved on November 24, 2016 from http://www.eartheconomics.org/publications
Kremen, C. (2005). Managing ecosystem services: What do we need to know about their ecology? Ecology Letters 8: 468-479.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F., Lambin, E., Lenton, T., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H., Nykvist, B., de Wit, C., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Snyder, P., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell, R., Fabry, V., Hansen, J., Walker, B., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, P., Foley, J. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity, Nature 461: 472-475.
Salzman, J. & Thompson, B.H. (2014). Environmental law and policy (4th ed.). St. Paul, MN: Foundation Press.
Stocker, T. F. (2015). The silent services of the world ocean. Science, 350(6262), 764-765.
