Cayo Scoop! The Ecology of Cayo Culture

The 10th annual Natural Resource Management and Research Symposium is approaching, and they are doing a call for abstracts.  The deadline for submission is February 24th.  

"The Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation-Belize Chapter (MSBC) in partnership with the Ya’axché Conservation Trust (Ya’axché) and the Global Trees Campaign (GTC) are organizing the 10th installment of the annual natural resource management and research symposium under the theme “Science Based Management for the Sustainable Use and Conservation of Belize’s Natural Resources”. This year’s symposium is an effort to maximize the impact of knowledge sharing by combining the 2nd Global Trees Symposium and the 10th NRM symposium. The Global Trees Symposium is an effort to highlight the importance of rare and threatened tree species and the management practices that can ensure the survival of these species in the long term.

The 10th annual Natural Resource Management and Research Symposium welcomes abstracts for both oral presentations and posters discussing research, case studies, lessons learnt, and practical applications related to natural resources management and research in Belize."

The Ya'axché Conservation Trust has a cool short out about biodiversity when it comes to cohunes and gibnut.  Some of the film is in Mayan, with English subtitles.  Definitely worth a watch.  

"The cohune, the gibnut and us is a short film produced by Ya'axché Conservation Trust in Belize, Central America.  The film is explains the concept of biodiversity and what an ecosystem is, and why we humans need to take care not to break the links in the forest ecosystem.  The film uses the example of the gibnut (paca), a ground dwelling rodent which disperses the nuts of the cohune palm, which is used for thatching.  The paca is also hunted for meat by humans.  Read more about Ya'axché at yaaxche.org or visit the Facebook page: facebook.com/yaaxche"