Members in Action: SER at UNED Costa Rica

Thursday, July 21, 2022
Posted by: Megan Taylor

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The Ecological Restoration Student Network (RERE) of the Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica (UNED) was founded in 2015 as a student initiative for the improvement of local ecosystems. We invited Wilmar Ovares Villalobos, Student Association Advisor, to tell us more about the goals of the student chapter and share their experience participating in Make a Difference Week. In this photo, volunteers, professors and students of the Ecological Restoration Student Network UNED Costa Rica are pictured at Cerro Espiritu Santo, Naranjo, Alajuela, on June 4 for the opening of Make a Difference Week 2022.

What inspired you to decide to create a SER Student Association?

The Ecological Restoration Student Network (RERE) of the Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica (UNED) was founded to create a student space to share experiences and activities related to ecological restoration. Currently, we have 20 active members around the country. The student association works to promote volunteering, scientific research, and building connections between students and graduates in ecological restoration. We were formally recognized as a student association by SER in 2017, which allowed us to network with ecological restoration researchers, practitioners, students and institutions worldwide.

Left: RERE visit to La Cangreja National Park, Puriscal. 2017.

Right: Reforestation in Cerro Espiritu Santo, Naranjo, 2019

What are the core values of your student association?

Mission: To be a multidisciplinary student organization that promotes ecological restoration through the exchange of knowledge, scientific research, collaborative work, and community outreach, in order to improve the environmental quality of local ecosystems.

Vision: To be a multidisciplinary student organization that offers opportunities for academic and professional growth to students and graduates, through collaborative work networks at the national and international level.

Left: Workshop organized by RERE “Population Dynamics: Introduction, Applications and Research Techniques in Conservation Biology”. Dr. German López Iborra from the University of Alicante, Spain, at Organization for Tropical Studies, San José, 2019

Right: Dr. López Iborra with members of RERE-UNED on a field trip, Monteverde, Costa Rica, 2019

How does the student association currently support ecological restoration? What projects are you working on right now?

Right now, we are working on ecological restoration projects in Cerro Espiritu Santo, in the Central Valley of Costa Rica; Juan Viñas, in the Caribbean; and UNED CITTED (Center for Research, Technology Transfer and Education for Development) San Carlos, in the north of the country. Through these projects, our students learn the value of volunteering, hosting workshops, and planting native species to restore local ecosystems. Research has been carried out for scientific publications such as “Native plants for erosion control” and “Ecological rehabilitation techniques using herbaceous and shrub plants”, among others (in Spanish).

In 2021, we began developing and teaching extension courses on ecological restoration with the UNED Science Teaching Program (Ecological Restoration for agronomic engineering and Ecological Restoration as an investigative strategy for science teaching).

At UNED Costa Rica, we are part of the School of Exact and Natural Sciences, and we work together with the Natural Sciences Teaching Program, Agronomic Engineering Program, and Natural Resources Management Program in the creation of content and promotion of volunteering and research.

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Left: Removal of invasive species in Tropical Rainforest, San Carlos, 2022

Right: Workshop organized by RERE “Native plants for erosion control”, Palmares, 2019

What are your goals for the Student Association? Any future projects that you would like to share?

We are planning a couple of new projects at Los Llanos UNED experimental farm (nursery for native species of the Central Valley of Costa Rica), where we will study the effect of forest fires on ecological restoration processes. We are also working on an agreement with Prolab (UNED Laboratory Program) to improve laboratory skills of our students. We hope to incorporate new students from more UNED branches and extend the network to areas where we still do not have a visible presence, such as the coastal areas and the southern part of the country.

For 2023, UNED Orotina branch (Costa Rica Central Pacific Region) has invited us to get involved in a mangrove conservation project. Although mangrove conservation is not our area of expertise, our students and volunteers are very excited to participate and learn.

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Left: RERE students in field activity; inventory of native species at Los Llanos Experimental Farm UNED, Alajuela. 2018

Right: Citizen science with students and volunteers at UNED CITTED Laboratories, San Carlos, 2022

How does your work support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration?

Through volunteering, research, planting, nursery of native species, control of invasive plants, environmental education, and outreach on other topics related to ecosystem restoration, we are contributing to the objectives of the United Nations decade for ecosystem restoration. Our education, volunteer, and outreach initiatives are a great opportunity to take the theme of ecological restoration beyond the classroom.

Working with communities is fundamental, and we encourage our students to network with local leaders and professionals in the environmental sciences. The United Nations decade for the restoration of ecosystems gives us the appropriate framework at the institutional level to request resources to support local initiatives for the repair of ecosystems and gives us the opportunity to make the theme of ecological restoration visible in Costa Rica.

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Left: Work at CITTED native seed nursery, San Carlos, Make a Difference Week 2022

Right: Yarenis, Adriana and Tracy, three members of RERE-UNED who participated in Make a Difference Week 2022.

What is the most encouraging thing you see for the future of the ecological restoration field?

The recovery of local ecosystems requires collaboration among communities, institutions, and authorities to meet the proposed goals. The generation of knowledge about native plants, recommended techniques, evaluation of ecological restoration projects, and the creation of local leadership to improve the management of damaged ecosystems, is of great importance for the future of ecological restoration.

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Reforesting at Cerro Espíritu Santo, Naranjo. 2022.

How has SER membership been of value to you?

Being part of SER gives us the opportunity to have scientific support for our work and allows us to get closer to the international scientific community in the field of ecological restoration. We include information from SER journals and publications in our workshops, articles, and extension courses. For instance, the International Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration and the continuum of restorative activities with its different levels are very important to us and are always taught to our new members at an introductory level.

Participation in activities such as Make a difference Week and webinars - in 2020 RERE-UNED was part of the Generation Restoration webinar - allows us to be active in the ecological restoration community, to learn from other experiences and to make our work known to other students and researchers around the world.

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RERE Students and volunteers of Make a Difference Week 2022, Cerro Espíritu Santo, Naranjo

Tell us more about your Make a Difference Week project or event?

During Make a Difference Week 2022, two initiatives were carried out. The first event took place on June 4, in the Ecological Restoration Project located in Cerro Espiritu Santo, Naranjo, Alajuela, with the support of UNED Palmares branch and Grupo Amigos del Cerro. We hosted field activities in the experimental plots that we manage there, such as planting of native trees and shrubs, as well as the removal and control of invasive plant species.

On June 11, the last day of Make a Difference Week, we hosted our second volunteering event at the Center for Research, Technology Transfer and Education for Development (CITTED), in La Perla de la Fortuna, San Carlos, Alajuela. This event included field activities such as planting native seeds in a nursery, planting native trees and shrubs, and removal of invasive plant species. We also carried out citizen science activities in the Experimental Sciences laboratory.

What were the goals of your project, and did you achieve them?

Our goals were to carry out two different activities and involve more people than the previous year. We also wanted to go from just reforestation and invasive plant control activities to carrying out nursery, laboratory and citizen science activities.

All goals were met! We hosted two activities, and we doubled the number of 1) volunteers, 2) trees and shrubs planted, and 3) invasive plants removed, compared to the previous year. In addition, we managed to carry out laboratory activities ( Schizolobium parahyba pre-germination treatments for our students and volunteers) and we started our nursery project at CITTED.

In total:

62 people (volunteers, students and staff) participated in our two Make a Difference Week events
160 native plant species such as Malpighia glabra , Acnistus arborescens and Lasianthea fruticosa, among others, were planted
372 kg of invasive plants were removed
484 native seeds such as Samanea saman, Schizolobium parahyba, Gliricidia sepium and Anacardium excelsum were planted in our nursery

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Volunteers and students during Make a Difference Week 2022 CITTED San Carlos

Why did your student association decide to participate in this year’s Make a Difference Week?

This was our second year participating in Make a Difference Week. Every year we look forward to this activity that motivates us to work for the environment and allows us to showcase our work. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the last two years have been very difficult to organize field activities, which are very important to us.

During the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, we hope to continue carrying out this event and integrate a greater number of volunteers, to organize more events during the week and to reach out to more communities.

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Removal of invasive grasses at Cerro Espíritu Santo, Naranjo, Make a Difference Week 2022

What are your plans for 2023 Make a Difference Week?

We hope to increase the number of volunteers, locations, and categories of participation. Our goal for 2023 is to have three activities in different areas of the country and, if possible, to recruit more than 50 volunteers per event. We are also interested in offering workshops, courses, and other activities for people who cannot travel to areas of difficult access, such as the elderly population or those with mobility problems, but who want to learn about ecological restoration during Make a Difference Week.

Our goal for the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is to make Make a Difference Week our most important volunteer activity, where we share part of the knowledge generated, provide research results, and carry out field activities. In addition, it is very convenient that this event takes place close to World Environment Day, since this day is widely celebrated in Costa Rica and allows us to publicize our work more easily.

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Make a Difference Week 2022 closing event at CITTED, La Perla de San Carlos.

The Ecological Restoration Student Network (RERE) of the Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica (UNED) would like to thank our partners and sponsors:

Asociación de estudiantes de manejo de recursos naturales (ASOMARENA)

Grupo Arlequín San Isidro

CITTED La Perla de San Carlos

Asociación de Estudiantes de Occidente

Escuela de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales

Programa de Manejo de Recursos Naturales

Programa de Ingeniería Agronómica

Programa de Enseñanza de las Ciencias Naturales

Centro Universitario UNED Palmares

Finca Los Llanos UNED

Rectoría UNED

Wilmar Ovares Villalobos [email protected]

María Zúñiga Amador [email protected]

Facebook: Red Estudiantil de Restauración Ecológica UNED

Instagram: rere_uned

Email: [email protected]

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Members in Action: SER at UNED Costa Rica