TORONTO, February 5, 2002 -- Wine connoisseurs gathering tomorrow at the Vaughan Estate on the grounds of Sunnybrook & Women’s College Health Sciences Centre will be bidding on a stunning array of fine European and American wines being sold at auction to raise funds for research and conservation projects at York University’s Las Nubes Rainforest in Costa Rica.

The event on Wednesday, Feb. 6 is hosted by the Woody Fisher Fund for Neotropical Conservation and organized by Stephen Leckie of dSh Event Management. York University President Lorna Marsden will open the evening. Michael Vaughan, wine columnist at the National Post and publisher of Vintage Assessments, will lead a tasting of seven wines of the 1982 Bordeaux vintage, considered one of the best of the 20^th century. Wine consultant Ken Lewis, who has appraised the wines, will comment on the lots as they are auctioned by Hal Hannaford, Headmaster of Royal St. Georges College.

Las Nubes is a mid-elevation cloud forest adjacent to Chirripó National Park and the Amistad Biosphere Reserve, and is part of the largest, undisturbed rainforest in Central America. At one time a threatened rainforest, it was bought by Toronto physician Woody Fisher for conservation purposes and donated three years ago to York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES). Researchers at York have been working on-site to develop methods for maintaining the biodiversity of tropical forest habitats that are essential to the survival of tropical birds resident in the forest and to many migratory songbirds that winter in Costa Rica and summer in Canada.

The work at Las Nubes has also been integral to raising international public awareness about the value of organic, shade-grown coffee to preserve what remains of the tropical forest ecosystems of Central and South America. This traditional method not only protects biodiversity, soil and water, but also ensures a local supply of fuel wood, timber, fibre, food products and medicinal plants to local farm communities.

Las Nubes is jointly managed by FES and the Tropical Science Centre of Costa Rica, and financed through private donations and foundation grants to the Fisher Fund for Neotropical Conservation, which are frequently matched by The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The long-term plan is to protect the Las Nubes forest as part of the largest, undisturbed rainforest in Central America, to create a biological corridor to the Los Cusingos Neotropical Bird Sanctuary downstream, and to promote ecologically sustainable agricultural practices within the region.

"A system of protected areas like the national parks is not sufficient in itself to protect biodiversity," says Howard Daugherty, a York professor and director of the FES research program at Las Nubes. "There has to be an overall ecological landscape that supports biodiversity, including in the agricultural areas." Los Cusingos is one of the few remaining fragments of lowland forest on the Pacific slope of Central America. The idea is to increase the ecological connectivity between critical lowland and highland ecosystems in southern Costa Rica.

Details of FES researchers’ projects at Las Nubes are attached.

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For further information, please contact:

Prof. Howard Daugherty	Susan Bigelow
Faculty of Environmental Studies	Media Relations
York University	York University
416-736-2100, ext. 40369	416-736-2100, ext. 22091
jaguar@yorku.ca	sbigelow@yorku.ca

YU/018/02

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• Sandra K. Znajda has studied avian diversity and conducted interviews with small landholders to produce a comprehensive set of recommendations for policy makers and local growers for establishing more sustainable coffee production practices.

• Susan Hall has examined the diversity of surface-dwelling beetles in different coffee agroecosystems in order to evaluate the potential for biodiversity conservation in unprotected landscapes outside of national parks and reserves.

• Anna M. Baggio has studied community-based conservation, identifying the importance of local participation in planning and decision-making, as well as opportunities for sustainable conservation and development practices at the community level.

• Susan O’Leary has designed environmental education programs about the protection of an endangered species, the Great Green Macaw, for children and adults in local communities.

• Eileen Harrington is developing an environmental education program for local schools on the ecological and economic benefits and values of shade-grown and organic coffee, targeted at Costa Ricans and North Americans.

• Rebecca Wardle has completed a community-based study of medicinal plants in the Las Nubes region and explored the use of such plants as tools for local conservation.

• Tara Campbell has developed an education program to encourage the preservation of local knowledge of medicinal plants, to sustain local cultural identities while encouraging forest conservation, plant survival and healthy communities.

• Dean Young has used remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) to analyze land use and water quality to enhance the decision-making capability for more sustainable watershed management.

• Brad Corner is developing a spatial decision support system (SDSS) using satellite data and GIS to analyze and visualize the impacts of hydroelectric development in southern Costa Rica, including the Las Nubes watershed.

• Orit Dobsky is researching the application of corridor and connectivity concepts to forest fragments in the Las Nubes region.

• Christos Astaras is examining methods for increasing forested habitat and ecologically sound coffee agroforestry systems on the margins of Los Cusingos.

• Howard Daugherty and Michael Hough are designing an ecologically-based rehabilitation plan for the river bank corridor formed by the Peñas Blancas, which connects the Las Nubes Biological Reserve and Los Cusingos Neotropical Bird Sanctuary.