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Operation Wallacea (known as Opwall) is an organisation funded by tuition fees that runs a series of biological and conservation management research programmes operating in remote locations across the world. These expeditions are designed with specific wildlife conservation aims in mind - from identifying areas needing protection, through to implementing and assessing conservation management programmes. What is different about Operation Wallacea is that large teams of university academics, who are specialists in various aspects of biodiversity or social and economic studies, are concentrated at the target study sites giving volunteers the opportunity to work on a range of projects. The surveys result in a large number of publications in peer-reviewed journals each year, have resulted in 30 vertebrate species new to science being discovered, 4 'extinct' species being re-discovered and $2 million levered from funding agencies to set up best practice management examples at the study sites. These large survey teams of academics and volunteers that are funded independently of normal academic sources have enabled large temporal and spatial biodiversity and socio-economic data sets to be produced and provide information to help with organising effective conservation management programmes. Depending on the country, Opwall normally operates both marine and terrestrially based research expeditions, with a variety of research themes, whether they be biological, geological, geographic or social science projects. In 2012/13, the expeditions are operating in 11 countries: Indonesia, Honduras, Cuba, South Africa, Peru, Madagascar, Guyana, Mexico and Romania. In each country, a long-term agreement is signed with a partner organisation (e.g. ICF in Honduras, Fund Amazonia in Peru, Wildlife Ecological Investments in South Africa, Fundatia ADEPT in Romania) and, over the course of this agreement, it is hoped to achieve a survey and management development programme at each of the sites. Occasionally, a competent local partner organisation is not available. In these cases, Operation Wallacea mentors the formation of a new NGO comprising local staff who have provided successful input to the expedition surveys (e.g. Lawane Ecotone for the Indonesian forest, Lembaga Alam for the Indonesian marine sites and Expediciones y Servicios Ambientales de Cusuco for the Honduran cloud forests). ==History== Operation Wallacea first started operating expeditions to South East Sulawesi, Indonesia in 1995. This region is known as the Wallacea region, after the work of the famous 19th Century naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and the creation of Wallace's line (the boundary separating the ecozones of Asia and Australia). It is from this scientifically important area that Operation Wallacea took its name. This region was specifically chosen for three reasons: a) Its high biodiversity and scientific importance, especially its high level of terrestrial endemism, and its location in the major centre of biodiversity for Scleractinian corals. b) Increasing pressure and anthropogenic impact on important habitats including primary forest and coral reefs. Deforestation, hunting and overfishing are important examples of these threats, and are specifically focused on by the work of Operation Wallacea. c) The urgent need for conservation to tackle these human pressures, due to a lack of existing conservation and research effort in this region. Much of Opwall's early work was concentrated in the Tukangbesi archipelago, conducting volunteer-led rapid assessments of large areas. This baseline data allowed the identification of key areas in need of urgent protection, and resulted in the establishment of the Wakatobi Marine National Park in 1996, the second largest marine park in Indonesia, and protection of the Lambusango rainforests on the island of Buton. Much of this early work concentrated on establishing research bases at both the rainforest and marine sites, and providing partner Indonesian NGO's with much needed data for the development of legislation and continued management of protected areas. In 2003 Operation Wallacea's success in Indonesia attracted the attention of NGO's in Honduras. The result was the creation of new research sites in both the cloud forests of mainland Honduras and the coral reef clad islands of los Cayos Cochinos. Since then, expeditions have been set up in nine more countries, with the number of sites visited each year now totalling 25. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation Wallacea」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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