CCC assisted the initation of a project which may potentially result in the co-management of a protected area in Trinidad. The Nariva Swamp, on the SE coast of Trinidad, has had some protected status since 1968 when Bush-Bush Wildlife Sanctuary was created. In 1992, the area was designated as a wetlands under the Ramsar Convention and in 1995, a monitoring team from Ramsar visited the Nariva Swamp. During September of this year CCC Director Dr. Rob Horwich assisted Bjom Sletto, a graduate student of the Department of Geography at the University of Kansas in carrying out a village land use study of the area.

Sletto organized the villagers of Cascadoux and Kernahan villages which are located adjacent to and within the swamp to begin a social exercise which would bring the villagers into the process of creating an enlarged protected area which would include villagers' needs. Sletto, with village research assistants, carried out a village survey of current uses of the swamp and ran a series of conceptual mapping sessions in which the villagers, as a group, helped Sletto to create a map of the area as villagers see and use it.

These meetings and others that Sletto and Horwich had with government agencies may catalyze the beginnings for a community co-management of protected areas in Trinidad. They met with Nadra Gyan, Director of the Wildlife Section of the Forestry Department, Robin Cross, Head of the National Parks Division, and Dr. Peter Bacon, Head of the Department of Zoology of the University of the West Indies.

Initially in the visit, Horwich addressed government and university members in a slide show lecture on community conservation in Belize and how some of the ideas could pertain to Trinidad. In the meetings which followed, the idea of the creation of a community co-managed National Park was favorably discussed. Over the course of Horwich's visit, plans were made for writing a proposal to seek funding to further the project.

Sletto's information will be used in conjunction with the biological data that Dr. Bacon and students have been collecting on the swamp to begin a management plan for the site. The mapping process, in addition to gaming knowledge about the use of natural resources, was very successful in bringing villagers together to discuss proper land use. It also stimulated their future involvement in the project.

The Nariva Swamp is a mosaic of forests and wetlands which are used for growing rice and vegetables by village farmers. Large scale farmers had done major illegal deforestation but were recently ousted by the government which is currently giving the villagers of Cascadoux and Kernahan legal leases to the lands they are now using. Villagers also fish for armored catfish and large snails which are eaten and sold.

CCC Director Dr. Rob Horwich attended a meeting of the Indo-US Primate Project in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, at the invitation of Project leader Prof. S.M. Mohnot and the U.S. Advisor, Dr. Charles Southwick. The Indo-US Primate Project began in 1994 to establish a center for primate biology in India with a field emphasis on collecting geographic and behavioral/ecological data on Indian primates. They also emphasize conservation and management of rarer species. Horwich gave the key note talk on Community Conservation in Belize in a session on Community, Conservation and Translocation.

At the meetings, Horwich met with Dr. Arun Srivastava, Director of the Northeast Center at Guwahati, Assam, and his students, who collectively are doing systematic primate surveys of the seven northeastern Indian States. He accompanied Srivastava and Dr. lrwin Bernstein, U.S. Advisor, and his student Matt Cooper to Guwahati to seek opportunities for a community conservation project to help conserve the golden Langur (Trachypithecus geei). The trip was partially supported by the Margo Marsh Biodiversity Foundation.

At the Northeast Centre in Guwahati, Dr. Srivastava arranged a series of meetings and trips to investigate the status of the forests and the golden langur. Dr. Horwich met with three main groups in western Assam concerned with golden langur protection. Most of the time he was hosted by Mr. Rajen Islari, President of the Central Land and Forest Protection Committee and a member of the Bodo Tribal community. With Islari and a number of NGO members as well as Forest Department staff, Horwich travelled along north-south roads of a number of forest reserves bordering the Bhutan Royal Manas National Park. The contiguous parks and forest reserves encompass over 3000 Km2 area which is being proposed as a biosphere reserve. The party also travelled to Bhutan to encourage inter-country cooperation.

Additional trips were made to visit two isolated golden langur populations in two hill forest fragments south of the main langur range. The party met with two groups: Nature's Foster who have recently begun working with villagers around the Kakoijana Forest Reserve, and Nature's Beckon, who have organized villagers around the Chakrashila Forest Reserve to protect and reforest the areas which had been cut a decade ago by illegal encrouchers. The Chakrashila project has successfully worked with villagers to reforest the area for the last 9 years and is a successful model of community forest protection which will help in other prospective reforestation programs in protection of golden langur habitat.

CCC's program in the Kickapoo Valley has continued to expand, focussing on broadbased community river monitoring and a valley wide education network. The project began in 1994 with a proposal by CCC and the West Fork Sports Club. It evolved from the work CCC did in initiating the creation of the Kickapoo Reserve lands. This reserve, which is primarily locally managed, was to serve as a protected "core" area from which to involve residents throughout the valley in protecting their private and public lands.

As the area, became fertile ground for community conservation projects. Trout Unlimited (TU) began a 2-year program as part of their Home Rivers Initiative to help coordinate efforts which were already in progress. Having CCC's beginning already in place, TU partially funded the education section of the CCC Kickapoo Valley Community Stewardship Program.

The education program, being coordinated by Tina Hirsch, has begun to connect and integrate teacher, student and community volunteers in the common goal of river monitoring. A summer Institute was run through the University of LaCrosse to train teachers from a number of valley schools. This resulted in a group of interested teachers continuing to meet to discuss the water monitoring program and curriculum development. Ms Hirsch began a newsletter, the Kickapoo Connection, to keep those and other interested teachers informed about what others in the valley are doing.

Additionally, a number of independent teacher projects have come about as by-products of the program. Frank Accomando's program at Kickapoo High Scool is one such example. Accomando has been making an important attempt to create innovative teaching programs centered on integrating curriculum from other disciplines into his science curriculum and involving students in hands-on projects with a greater degree of classwork done at field sites within the Kickapoo watershed. His courses have also involved community members and outside experts to give his students a more knowledgable and broader view of the subject matter.

Currently, Accomando and his students are producing a video about his teaching program. In the spirit of integrative curriculum, Denise Buckley, the art and Spanish teacher at Kickapoo High School, has worked with her students to edit the materials and provide a Spanish script for the video. This Spanish version will be sent to some biology classes in a community near the Manatlan Biosphere in Mexico where Ms Buckley has begun to make contact. Following this, she proposes to take some interested students to Mexico to work on water monitoring jointly with the Mexican classes.

Another goal of the project has been to facilitate a community water monitoring group. Interested community members have attended some meetings and are beginning to be trained. In one case community volunteers have become interested directly from becoming involved with their daughter in Accomando's classes.

CCC assistant Director and teacher at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, Dr. Jon Lyon has been involved in the monitoring and in teaching the teachers. He has currently prepared a proposal for funding to introduce Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping into the 8 valley schools. This would provide both a mechanism for data storage and for valley wide communication between teachers and others involved in the project.

Political upheaval in western Assam began in the 1960's due to the Bodo tribe's general discontent with their treatment within the state of Assam. This unrest led to the formation of a number of radical political groups who are demanding a separate state and who use both peaceful and violent means to achieve their goals. Part of the Bodo unrest was due to the increase in the population from refugees from other Indian states resulting in the dilute influence of the Bodo people within their native lands.

This political situation had a major impact on the environment in 1987 when these groups began an illegal logging operation to pay for their political activities. This destruction led to a free scale logging by many people in the area which has resulted in the deforestation of a third of the forest reserves within the Indian range of the golden langur (Trachypithecus geei) within the past 5 years.

In the spring of 1996, a major confrontation developed between the "ultra" groups of the native Bodos and similar political groups of the migrant peoples. This conflict resulted in the deaths of thousands of people which led to large scale village destruction and the fleeing of people from the forest areas.

As a quieter political milieu developed, the Central Land and Forest Protection Committee (CLFPC) was formed with the support of the Bodo community, including the ultra groups. The CLFPC petitioned the Assam government to restrict illegal immigrants and forest encrouchers from returning to the forests. Recently, the government has resettled the legal communities back in the forests. This has then led to a renewed potential to involve the legal existing forest communities in protecting their forests and beginning work to reforest those areas which have been devastated during the last 5 years.

CCC and the Indo-US Primate Project in Assam have begun to work with Rajen Islari and the CLFPC and villagers to protect the existing forests. During his visit to Assam, CCC Director Dr. Rob Horwich addressed a large meeting of villagers near Kochugaon, Assam to initiate the joint liaison.

While important to the villagers living in the forest reserves, the area is also the main range of the rare and endangered golden langur. This species, which Horwich had seen in 1968, is rapidly decreasing in numbers due to the major deforestation. Thus, Horwich will work with Dr. Arun Svivastava, Director of the Northeast Centre of the Indo-US Primate Project, to try to move the governments of India and Assam to connect a number of contiguous forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries to create a 3-4000km2 transnational Biosphere Reserve which would involve Bhutan whose bordering area includes the Royal Manas National Park.

The golden langur, which was only first observed by scientists in 1956, is India's most endangered primate, numbering probably less than1000. Its primarily leaf eating ecology, its limited geographical range and the major deforestation in that range makes its survival at high risk.

CCC continues to move the ideals of community conservation forward. A grant proposal to the United Nations Development Program, submited through the Protected areas Conservation Trust (PACT) has passed the preproposal stage and a full proposal is being submitted to create a park system based on community co-management. The proposal will initially work with 5 protected areas including Manatee area, Sarstoon/Temash National Park and Five Blues National Park.

Five Blues National Park program will progress this year since they were awarded a PACT grant for $25,000. Bz. for a visitor center, maintenace of trails, and a dive platform. Additionally, they now have a volunteer Manager, from Switzerland, who has been publicizing the park within Belize. The park had a celebration in September with games, picnics and hikes which stimulated more villagers to volunteer their services for the park. Five Blues is an important model for community comanagement since the Belize Government has a formal contract with Friends of Five Blues, a community group, to manage the park.

CCC Assistant Director, Dr. Jon Lyon has organized a tropical biology course in Belize for Edgewood College of Madison, Wisconsin. The group, assisted by other staff of Edgewood College and CCC will travel to Belize in January, 1998. They will visit the Community Baboon Sanctuary, the Gales Pont, Manatee area, and Cay Cauker to study Belize ecosystems and community conservation efforts. The course will follow tenets for responsible ecotourism/education by working directly with local villagers to arrange for rooms, meals and guiding services. It will also contribute some money directly to the conservation efforts of some of the protected areas that they visit.

CCC began working with Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger (CSWAB) in this summer in an effort to seek community-based solutions to the final disposition of the Badger Army Ammunitions Plant (BAAP) lands near Baraboo, Wisconsin. The situation has similarities to the Kickapoo Reserve lands. The solution for the disposition of those govemement lands was created by a CCC proposal in 1992. The situations are similar in that Badger lands are owned by the army and has been controversial. The plant has not functioned for weapon production for over 20 years and recently the army has publically declared that the plant will be closing.

For the past 8 years, CSWAB has functioned as a watch dog organization to encourage the clean up operations of the lands which have been a major concern of residents in nearby areas due to the early lax procedures for toxic waste disposal on the lands. With the news of the eminent closure, CSWAB hosted a meeting to begin a process of community activity to look for alternative uses for the lands which would be compatible with the land use of the surrounding community lands.

The Badger lands are surrounded by a number of protected lands which makes it conducive to natural resource protection and potential tourism based on recreation or eco-activities. BAAP currently abuts up against Devil's Lake Park and two protected areas under The Nature Conservancy and Wisconsin Power and Light. Thus, its surroundings speak for a prospective function in land protection. The army, working with a number of environmental groups, has already begun a program of prairie restoration on the lands. CSWAB members have gone to the Joliet, Illinois Arsenal to seek an additional model of land management for similar army lands.

When Olin Corporation, which currently manages the lands for the army, proposed an industrial park, there was a community outcry against such land use. Given the models of the Joliet Arsenal and the Kickapoo Reserve lands in Wisconsin and the community interest in a clean and harmonic use of the BAAP lands, CCC is working with CSWAB to create an alternate proposal for a multiple use of the lands which will include prairie and oak savanna restoration along with tourism and other compatible uses for the land.