Helping HELP with limited resources: The Luquillo experience

By definition the HELP approach involves the active participation of individuals from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds, including representatives of industry, academics, natural resource managers, and local officials and community leaders. While there is considerable enthusiasm and support for the integrated HELP approach, a central problem for all HELP basins is how to effectively engage individuals and groups with few, if any financial resources. In the Luquillo HELP project we have managed this issue by focusing our efforts on holding small, public meetings and workshops with technocrats and managers who are engaged in local water resource management. To date several forums have been organised, including: technical meetings with the directors of natural resource agencies; presentations and panel discussions at the meetings of local professional societies, including the societies of Civil Engineers and Architects, the Commonwealth Association of Tourism, the Association of Builders and Developers, and the Puerto Rican Association of Lawyers. During these forums HELP specialists gave presentations and led discussions on how integrated watershed management can help resolve local problems. Because the audience are directly involved with these issues, they are quite responsive to these discussions and have often provided unique solutions to common problems. Technical workshops are co-sponsored by local municipalities – these day-long workshops are hosted by a municipality and include managers from other municipalities, the local water authority, and local community leaders. Additional activities include: technical advice on water infrastructure projects is given; there are educational exchanges between local and international students, scientists, natural resource managers, and community leaders; and synthesis publications relevant to integrated water resource management are produced. Other activities have included compiling oral environmental histories and organising watershed restoration activities. This paper describes these activities and discusses the benefits and costs of each approach.Keywords: integrated water resource management, tropical mountains, Puerto Ric

The impact of forest regeneration on streamflow in 12 mesoscale humid tropical catchments

Although regenerating forests make up an increasingly large portion of humid tropical landscapes, little is known of their water use and effects on streamflow (Q). Since the 1950s the island of Puerto Rico has experienced widespread abandonment of pastur

Population, Land Use and Deforestation in the Pan Amazon Basin: a Comparison of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela

This paper discusses the linkages between population change, land use, and deforestation in the Amazon regions of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, and Venezuela. We begin with a brief discussion of theories of population–environment linkages, and then focus on the case of deforestation in the PanAmazon. The core of the paper reviews available data on deforestation, population growth, migration and land use in order to see how well land cover change reflects demographic and agricultural change. The data indicate that population dynamics and net migration exhibit to deforestation in some states of the basin but not others. We then discuss other explanatory factors for deforestation, and find a close correspondence between land use and deforestation, which suggests that land use is loosely tied to demographic dynamics and mediates the influence of population on deforestation. We also consider national political economic contexts of Amazon change in the six countries, and find contrasting contexts, which also helps to explain the limited demographic-deforestation correspondence. The paper closes by noting general conclusions based on the data, topics in need of further research and recent policy proposals.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42720/1/10668_2003_Article_6977.pd