Consolidating a long-term forest monitoring network in a human modified landscape in Northern Ecuador II (COFOREC II)

Our goal is to improve data quality and continue capacity building activities of our ongoing SI project COFOREC (2018-2019). COFOREC made operational a forest plot network for long-term ecological research on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in natural and reforested areas along a large environmental gradient in a highly diverse, strongly anthropogenic tropical landscape (Andean-Chocó). With COFOREC II we aim at 1) improving data quantity and quality (taxonomy, functional traits, biomass estimates) of our permanent plots, 2) enhancing the research skills of young local ecologists. These goals contribute to our overall objectives: 1) understand natural forest responses to global change, 2) evaluate forest recovery, 3) assess human pressures on forests, and 4) capacity building. This approach tackles an urgent natural capital question: human-ecosystem interaction in a changing world, in a key biodiversity region. We aim to do this in close collaboration with local and international stakeholders (landowners, NGOs).