Andréa Presotto

Salisbury University · Geographic Cognition and Conservation Lab - Department of Geography and Geosciences

Brazil is a globally important mangrove holding nation and contains the second most mangrove forest of any nation globally after Indonesia and almost 10 percent of the global mangrove forest area. To put the mangrove holdings of Maranhão into perspective, it contains greater mangrove carbon stocks within its state borders than all nations globally aside from Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua, New Guinea, potentially Australia, Brazil itself. In our area mangroves are being encroached upon by transient dunes, which bury the mangrove forest and cut off the supply of estuarine water. The sand encroachment has progressed to 6 km from the shoreline in this region (Figure 1) and as much as 30 km further north. Aside from its forest importance the mangroves on Maranhão host populations of capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus), performing a rare form of tool use. Capuchins catch the crabs in the mangroves of Rio Preguicas; they then use wood as harmer and tree trunks as anvils to crack open crabs, a unique opportunity presented by the mangrove habitat where they live. Our main goal is developing a protocol for surveying primates in mangroves using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and thermal cameras. Despite efforts, in the fragmented mangroves of our study area we do not have enough information of bearded capuchin population living in the area, which is imperative to understand if their traditional tool use behavior is endangered.

To understand the role of elephants on the biodiversity and human geography of the region. Elephants are the major driver for wildlife conflict and biodiversity changes in African ecosystems where they persist. Seventy-five percent of Africa’s elephants now live in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA) along with three million people. Finding ways to coexist with the elephants is essential to secure the future of Africa's elephants and improve the futures of the people of the region. While the importance of elephants in the ecosystem is acknowledged by all, there are still many questions as to their specific role, with assumptions often taking the place of hard data. For example, loss of biodiversity is the criteria usually used to determine that there are too many elephants in an area. However, in a four-year study in which we directly observed elephant feeding behavior, we found that breeding herds of elephants do little, if any, unsustainable damage to the environment. The long-term goal of our project is to provide scientific and management information that helps humans and elephants coexist in a multi-use landscape. This information will be useful not only in Zimbabwe, but in other areas of abundant elephant populations, like Botswana and South Africa. Thus this study may serve as a model for the whole region.

In order to preserve both human and monkey cultures’ biodiversity, this project aims to understand the dynamics of human-primate interface in Brazilian semi-arid habitats where population of wild capuchin monkeys routinely use stone tools to crack encased foods, a finding that have important implications for understanding human evolution. Ecological and ethnographic methods are performed to investigate human–primate interface. Understanding how humans perceive their natural resources allow protecting both human and capuchin culture, and prevent conflicts between them. Effects of this project are addressed to improve the capacity of land-owners and local residents to manage their lands as well as understand the best practices for the survival of wild primates.