Hidden Gem: Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences [VIDEO]

Since the founding of the bird research station atop Manomet Bluffs in 1969, when the first wild birds were carefully untethered from mist nets on the Ernst House porch and banded by then-executive director Betty Anderson and her team of volunteers, the Manomet Bird Observatory has exploded into the far-reaching , a non-profit organization heralded for its trusted, unbiased, original science.

In the last 42 years, the institution has widened its focus from migrant landbirds to include shorebirds, agricultural chemicals and water quality, ocean seabirds, fisheries, forest fires, radionuclides in birds at a nuclear power station, tropical forest bird studies, tropical forest conservation, renewable forestry practices, and conservation of tropical biodiversity. In the 1990s, under Manomet’s then-president Linda Leddy and since 2008, under John Hagan, the mission broadened toward collaboration with non-profits, for-profits, and the government. The realization was that complex problems like stressed natural systems, climate change, habitat loss, and increased consumption of natural resources cannot be solved by one entity alone.  

“Science is good,” Marketing and Communications Director Dave McGlinchey said. “But unless we get all the people in the room on board, we are not going to move the ball forward.”

Hagan likened each entity working alone to sounding like an orchestra warming up rather than the collective power of Beethoven’s 9th, one of the longest and most challenging symphonies of all time. Because Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences does not own much land, does not make policy, and is not an advocacy group, they have joined in 2011 with various partners – remaining independent and unbiased – to facilitate dialogue, inform through science and effect positive change.

Shorebird Recovery Project

Birdwatching is more than just a pastime. Watching a Red Knot or a Bar-tailed Godwit and seeing how they respond to where they live can indicate a lot about environmental health.

“Birds capture our imaginations,” Banding director at Manomet Trevor Lloyd-Evans said. “What have humans always wanted to do? – Fly. Birds are mobile, and if they don’t like a habitat, they’ll move. They are very sensitive.”

To help recover seriously declining bird populations throughout the Americas, and in turn, help the ecosystem humans share with them, Manomet is collaborating with academic and agency scientists, individual landowners, corporations, all levels of government, other conservation organizations, schools, community groups, and the funding community. Through the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, (www.whsrn.org) Manomet, along with other scientists, site owners and stewards in 85 sites in 13 countries, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, key sites for shorebirds have been protected and managed since 1984.

The center also participates in an on-going monitoring of oil development’s impact on bird populations in the Arctic Refuge and has collaborated with conservation groups, industry, and federal scientists on a study that shows a direct relationship between oil’s infrastructure, which becomes a habitat for predators, and the decline in bird population.

Sustainable agriculture – “the S word”

The Earth’s population is currently around seven billion. By 2050, that amount will increase to nine billion, and there will be two million more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. Agriculture will have to answer the call, and that jump in production will yield an increase in the use of water, fertilizer, chemicals, conversion of natural habitat to pastureland or cropland, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of demonizing agriculture for this inevitable environmental stress, Manomet reached out to Cabot Creamery in New England and Dairy Management, Inc. near Chicago to discuss the future and as Director of sustainability at Cabot Creamery Jed Davis called it, “the S word” – sustainability. Manomet’s Director of natural capital initiative Andy Whitman worked with dairy farmers, who were initially very scared that there would be regulation, and Davis to start a dialogue.

“What attracted us to Manomet was the science without activism,” Davis said. “They saw that values aren’t something you impose.”

Manomet also developed and tested the nation’s first agriculture sustainability scorecard and has plans to package it this year in a “sustainability toolkit” to help farmers measure for sustainability and dairy cooperatives across the U.S. to improve their economic, social, and environmental performance.

Climate change

Since it is unavoidable that there will be some climate change, Manomet sees that it is important to adapt to the changes as well as implement ways to mitigate it. Climate Change and Energy Senior Program Leader Eric Walberg has worked with Michael Hogan, C.E.O. of A.D. Makepeace to come up with the smart, sustainable ways of mixing real estate development, agriculture, and conservation on the company’s 13,000 acres in Southeastern Massachusetts.

“We’ve really focused our values of land stewardship into everything that we do,” Hogan said.

Makepeace has experimented with organic fertilizer to control algae blooms near their bogs, built and maintains six herring ladders, providing spawning herring access to Tihonet Pond in Wareham, and White Island Pond and Halfway Pond in Plymouth, Makepeace installed and maintains platforms for osprey nests along utility easements through the company’s property, and erected and maintains some 200 bluebird boxes designed to house the eastern bluebird, a species whose population is surging due to the provision of artificial nesting spaces like the ones Makepeace installed among many other changes.

Energy

Nowhere more than with wind energy is Manomet’s unbiased science needed. Although there is enough potential wind energy in the lower 48 states to provide all of our energy needs 16 times over, according to the National Academy of Sciences, in New England alone, currently less than half of one percent of the region’s electricity comes from wind. Why?

“We are very good at the harnessing energy – the science part,” Director of communications and marketing Dave McGlinchey said. “What we’re not very good at yet is the impact.”  

Siting turbines is a large part of the problem. Neighbors become concerned environmental and visual impacts, property devaluation, and noise. It is a social issue more than anything. Ryan Chaytors, Director of development at First Wind said his company is using Manomet’s third-party science to help drive a civil conversation and bring stakeholders together early on in the process. This year, Manomet is working on a wind turbine bylaw project, designed to help communities develop land use regulations that identify sites based on values, not science, and synthesizing and distilling knowledge from a panel of experts to create a guidebook for local officials.

This is just a small sampling of what Manomet is involved in. While the official grounds of the center are still 40 acres, with 20 acres for the main building, the Ernst House for banding, and 20 acres for the Ernst Garden for Wildlife, and the Holmes Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), the staff of over 30 do field work all over the globe.  

To learn more about this hidden gem or to find ways to donate, go to www.manomet.org. If you would like to schedule a demonstration of bird banding during the fall or spring migration for a school fieldtrip, please call ahead: (508) 224-6521. The Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences is located at 81 Stage Point Road.

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