Earthwatch Research
Earthwatch is dedicated to creating an environmental legacy through scientific research projects, educational programmes and engaging people in field research. Our Research Programme involves a global community of leading researchers, conservation volunteers NGOs and businesses, working together towards a sustainable environment.
Earthwatch supports research projects in four key areas: Ecosystem Services , Climate Change, Oceans, and Cultural Heritage. These priorities will shape our activities over the next 10 years and address critical global ecological and cultural issues that span a range of threats to environmental sustainability.
Ecosystem Services
Global ecosystems - communities of plants, animals and their environment, interacting with each other - provide us with valuable goods and services such as clean drinking water, food, timber and medicines. These benefits are central to the wellbeing of human beings and all living organisms, although they currently face increasing threats from a range of sources including climate change, habitat loss and pollution. Earthwatch ecosystem services research focuses on multi-functional landscapes that maintain a balance between providing services and supporting biodiversity. Our ecosystem services research includes:
- Biodiversity Conservation: enhancing biodiversity conservation through effective landscape management.
- Sustainable Agriculture: researching alternative land management plans in order to maintain sustainable farming practices.
- Sustainable Forestry: maintaining ecosystem services and biological diversity in productive forests.
- Freshwater: improving the availability and quality of freshwater for communities and wildlife.
Climate Change
Climate change poses one of the greatest challenges to our current and future societies, as well as to global ecosystems and the services they provide. Earthwatch supports climate change research that not only assesses impacts, but actively seeks to research how management interventions will counter the impacts of climate change on various landscapes and species. We also prioritise research that improves our understanding of the carbon cycle and how plants and soils around the world can function as carbon sinks. Our climate change research includes:
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Adaptation: evaluating the effectiveness of different landscape management methods and increasing the ability of species to adapt to climate change.
- Mitigation: to improve understanding of ecosystem management in order to maximize the potential of selected habitats to serve as carbon sinks.
Oceans
Over 70% of our Earth’s surface is covered by water, yet we currently have limited knowledge about our oceans, which are crucial to our survival, and the diversity of habitats and species they support. Earthwatch research focuses on highly threatened coastal habitats such as mangrove forests and coral reefs, which represent the most productive regions of the oceans. They remain highly threatened as a result of overharvesting of fish stocks, commercial shipping, pollution, and coastal development. The challenges of supporting a sustainable marine environment are in many cases different from those of terrestrial environments. Our ocean research includes:
- Coastal Ecosystems: ensuring the sustainability of coastal ecosystems by understanding and mitigating the effects of human-induced activities on vital ecosystem functions.
- Marine Biodiversity Conservation: maintaining viable populations of key threatened species (as defined by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) at critical locations and along migration routes.
Cultural Heritage
Global threats such as climate change affect not only species, landscapes and seascapes around the world, but also pose a serious risk to our cultural heritage. Our research focuses on biocultural diversity - the combined genetic, ecological, cultural, and linguistic variation found in native biological and cultural systems – and how communities manage their environments. Learning from societies’ past and current traditional practices will help inform local and national strategies and contribute to safeguarding tangible cultural heritage (e.g. archaeological sites, monuments and historic artefacts). Our Cultural Heritage research includes:
- Sacred Landscapes: improving our understanding of how natural or human-made sacred landscapes such as natural springs or burial grounds connect with cultural expression and identity.
- Indigenous Knowledge Systems: investigating and protecting indigenous knowledge and related practices.