An International Course in Tropical Entomology: The “EI Cielo” Experience

Fig. 1. Students, faculty, and staff from Texas Tech University and the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas in the first joint course of tropical entomology ever taught at the Los Cedros Field Station. The Biosphere Reserve EI Cielo is in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, just somh of the Tropic of Cancer and about 483 km south of Brownsville, TX. In 1986, EI Cicio was designated a Biosphere Reserve by The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in cooperation with The International Union for the Conservation of Nature under the "Man and Biosphere Program." EI Cielo is one of more than 350 biospheres located worldwide and the closest tropical biosphere to the United States. The floral and faunal diversities ofEI Cido are among the highest in the world because this biosphere lies at the ecotone between the tropics and the temperate region (Augustine 1993). EI Cieto, with elevations ranging from 100 to 2,300 m, has four distinct ecosystems including tropical jungle, mountain cloud-forest, pine-oak forest, and dwarf oakheath forest. The Institute of Ecology and Food at the University of Tamaulipas and UNESCO manage the resources, while maintaining the lifestyle of the people in the reserve who depend on the land for their livelihood. Farmers are scattered among various ejidos (villages) ranging in size from approximately 900 inhabitants in Gomez Farais to 10 families at San Jose. These people are progressing from subsistence to sustainable agriculture, while at the same time protecting the biodiversity that has only just begun to be studied. National parks in Mexico are different from those of the United States because people live and work in them. Perhaps "man living in harmony with nature" is a romantic notion, but that is the purpose of "Man and the Biosphere" and, in our view, the program is working. This relatively pristine, exotic environment provides the setting for the joint "Curso International Sobre Entomologia Tropical en la Reserva de la Biosfera EI Cielo," open to