PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #67: Conservation Ecology.
Friday, August 9. Presentation from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. Exhibit Hall B & C, TCC

Conservation of biodiversity in El Salvador: coffee, taxonomists and biological collections.

Monro, Alex^*,1, Gauld, Ian¹, Jones, David¹, ¹ The Natural History Museum, London, U.K.

ABSTRACT- El Salvador has between 2.5 and 5.0% natural vegetation cover remaining. Shade coffee production accounts for the majority of forest cover within an altudinal range of 600-1400 m. In 1999 a Darwin Initiative project initiated between NHM, El Salvador's Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources, the University of El Salvador, PROCAFE and the Botanic Garden of La Laguna. This project sought to: 1) provide baseline information on the biodiversity associated with shade coffee farms, 2) increase local taxonomic capacity and 3) produce identification tools to the biodiversity associated with shade coffee farms. Three target groups of organisms were selected: trees, ferns and Pimplinae (Ichneumonidae) wasps. A poster is submitted presenting the projects outputs.

KEY WORDS: shade coffee, El Salvador, taxonomy, biodiversity