Costa Rica - one of the most biodiverse countries
in the world houses 5 percent of all living
species such as the green hermit hummingbird
and the three-toed sloth. Ruling at the top
of the food chain is the jaguar. These magnificent
creatures roam in the La Amistad International
Peace Park and the Corcovado National Park,
where they are safe. For the most part.
Deforestation for agriculture and human settlement
threaten this species. This development limits
food resources and fragments jaguar habitats,
isolating the populations by confining them
to protected areas. When jaguars venture outside
of these areas into human landscapes, they
risk coming into conflict with livestock and
farmers.
As a apex predator jaguar is extremely important
for the Costa Rica ecosystems, especially
the remaining lowland forests. They regulate
prey species so by eating peccary, they make
sure the peccary populations don’t become
so big that they are eating all the seeds
for the trees for example, because if they
eat all the seeds from the trees you don't
get turn over for forest and that really limits
what species will regrow over the long term.
But, they are also just a emblematic species
and really important to have around for things
like tourism, things like maintenance of protected
areas and natural parks and they just provide
a huge number of ecosystem services that sort
of well above and beyond just the predation
on other species.
NASA DEVELOP partnered with Arizona Center
for Nature Conservation and Osa Conservation
to help devise a solution to save the jaguar.
Using NASA Earth observations the DEVELOP
team mapped land use and vegetation cover
to determine a suitable location for the corridor.
These maps illustrated historical trends of
vegetation health and changes in land use
from 1987 through 2019.
This analysis will support the current outreach,
education and field work our partners are
conducting. One current project our partners
are working on is advocating sustainable farming
methods such as growing jaguar friendly coffee.
In the case of coffee, more than anything,
we are trying to produce coffee that benefits
the people by producing income for them and
at the same time giving jaguar the opportunity
to move through one habitat fragment to another
through the coffee fields themselves.
Determining a location for a corridor will
aid in prioritizing restoration efforts to
promote wildlife-friendly agriculture, reuniting
the two isolated jaguar populations and saving
the king of the jungle.
