Paying Farmers To Welcome Birds
付錢給農民 迎候鳥光臨
By Jim Robbins

WHEATLAND, Calif. – The Central Valley was once one of North America’s most productive wildlife habitats, a 725-kilometer-long expanse marbled with meandering streams and lush wetlands that provided a stop for migratory shorebirds on their annual journeys from South America and Mexico to the Arctic and back.
加州中央山谷曾是北美最具生產力的野生動物棲地。它全長725公里，有迂迴的溪流與蒼鬱的濕地，為每年往返於南美洲/墨西哥與北極間的遷徙性濱鳥提供中途休息站。

Farmers and engineers have long since tamed the valley. Of the wetlands that existed before the valley was settled, about 95 percent are gone, and the number of migratory birds has declined drastically. But now an unusual alliance of conservationists, bird watchers and farmers have joined in an innovative plan to restore essential habitat for the migrating birds.
農民與工程專家早已馴服這片山谷。濕地在人們開墾前即已存在，約95%卻已消失，導致候鳥銳減。如今，保育人士、賞鳥人與農民結合成不尋常的聯盟，共推一項富創意的計畫，為候鳥重建必要的棲地。

“We’re disrupting the conservation industry by taking a new kind of data, crunching it differently and contracting differently,” said Eric Hallstein, an economist with the Nature Conservancy.
大自然保護協會的經濟學者霍爾史丹說：「我們突破保育窠臼，蒐集新資料，以不同的方法加以分析、縮小。」

The program, called BirdReturns, starts with data from eBird, the pioneering citizen science project that asks birders to record sightings on a smartphone app and send the information to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York.
這項名為「鳥禽返回」的計畫以來自先驅公民科學計畫「電子鳥禽」的數據展開。「電子鳥禽」委託賞鳥人以智慧手機的應用程式記錄看到的候鳥，把資訊傳給紐約的康乃爾鳥類實驗室。

By crunching data from the Central Valley, eBird can generate maps showing where virtually every species congregates in the remaining wetlands. Then, by overlaying those maps on aerial views of existing surface water, it can determine where the birds’ need for habitat is greatest.
「電子鳥禽」分析來自中央山谷的資料，繪出幾可顯示所有鳥類在現存濕地哪些位置集合的地圖，再將這些地圖與現有地表河水的空照圖套疊，據以研判候鳥最需要的棲地何在。

The BirdReturns program, financed by the Nature Conservancy, then pays rice farmers in the birds’ flight path to keep their fields flooded with irrigation water as migrating flocks arrive.
「鳥禽返回」接受大自然保護協會資助，付費給候鳥遷徙路徑上的稻農，在候鳥飛到之前以灌溉水注滿農地。

The project’s first season ended in March, as birds headed north from newly flooded fields. Researchers said all of the birds whose numbers they hoped to improve were seen on “pop up” wetlands – a temporary steppingstone for the birds’ journey north. This happened when the field would have ordinarily been drained. The fields will be flooded again this autuam for the birds’ return journey. Eventually, using this and other approaches, the conservationists at BirdReturns hope to increase the number of shorebirds that stop in the Central Valley to 400,000, from current levels of 170,000.
計畫的第一季已隨鳥群自注水農地北飛而於三月結束。研究人員說，他們希望數量能夠增加的那些候鳥，全都在「突然出現」的濕地現身，這些濕地是候鳥北飛的中繼站。往常這些農地此際水應該都已排光。農地秋季會再注水以迎接折返的鳥群。「鳥禽返回」的保育專家希望透過這個方法與其他措施，使在中央山谷停留的濱鳥由目前的17萬隻增至40萬。

BirdReturns is an example of the growing movement called reconciliation ecology, in which ecosystems dominated by humans are managed to increase biodiversity.
「鳥禽返回」是妥協生態學這新興運動的一個實例。根據這個理念，原由人類宰制的生態系統應加以管理以提高生物多樣性。

It could also be an exportable solution. Agriculture creates some of the world’s most serious ecological problems. If BirdReturns proves itself, it could be an inexpensive model for adjusting agricultural landscapes to mesh with the needs of wildlife.
它也可能是一種可以輸出的解決方法。農業足以衍生一些舉世最嚴重的生態問題。如果「鳥禽返回」的價值得到證實，它可能是調整農業面貌以符合野生動物需求的低成本模式。

Migration takes a great deal of energy and is the riskiest thing birds do. Each January, about 20 species of shorebirds and several dozen species of wading birds and waterfowl start dropping into the Central Valley on their arduous journey north. Many are officially designated “of concern,” a category just below “threatened.”
遷徙極耗體力，也是候鳥所做最冒險的事。每年一月，大約20種濱鳥與數十種涉禽、水禽在長途北飛途中都會在中央山谷歇腳。其中多種被列入「值得關切」名單，僅低於「受到威脅」。

The shorebirds zoom into wetlands, and wade on stiltlike legs through several centimeters of water or across glistening mud flats to ferret out worms, insects, crayfish and snails with their long bills.
這些濱鳥成群降落在濕地，兩腳踩高蹺般涉過深僅幾公分的水或反光的泥灘，以長喙挑出蠕蟲、昆蟲、淡水螯蝦與蝸牛。

The Central Valley is the most developed of the landscapes they cross. Until now, one of the biggest problems has been that in February, at the peak of migration, rice farmers are letting their fields dry out in preparation for planting. “When they need it most, there’s less and less habitat,” said Mark Reynolds, a Nature Conservancy scientist who helped design the program.
中央山谷是牠們飛行路線上開發程度最高的地區。直到現在，一直有個很大的問題，就是每到候鳥遷徙高峰的二月，稻農總是任由農地乾涸以備播種。協助設計這項計畫的大自然保護協會科學家雷諾茲說：「在牠們最需要的時候，棲地越來越少。」

In 2012 Dr. Reynolds and Brian Sullivan, the eBird project leader for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, got the idea of using the sighting data to find out where the shorebirds go. They overlaid those data on maps of water availability in the Central Valley to determine where the needs for wetlands were greatest.
2012年，雷諾茲與「電子鳥禽」計畫負責人蘇利文想到利用觀察資料確定鳥群在哪裡的方法。他們把這些資料與中央山谷的水分布圖套疊，以確定候鳥在哪些地方最需要濕地。

“We had a little bit of data in a few places, and on some species, but with eBird we can go wall to wall,” Dr. Reynolds said. “It’s a whole new window on migration we didn’t have before.”
雷諾茲說：「我們原本只在少數地方蒐集到一點點鳥類資料。有了『電子鳥禽』我們可以全面蒐集，為了解鳥類遷徒開了扇全新的窗。」

Dr. Hallstein said that at first it was a difficult to get farmers to make the shift, but that it helped when they thought of shorebird protection as just another crop.
霍爾史丹說，起初很難說服農民配合改變，然而當他們將保護濱鳥視為另一種收成，事情就好辦多了。

Biologists hope the approach is a solution for one of conservation’s most pressing problems. “Migratory birds are a daunting challenge,” Dr. Reynolds said. “It’s a hemispherical scale, and it’s seasonal, and every species has a different life history.” But he added that if BirdReturns’ encouraging early results in the Central Valley prove out, “you could create habitat all along the flyway.”
生物學家希望如此可解決最迫切的保育課題之一。雷諾茲說：「候鳥是極大挑戰。它牽涉整個半球，有季節性，每種鳥各有不同的生命歷史。」不過他又說，如果「鳥禽返回」在中央山谷的初步成果獲得證實，「便可在候鳥整個飛行路線上建立棲地」。

On a recent rainy day here, thousands of soaring dunlins wheeled across the gunmetal sky before setting down in a soggy rice field. “It’s pretty exciting,” Dr. Reynolds said. “This program allows us to be strategic with scarce conservation dollars. That gives us a lot of hope.”
在加州惠特蘭最近一個雨天，數千鷸類飛過暗灰天空，降落在一片潮濕的稻田。雷諾茲說：「真令人振奮。這項計畫讓我們能有效運用極有限的保育經費。這讓我們滿懷希望。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/science/paying-farmers-to-welcome-birds.html

2014-04-29聯合報/G5版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 陳世欽譯 原文參見紐時週報十版上