Revitalizing the Pacific Flyway

Punta Soldado is a small island off the west coast of Colombia, a critical stopover along the Pacific Flyway, with as many as 8,000 migrating shorebirds visiting annually—Western Sandpipers, Spotted Sandpipers, Wilson’s Plovers, and many more. With its vast, pristine beaches flanked by mudflats and mangroves, the island is also home to a community of 500 Afro-Colombian people, who fish and harvest the mollusks that thrive there.

As young resident Michel Sinisterra puts it, “The ocean is life. It’s hope. When you’re near it, you forget your problems. It brings peace. I don’t think I’ll ever be separated from the ocean.”

In recent years, climate change has increasingly put this delicate ecosystem and Michel’s way of life in peril. By 2021, rising ocean levels, warmed by more frequent and severe recurrences of El Niño, dramatically eroded the beach. The mangroves—vital nursery grounds for fish and mollusks—were destroyed. Many residents were forced to relocate farther inland, and the island fell eerily silent.

The shorebirds dwindled to just 200.

A Bold Question

One reason climate change feels so staggering is because it’s a global phenomenon, and its manifold challenges differ greatly region by region. No single organization can tackle it all at once. While the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is an outpost for change nestled in Sapsucker Woods, birds are borderless. To create impact on a global scale, we have to make strategic alliances with conservation innovators all over the world. And we have to be in it for the long haul.

In 2019, the Lab asked a bold question: What if we could partner with emerging local leaders across multiple disciplines—architecture, biology, engineering, ornithology, the social sciences—and tackle habitat loss on-site, all along the Pacific Flyway?

Collaborating with The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, we launched the Coastal Solutions Fellows Program expressly for this purpose. We began bringing together the best and brightest Latin American scientists and innovators to work in concert with communities, go after on-the-ground results, and build conservation capacity for future generations.

Reversing the Decline

The challenges buffeting Punta Soldado’s community inspired Johann Delgado to tackle conservation solutions by becoming a civil engineer. “I could see the waves going right up to the town. Suddenly, you realize it’s not just about numbers,” he said. “It’s about lives. It’s about dreams.”

As a Coastal Solutions Fellow from Colombia, Johann partnered with the residents of Punta Soldado and built a team of sociologists, biologists, and engineers who modeled ocean currents and constructed elevated sandbars to protect the mangroves.

Last year a welcome indicator of success for Johann’s strategy arrived from thousands of miles away as shorebirds started returning in the hundreds, then the thousands. It happened after a La Niña event that helped the recovery of the island’s beaches and mudflats. By the end of the season, Punta Soldado’s naturally restored coastline attracted as many as 5,000 shorebirds.

In addition to the coastal defense strategy, Johann’s team designed environmental education programs, recognizing that the key to long-term success is ensuring islanders value the connections between birds and the ecosystems.

Every chance he gets, Johann credits the Coastal Solutions Fellows Program for his career. “I tell people Coastal Solutions is a smart investment because it’s about people power,” Johann says. “By reaching young professionals early in their careers and believing in them, you are giving them the chance to change the world.”

Going Beyond the Pacific Flyway

The need and urgency for solutions is greater than ever. We must rise even higher to meet the increasing challenges that migratory birds and coastal ecosystems face in our changing world.

After all, the Pacific Flyway is not the only migratory superhighway in the Americas. The habitats and species along the Mid-continental and Atlantic Flyways must also be protected. In the coming decade, we plan to scale our impact to the most important and threatened regions along all three.

To do that, we will expand and evolve our proven model, working with dozens of future Fellows eager to spark a lifetime of positive change. The successful scaling of the program will require strong partnerships with leaders, communities, and institutions on the ground as well as with donors worldwide. Together, we can achieve an ever bolder vision for healthy coastal ecosystems across the Americas.

Our growing network of Coastal Solutions Fellows are not only leading lights in their respective fields, they are architects of a better future. And they are ambassadors for the Lab, extending our conservation reach.

As Natalia Martínez-Curci says, “Coastal Solutions has changed everything for me.

No other organization in Latin America to my knowledge undertakes conservation in such an inclusive, interdisciplinary way. Now I think differently, and I see in my students the same desire. This is how change happens.”

30 Fellows Spearheading a Movement

The idea of protecting 4,000 miles of coastline: It’s a feat no conservation agency could pull off on its own. But our Coastal Solutions Fellows—30 strong and counting—are building a corridor of coastline conservation.

Across the continuum of science, land-use planning, and conservation policy, they’re piloting new approaches that balance the needs of shorebirds with those of local communities.

Collectively, the results speak for themselves: Through the Coastal Solutions Fellows Program we have helped 28 priority shorebird species, from Snowy Plovers and Red Knots to Hudsonian Godwits and Whimbrels.

And we’re just getting started.

Jonathan Vargas

partnered with the real estate industry to protect priority sites in Baja California’s critical Snowy Plover habitat, reducing human disturbance by 90%.

Varinia Sagastume

organized a rigorous survey of nesting and wintering shorebirds in Guatemala and established her own consult­ing firm to help nonprofits incorporate conservation into their aquaculture practices.

Natalia Martínez-Curci

helped protect 7,000 acres of Chile’s Caulín by marshaling local community leaders and Universidad Austral de Chile to formalize an agreement establishing best-management practices for seaweed farming.