IMCG Field Symposium Tierra del Fuego November 2005

In order to stimulate mire conservation in Tierra del Fuego, South America, and the extratropical Southern Hemisphere, IMCG is planning a Field Symposium in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) from 16 - 25 November 2005.

This symposium will enable mire conservationists and administrators from Tierra del Fuego, South America, Southern Africa, and Australia, and other IMCG members to discuss topical issues with respect to mire conservation and wise use in this part of the world.

The Field Symposium will consist of three days of symposia and workshops in Ushuaia (with English as conversation language) and seven days of excursions. The number of participants in the field excursions will – for logistic reasons – be limited to a maximum of 50.

We crossed the Varela River, climbed the hills and after the first few miles of bog came to K-Wheipenohrrh (Naked Ridge or Nose). Before us now lay a lovely picture of winding streams fringed with grass or bushes, and mountain valleys full of bright yellow bog, with clumps of dark evergreen beech trees clinging to the side where the rocks were not so steep. In the background were rock and patches of snow. A short distance away two small streams joined and, in the form of a diminutive waterfall, broke through a narrow gash in the second range.

Lucas Bridges (1948): Uttermost Part of the Earth

Peninsula Mitre (Photo: Hans Joosten, March 2004)

November 17: Presentations by guests on themes related to peatland conservation and wise use in S-America, the Southern Hemisphere, and the World.

November 18: Excursion to the Valle de Andorra with delicately patterned eccentric Sphagnum magellanicum bogs: overview of research in peatland patterning development, hydrology, palaeoecology, vegetation. Peat extraction.

November 19: Excursion to the Ushuaia City mires and the Rio Olivia mires: problems of urbanisation, peat extraction, and recreation.

November 20 and 21: Two day excursion to the Valle Lasifashaj and Moat: spring mires, percolation mires, blanket bogs, Astelia aapa mires. Overnight stay in tents.

November 22: Airplane flight over Peninsula Mitre (the eastern part of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, an inaccessible wilderness large covered with mires) and other parts of Tierra del Fuego: mire expanses (> 2000 km2 of mires, mire patterning on landscape scale.

November 23: Excursion to Tolhuin: diversity of peatlands: patterned bogs, sloping mires, kettle hole mires, peat extraction, Vegas (pampa mires).

November 25: Symposium day (Ushuaia): Summarizing discussions, conclusions, resolutions, workshops, future planning.

Total package (incl. symposium registration, accommodation, meals, and excursions): 850 Euros

Because of the intensive contact in the field between experts of many disciplines and countries, IMCG Field Symposia are a highly effective means for information exchange, training, discussion, and theory and policy development.

1. Humid areas where presently different types of forested peatlands are being formed. Several possible occurrences of these peatlands have been mapped based on data and publications of others and personal observations of the author.
2. Dry areas where forested peatlands are only found in a fossil state and where presently valley mires are formed of shallow swamps and humid meadows.
3. "Alpine" peatlands and peatlands of the "high pampas" (the former are mostly located in zone 1, the latter in zone 2).
4. Isohyets.

After: Bonarelli, G. 1917. Tierra del Fuego y sus turberas. Direcciòn General de Minas, Geología e Hydrología, Buenaos Aires. 121 pp.