A scientist in Belize hopes bats can galvanize locals to protect their forests

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

In Central America, Belize is known for its Mayan ruins, its beaches and turquoise water where you can scuba dive and snorkel. Away from those touristy spots, a familiar tension is playing out over chunks of intact forest between people who want to develop the land and those who want to protect it. One conservation advocate has an unusual idea. The scientist proposes using bats to inspire the people of Belize to protect their forests. Here's science reporter Ari Daniel.

GLISELLE MARIN: (Laughter) Oh, it is.

ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: It's a dark spring night in Northern Belize. Gliselle Marin stands in the middle of a patchy forest, about a two-hour drive from where she grew up.

(SOUNDBITE OF ZIPPER ZIPPING)

DANIEL: She unzips her very special fanny pack.

MARIN: Yeah, it's very handy. We're trying to bring back the style from the '80s.

DANIEL: The fabric of Marin's fanny pack is covered in bats. She's got bat earrings and a flock of bats tattooed on the nape of her neck. Marin is a biology Ph.D. student at York University in Toronto. And she admits that she's all-in on these winged mammals.

MARIN: Growing up, we had bats roosting under our house. But when I actually started working with them and realizing we have close to 80 species of bats, I was like, OK, it's kind of crazy that I've been in science my whole life and was never taught that we have this diversity of bats in Belize.

DANIEL: Marin is here with the Bat-a-thon, a group of 80-some bat researchers who converge on this part of Belize each year, all of them interested in studying those quirky, fuzzy flyers. Every few minutes, they sweep their head lamps over the nets they've strung up to see if they've caught anything.

(SOUNDBITE OF BAT SQUEAKING)

DANIEL: They have. A leaf-nosed bat, the color of hot cocoa, is entangled. He's small, about the size of a lemon. Marin works to free him.

MARIN: So we're trying to get the net off of him. It's kind of like a puzzle, I guess. OK, he's out.

DANIEL: Marin's studying various species of bats here in Belize - some that feed on nectar, some that feast on fruit and some that dine on bugs. Each of them plays key roles in keeping forests like this one healthy by pollinating plants, dispersing seeds and devouring insects. Marin wants to know more about their diets, which is why she's focused on collecting bat poop.

MARIN: I'm going to extract the DNA from the feces, and that will tell me every single thing that they've been eating.

DANIEL: Marin suspects bats may actually have more flexible diets, and that sorting them into boxes based on the one thing we think they eat is artificial. Marin wants to know if bats routinely diversify their diet, or if they're being triggered to do so as their habitat is increasingly mowed down.

MARIN: So would they prefer to alter their diet within where they are, rather than fly really long flights to get to another place that has their resources?

DANIEL: And if the bats are switching their diets due to habitat degradation, how does that affect a bat population's long-term ability to survive?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: So we've got about 35 bats.

DANIEL: The bat researchers working the nets alongside Marin are from all over the world, but she's the only one from Belize. In fact, she thinks she's the first Belizean bat scientist ever to pursue a Ph.D. The country is a treasure trove of bat diversity. But most of the people who study bats here come from outside Belize, like Nancy Simmons. She's a curator of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and she helped recruit Marin and support her in attending her first Bat-a-thon three years ago.

NANCY SIMMONS: Gliselle, from the moment I met her, I knew she had that love for what we do, that you don't care that you're hot and sweaty and bug-bitten, because you're just so focused on learning about the animals.

DANIEL: By the time Marin attended her first Bat-a-thon, she'd already completed her undergrad and master's degrees overseas. But she's always come back to Belize to work for nonprofits and NGOs, to do fieldwork on bats, and to empower more Belizeans to take charge of protecting the natural legacy of their country.

MARIN: Conservation on a global scale has largely been dictated by European and Western ideals. I think it needs to be changing a lot more quickly. And as a Belizean, I think I can help to bridge that gap.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)

DANIEL: In the steamy light of midday, I accompany Marin along a trail in the Belize Maya Forest. This is her other bat field site, a protected rainforest, where it's possible to spot tapirs and jaguars.

ELMA KAY: Yeah (laughter).

DANIEL: We're following Elma Kay, managing director of the forest trust, and Marin's longtime mentor. Most of the dense foliage is made up of younger trees and shrubs, but eventually, we reach what Kay wants us to see...

MARIN: Ooh, wow.

DANIEL: ...A towering mahogany, 75-feet tall, as wide as a car, and way older than most everything in the forest.

MARIN: Oh, my God.

DANIEL: ...An echo of a grander time before its fellow giants were chopped down for lumber.

KAY: Everything was like this - massive, very thick and big.

DANIEL: Kay has spent her career leading conservation efforts in Belize, working towards sustainable development.

KAY: Gliselle represents a new generation. She will eventually have to bring up the next generation to come. And that's how we have to work.

DANIEL: Like the forest.

KAY: Absolutely. We have to have new trees coming up so that they can replace the old ones as they go down.

DANIEL: That's because the alternative doesn't offer much of a sustainable future for most everything else - bats, trees or people. Kay then takes us on a short drive to the edge of the forest. Inside our vehicle, there are gasps as the forest suddenly gives way to nothing - a windswept, treeless expanse. We drive up to a lookout.

Oh, there's a tractor, yeah. Looking out at this landscape that's been completely obliterated by the machinery to make room for agriculture goes on as far as the eye can see - does it make you angry?

MARIN: There's a little bit of anger there for sure, but definitely more, like, sad. It's always sad to come here and see more and more of the forest going.

DANIEL: Marin says a scene like this one adds to the urgency of her efforts to work with politicians and private landowners to protect more forest and to connect with the people of her country to convince them of why such protections are so crucial.

MARIN: You see, like, a lot of wildlife around?

MYRO SHO: Yeah, a lot of jaguars.

MARIN: Jaguars, you see...

DANIEL: I catch Marin chatting with a young forest ranger named Myro Sho.

MARIN: Have you noticed any bats, like, flying around?

MYRO SHO: No.

MARIN: No?

MYRO SHO: Not that I know of. Yeah.

MARIN: OK. I think, like, once you learn where to look, sometimes you start seeing them.

MYRO SHO: So you're from here?

MARIN: Yes, I'm from Belize. Yeah.

DANIEL: This grassroots approach that relies on using bats as her partners to spread a message of conservation, Marin says it's central to how she intends to protect the wild places of Belize.

MARIN: We have an amazing wealth of resources in Belize, and I don't think that's lost on Belizeans, to be honest. I think sometimes we just need a reminder. Some people feel like they don't have a voice or a role to play, but I think everyone does.

DANIEL: For Marin, it's about spreading a simple message - everything is connected - us, the bats, the forest, the past, the future.

MARIN: We're as special as everything else around us.

DANIEL: And all of it, she says, merits our care. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel, Indian Church, Belize.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.