Community embedded ecologist helps bridge gap between researchers and locals

Haldre Rogers is determined to avoid the practice of “parachute research.”   

Rather than dropping into a location, conducting weeks of field work, and then leaving to finalize the results, Rogers believes in becoming a part of the community — letting local research needs drive the questions, collaborating with those who know the land, training local biologists, and disseminating research discoveries with residents. 

As an embedded community ecologist and conservation biologist, Rogers has been researching the impact of the invasive brown tree snake on the limestone forests of Guam for 22 years. Through this, she has learned the value of working with local people. 

“There’s an intrinsic knowledge of systems that comes from having grown up in a place and having knowledge from your family and your ancestors informing your understanding of place,” said Rogers, associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and an affiliate with the Invasive Species Collaborative. “Each time I have worked with someone who’s from the islands, I am reminded about the unique value of this perspective.”  

Guam became a U.S. territory in 1898, and its residents gained U.S. citizenship in 1950. The adjacent Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — collectively with Guam, the Mariana Islands — have been governed by the U.S. since World Ware II and a U.S. territory since 1986. The Indigenous people, Chamorro, have resided on those tropical islands for more than 3,500 years, yet the small islands in Micronesia have been colonized by Europeans since the 1500s. 

Rich in biodiversity and limestone forests, Guam’s ecological balance has been severely altered because of invasive species introduced to the island, either directly or indirectly. Rogers said the most pernicious is the brown tree snake, which caused near extinction of all native forest birds and the decline of native species including lizards and the fruit bat.  

The cascading effects of the tree snake alone have resulted in the silent forests, a lack of seed dispersal of native plants, and a plethora of spiders. Rogers and her team are studying the deeper impacts of the invasive snakes on the island’s ecosystem functions, including pollination, seed dispersal, and food web dynamics. 

True to being embedded into the community, Rogers lived in Guam to work with the Brown Treesnake Project run by the U.S. Geological Survey from 2002-05, when she left to pursue her Ph.D. Rogers continued to work on the island from 2006-08, and in 2009, with National Science Foundation-funded research, Rogers hired two students from the University of Guam. Since then, she has continued to prioritize hiring from the local high schools, colleges, and universities. 

“Local students and staff keep giving back to the islands — their commitment is so much deeper than someone for whom this work is one step in a career path. They have so many personal connections that are priceless and irreplaceable,” said Rogers, who is also affiliated with the Global Changer Center’s Restoration Ecology Working Group.

Pacific Islander Zia Crytser, who identifies as a “Daughter of Guam,” has seen a change in the research community during the seven years she has been working with Rogers, having begun as an undergraduate student at the University of Guam. 

“Other researchers are now recognizing that gap and have shifted the mindset in trying to hire more locally, like students from the University of Guam’s biology department,” said Crytser, now a graduate student in Virginia Tech's Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation.  

According to Crytser, the University of Guam has started new programs for conservation and sustainable practices, which has opened doors for a lot of students through funding and scholarship programs. One of those initiatives is the Center for Island Sustainability, which was established in 2009 for research and outreach.   

Crytser believes the push driving sustainable conservation practices forward has encouraged more community involvement from school children to professionals. She said there are more people earning graduate degrees in environmentally related subjects because they see those programs leading to more potential careers that could make a difference in their home island."  

“I believe that when individuals see people that resemble them in the role of a scientist, it reframes their perception as to what a scientist can look like and highlights the underrepresentation of Pacific Islanders in this field,” Crytser said. “I’m proud to advocate for this change, helping to fill the gap in representation while ensuring that the unique culture and environmental knowledge is valued.”

Christiana-Jo Quinata, a Chamorro scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, agrees that opportunities for the Indigenous community to participate in ecological and conservation efforts are increasing, but said the cultural divide still exists. 

“I’m connected to my place of research, so the need to understand the science behind it allows me to understand the history of a certain place,” said Quinata, who earned a master’s degree from Iowa State with Rogers as her mentor. “It’s kind of daunting to come into a room and talk about conservation when I’m not purely talking about the science of it but how culture or history could impact that science.”

As a member of the community in which she researches, Quinata believes that her work has value and integrity. 

“If you’re doing research in a place that you’re not tied to, it takes a while to really understand,” Quinata said. “For me, I love science and our natural environment, but if I’m not doing it for the betterment of my community and being able to perpetuate my culture, then what is it all for?”

Another means of bridging the gap between researchers and the local community is the Mariana Islands Conservation Conference, which was founded by Rogers; Ann Marie Gawel, a former Ph.D. student in Rogers’ lab and a Micronesian Islander; and Joni Kerr, a Chamorro faculty member at Guam Community College in 2017. The purpose of the yearly event is to share research that takes place in Guam and Northern Mariana Island with the local residents. It is free and open to the public, so there are no barriers for the local community to access the research conducted on the islands. There is also a job fair associated with the conference. 

“In the future, my dream would be that the people doing most of the research in the Marianas are from the islands and not someone like me coming from off-island. That would be ideal,” Rogers said.