Insect specialist, the late Dr. Margaret Collins

An organization such as the National Trust for the Cayman Islands requires high levels of expertise in every area of its work if it is to succeed. It cannot seek support for its mission which is to preserve natural environments and places of historic significance for present and future generations of the Cayman Islands if the information it lays before the people of these islands is not accurate and as comprehensive as possible. The Trust also needs a variety of biological information to be able to manage its protected areas effectively, and to ensure that its limited resources, in terms of both labour and finance, are used in the most effective way in its various conservation projects and programmes.

A community as small as that of the Cayman Islands cannot be expected to have an expert in every field. Fortunately it often happens that the Trust's need for additional scientific information coincides with the research interests of a university academic, museum curator or other specialist based outside the Cayman Islands. Such shared interests provide the basis for the Trust's Visiting Scientists Programme.

The most frequent arrangement involves a researcher with their own grant funding, who wishes to travel to Cayman to extend their studies to some aspect of our natural environment. The Trust is able to help with logistics such as locating accommodation and providing the necessary information on permits and local regulations. Researchers also benefit from access to the Trust's Herbarium and Insectarium, and Trust staff is able to suggest appropriate field sites and local contacts, and ensure researchers are aware of other past or ongoing scientific work in the islands which might be relevant.

In return researchers agree to fully share information with the Trust, and if they are collecting reference specimens then duplicates are lodged in the Trust's collections. Often visiting scientists are interviewed by local press and television, or give public talks about their work. In this way, information on major areas of Cayman's natural history has become locally available at no financial cost to the Trust, while the visiting scientists find they are able to work much more productively by collaborating with local experts.

In past years, such externally funded visiting scientists have come from museums and universities in the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom. For example, insect specialists such as the late Dr. Margaret Collins, Dr. Wayne Mathis, and Dr. Warren Steiner, all from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., have collected in the Cayman Islands in association with the Trust. The resulting material is available for reference and study in the Trust's Insectarium.

While working on Little Cayman, Dr. Collins uncovered the presence of a damaging termite, Coptotermes havilandi, which is a foreign species clearly introduced by accident. Unlike any of our native termites, this species is able to attack the ironwood posts of traditional buildings, and is causing extensive damage in newer houses. This discovery, with the following experimental non-toxic control programme established by researchers at the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Coptotermes laboratory, is a classic example of how Cayman benefits in many ways from this kind of collaboration.

A second kind of collaboration with visiting scientists arises from specific Trust programmes, where a need for particular expertise has been identified. Using funding available from project grants, the Trust can contact potentially interested researchers and seek to develop a joint study. In these cases, the travel and accommodation costs of the visiting scientists are often paid by the Trust, though since the nature of such academic collaboration typically excludes salaries and consultancy fees, costs remain very low.

The Visiting Scientists Programme benefits frequently from low cost accommodation provided by the Department of Environment, and often by the generosity of local businesses involved in vehicle rental and accommodation.

For more information on collaborative research, contact the National Trust.

Last Updated: 27 Jun 2012