“We drink coffee, we like chocolate, so we need coffee plantations and we need cocoa plantations. Some of us eat meat so we need pasture and agriculture. Let’s find a way to do it better and let’s find a way that we can be contributing to biodiversity conservation. Not only bird conservation.”

Alejandra Martinez Salinas’ work focuses on the importance of long-term monitoring programs to address changes in bird species composition within different agricultural land uses. She is particularly interested in the effects of human intervention in the long-term conservation of bird populations. She is currently researching the role of birds in the removal and control of the coffee berry borer, one of the most harmful insect pests known to affect coffee production worldwide.

Alejandra Martinez Salinas is a Nicaraguan ecologist-ornithologist and a Ph.D. candidate with CATIE and Univesity of Idaho Joint Doctoral Program. She is the lead ornithologist of the Proyecto Monitoreo de Aves (PMA) at CATIE Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre in Costa Rica.