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Toward a post-conflict Colombia: Restoring to the future

DOI:10.1111/rec.12172
Authors:
Mauricio Aguilar-Garavito at Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt
Mauricio Aguilar-Garavito
Jorge Sierra at National University of Colombia
Jorge Sierra
Wilson Ramírez at Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt
Wilson Ramírez
Orlando Vargas at National University of Colombia
Orlando Vargas
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Abstract

At an historic moment, when Colombia is emerging from 60 years of armed conflict, the 7-year-old Colombian Network for Ecological Restoration (Red Colombiana de Restauración Ecológica [REDCRE]) has created four subnational nodes, and is actively developing several more. All of this is taking place in the context of the Ibero-American and Caribbean Society for Ecological Restoration (Sociedad Ibero-Americana y del Caribe de la Restauración Ecológica [SIACRE]). In mid-November 2014, over 200 representatives of government agencies, academia, private enterprises, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from the entire country attended a symposium to launch the Antioquia Province node, and take stock and plan the way forward. There are bright prospects of transdisciplinary and public–private collaborations in Colombia for ecological restoration and restoration of natural capital as part of a strategy to transition smoothly to a post-conflict era. We suggest some goals and guidelines to help move forward an ambitious agenda to mainstream ecological restoration.
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NEWS ARTICLE
Toward a post-conict Colombia: restoring to the
future
Mauricio Aguilar1,2, Jorge Sierra3, Wilson Ramirez4, Orlando Vargas5, Zoraida Calle6,
William Vargas7, Carolina Murcia8,9, James Aronson10,11, José I. Barrera Cataño12
At an historic moment, when Colombia is emerging from 60 years of armed conict, the 7-year-old Colombian Network for
Ecological Restoration (Red Colombiana de Restauración Ecológica [REDCRE]) has created four subnational nodes, and is
actively developing several more. All of this is taking place in the context of the Ibero-American and Caribbean Society for
Ecological Restoration (Sociedad Ibero-Americana y del Caribe de la Restauración Ecológica [SIACRE]). In mid-November
2014, over 200 representatives of government agencies, academia, private enterprises, and nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) from the entire country attended a symposium to launch the Antioquia Province node, and take stock and plan the
way forward. There are bright prospects of transdisciplinary and public – private collaborations in Colombia for ecological
restoration and restoration of natural capital as part of a strategy to transition smoothly to a post-conict era. We suggest
some goals and guidelines to help move forward an ambitious agenda to mainstream ecological restoration.
Key words: networks, public – private partnerships, REDCRE, SIACRE, subnational nodes
Introduction
After 60 years of internal armed conict, Colombia is poised
to enter a post-conict era in which ecological restoration could
play a signicant role. The recovery from such extended inter-
nal unrest requires signicant investment in the environment.
At least 40% of the continental territory is degraded (Etter et al.
2008), and current rates of deforestation are close to 273,000
ha/year (IDEAM 2010). Furthermore, the quality and quantity
of ecosystem services have been seriously impaired, as well as
the social capital and relationships between communities and
natural ecosystems (Murcia et al. 2013). In this context, eco-
logical restoration emerges as a self-evident means of restoring
natural and social capital and leveraging change across social
and political spectra. Indeed, Colombia has 50 years of practi-
cal experience in the ecological restoration of a wide range of
ecosystems (Murcia & Guariguata 2014). Grassroots network-
ing at national and international levels can be a highly useful
lever as well, provided government plays its role effectively.
However, for ecological restoration to be part of the strategy of
national recovery, it must be recognized and embraced in socioe-
conomic and political planning.
Recently, the Colombian government has undertaken var-
ious national and international engagements: in December
2012, it ratied the Hyderabad Call of the UN’s Convention
on Biological Diversity committing to the ambitious goal of
restoring 15% of all degraded ecosystems on Earth by 2020
(CBD 2012). Colombia also committed to full collaboration
with Objective 3(b)(i) of the Intergovernmental Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2013), which
calls for thematic assessments on degradation and restoration
of land and freshwater systems. It also supports the United
Nations Convention to Combat Desertication (UNCCD)’s new
policy to combat land degradation in a much more holistic
fashion, including large-scale ecosystem restoration (United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2012).
Recent policy includes the National Restoration Plan (Min-
isterio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible de Colombia
2012b), the 2010–2014 National Development Plan (DNP
2010), and the Manual for Assigning Compensatory Measures
(Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible de Colom-
bia 2012a), all of which include ecological restoration among
their goals, and a few state explicit goals in terms of physi-
cal area (hectares) and the amount of nancial resources to be
allocated.
Author contributions: MA, JS, WR, OV, ZC, WV, CM, JA, JIBC, conceived, wrote,
and edited the manuscript.
1Red Colombiana de Restauración (REDCRE), Instituto Alexander von Humboldt,
Bogotá, Colombia
2Address correspondence to M. Aguilar, email mauricioaguil@gmail.com
3Facultad de Ingeniería, Grupo de Estudios Florísticos, Universidad Católica de
Oriente, Rionegro, Colombia
4Biología de la Conservación, Instituto Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá, Colombia
5Departamento de Biología, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
6Restauración Ecológica, Fundación CIPAV, Cali, Colombia
7Restauración Ecológica, Corporación Paisajes Rurales, Cali, Colombia
8Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, U.S.A.
9Departamento de Ciencias Naturales y Matemáticas, Ponticia Universidad Javeriana
Seccional Cali, Cali, Colombia
10Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development, Missouri Botanical Garden,
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299, U.S.A.
11Restoration Group, Centre d’Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive, Montpellier,
34293, France
12Departmento de Biología, Ponticia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
© 2015 Society for Ecological Restoration
doi: 10.1111/rec.12172
4Restoration Ecology Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 4–6 JANUARY 2015
Toward a post-conict Colombia
In this context, there is a clear need to undertake
capacity-building and networking in scientic, technical,
political, and social aspects of restoration, in order to respond
to the growing need and demand. Integration of ecological
restoration into landscape-scale planning, and restoration of
natural capital also needs to be encouraged and reinforced (see
Calle et al. 2012 for an example of this approach). Regard-
ing networking, there is much taking place throughout Latin
America. For example, in both Chile and México (Echeverria
et al. 2015), national networks of ecological restoration were
formed in 2014; Sociedad Iberoamericana y del Caribe de
Restauración Ecológica (SIACRE) will be hosting its 4th
International Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in April
2015. In Colombia, the 7-year-old national network, Red
Colombiana de Restauración Ecológica (REDCRE), is estab-
lishing a series of subnational nodes, all interacting with local
communities, relevant institutions, NGOs, and the international
community devoted to the science and practice of ecological
restoration.
REDCRE’s mission is to generate opportunities for learning
and training, strengthening of existing know-how, and fostering
exchanges to promote greater synergy and collaboration in
the emerging eld of ecological restoration. Between 2007
and 2013, the core group of REDCRE in Bogotá created the
rst regional node, which offered and carried out formal and
informal courses at undergraduate and graduate levels, and
developed inter-institutional contracts between universities and
government agencies to undertake research, generate opera-
tional political and legislative tools, at national and subnational
levels, and raise awareness of the profound potential benets
of ecological restoration in ecological, cultural, and socioeco-
nomic spheres. Various practical manuals have been produced
for several types of Colombian ecosystems (e.g. Vargas 2007;
Barrera et al. 2010; Vargas 2011; Vargas et al. 2012), as well
as for a small but growing number of peer-reviewed articles
in national and international journals (Murcia & Guariguata
2014, and references therein). Additionally, two national sym-
posia and two congresses were held, and the 3rd International
Congress of SIACRE was hosted in Bogotá. REDCRE also
produces quarterly online bulletins describing the advances in
the science and practice of ecological restoration in Colombia.
Furthermore, the members of REDCRE provided support to
the Environment Ministry of Colombia, in the construction
and dissemination of the above-cited National Restoration
Plan.
REDCRE is now establishing subnational nodes to generate
technical capacity-building opportunities and optimize the
available human and nancial resource at provincial and local
levels. In 2012, a second subnational node was created in
Barranquilla, with a special focus on Caribbean, seasonally dry
tropical forests and coastal and marine ecosystems, including
mangroves and coral reefs. In early 2014, a third node was
created in the region known as Eje cafetero in Colombia, in the
middle Cauca valley. This node initially consisted of 16 people
and 8 institutions that together offer an online capacity-building
course for people in the region. In November 2014, a fourth
node was created in the Antioquia province, with headquarters
Figure 1. The organizers and some of the speakers at the inaugural
symposium of the Antioquia Node held in Rionegro, Colombia, 13– 14
November 2014.
in Rionegro. This group will concentrate on pre-montane and
montane forests, as well as on páramo. It is noteworthy that
Antioquia province has the most highly developed regional
economy in Colombia, with intensive and long-standing
activities in mining, agriculture, livestock production, and com-
mercial forestry. Concurrently, there is a considerable amount of
work on ecological restoration and rehabilitation, as well as on
ecological engineering. However, to date, those efforts have not
been well coordinated. Thus, the emergence of a well-organized
node in Antioquia, strongly integrated in REDCRE, is a timely
event.
At the inaugural event, in Rionegro, more than 220 people
from all over Colombia, with additional participants from
Ecuador, Mexico, and a representative-at-large of the SER
participated in a packed, 2-day program of fresh-from-the-eld
presentations of ongoing restoration work underway through
government agencies, corporate, NGO, and academics (Fig. 1).
In the closing discussion, 73 persons and 22 institutions pledged
their active involvement in the Antioquia node, and a rm com-
mitment was undertaken by all of them present to support the
rapid development of a nation-wide network of subnational
nodes.
Restoring to the Future
Six decades of armed conict, combined with cultivation of ille-
gal crops, have left the unintended consequence of reducing
development pressure on many regions (Alvarez 2003; Fjeldså
et al. 2005), allowing forest expansion of at least 3% in the last
decade (Sánchez-Cuervo et al. 2012). However, in the coming
post-conict era, massive deforestation could take place if the
government does not enforce the country’s strong environmen-
tal laws, and control the outcomes of ongoing negotiations for
forests and other ecosystems. Often, the argument is that the
JANUARY 2015 Restoration Ecology 5
Toward a post-conict Colombia
need to combat poverty and create jobs overrides environmen-
tal considerations. However, ecological restoration could be a
major and unifying theme and an important engine for job cre-
ation. We call on the people and government of Colombia to
leave behind the culture of conict and degradation that has
prevailed for half a century and work together toward a cul-
ture of conservation and restoration. There is already strong
and favorable policy in Colombia, but there must be much
stronger investments in capacity-building, at all levels from sec-
ondary schools to professional training, as well as integration
of ecological restoration in larger, landscape-scale, and biore-
gional efforts. Additional steps should include guidelines on
what researchers, NGOs, government agencies and the pub-
lic need to do to assure that in the next 5–10 years, there will
be a signicant shift toward mainstreaming ecological restora-
tion in society. REDCRE can also be very helpful in provid-
ing more substance to the National Plan for restoration, and
concerted effort to establish a national monitoring and eval-
uation effort (e.g. PACTO pela Restauração da Mata Atlân-
tica 2013), to track and evaluate ecological restoration success
and effectiveness on both ecological and socioeconomic goals
(Aronson et al. 2011).
Acknowledgments
The authors warmly thank J. Rubio (REDCRE), L. Chisacá
(SIACRE), Y. Betancur, and J. J. Garcia (UCO) for their excep-
tional technical support. They also thank REDCRE, UCO,
CORNARE, the Instituto Alexander von Humboldt, ISAGEN,
ECODES, CORANTIOQUIA, EPM, and SAG for their nan-
cial support of the Rionegro Symposium. They are also very
grateful to T. Mitchell Aide, an anonymous reviewer, and V.
Amaral for their constructive comments on a previous version
of the manuscript.
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6Restoration Ecology JANUARY 2015
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Full-text available
  • Jul 2020
Bonn Challenge is an ambitious global restoration pledge that was launched in 2011, with the nature-based solutions (NbS) strategy of forest landscape restoration (FLR) as its underlying principle. India has one of the largest pledges from Asia with the aim of bringing 13 million hectares of degraded land into restoration by the year 2020, and an additional eight million hectares by 2030, and thus should maintain a leadership position in South Asia on Bonn Challenge and landscape restoration. Government of India (GoI) and IUCN have prepared the first country progress report towards the Bonn Challenge pledge in 2018 which showed that India has already brought 9.8 million hectares into restoration. This report is the first progress report from any Bonn Challenge country and is also unique as it includes restoration efforts undertaken by the government, NGOs and the private sector. Although the government was the majority contributor (94.4%), the efforts of NGOs (3.6%) and private companies (2%) are important as they have the technical expertise to guarantee success. Three best practices of landscape restoration from across different ecosystems of India have been detailed here so that they may act as learnings for future restoration efforts. Lessons learnt from past restoration efforts have informed the design of a flagship project on FLR launched in five Indian States by GoI and IUCN, which will maintain India’s leadership on Bonn Challenge across South Asia.
... At the same time, natural resources can also be used as a tool for peace building and fostering cooperation(Le Billon 2000; Hatton et al. 2001;Conca and Wallace 2009). It is therefore well established that conflict and forest degradation are linked and conflict may facilitate or prevent largescale (e.g., industrial) exploitation of forests(Aguilar et al. 2015; Young and Goldman 2015;Bruch et al. 2016; Castro-Nunez et al. 2016a, b). ...
Promoting Nature-Based Solution (NbS) Through Restoration of Degraded Landscapes in the Indian Himalayan Region
Chapter
Full-text available
  • Jul 2020
Deforestation and forest degradation due to environmental change and anthropogenic pressure have resulted in significant reduction in the provision of valuable ecosystem goods and services. UNFCCC has emphasized forest conservation as a part of achieving sustainable development. These efforts have been reinforced through new global development agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 15) and the Aichi targets. A strong relationship between ecological restoration and the ecosystem services concept has been established, with the latter informing how ecological restoration may be planned and implemented. Deforestation and forest degradation in the Himalaya are a major concern. This region provides ecosystem goods and services to both upstream and downstream populations. International and national agencies and NGOs have been responding to the challenges of forest and environmental degradation through various planning activities and technologies. However, ecological restoration and rehabilitation of forests and degraded lands is the only viable strategy in the Himalaya to improve the environment, mitigate climate change impacts and support the livelihoods of natural resource dependent traditional communities. Large-scale failure of past efforts can be attributed by lack of a participatory strategy to determine the essential needs of the local population and gain their cooperation. GBP-NIHE has been active in the Indian Himalayan Region for over 25 years, significantly contributing to environmental conservation and sustainability, developing restoration models involving local people. This chapter describes ecological restoration undertaken by the Institute in the wasteland across the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR), to promote effective biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.
Scenarios of environmental change in a post-conflict Colombia
Preprint
Full-text available
  • Apr 2021
Colombia is a notorious biodiversity hotspot that came to the spotlight of conservation upon the signing of the peace agreement in 2016. Here we used a counterfactual approach to forecast by 2036 the impact of deforestation on Colombia’s biodiversity and carbon stocks under three scenarios: (1) pre-signing of the peace agreement, (2) post-signing and (3) business-as-usual. We found that if deforestation rates continued at the same pace of post-signing, up to 41,000 km ² of forest area may be lost by 2036, whereas pre-signing rates would save nearly 25,000 km ² (equivalent to the total forest loss observed between 2000 and 2018). Under the pre-signing scenario, between 2018-2036 Colombia would reduce the average impact on the range of forest-specific species by nearly 50% of habitat area relative to 2000-2018, whereas under the post-signing scenario, it would increase by 33%. Moreover, losses of 312-807 Mm ³ of growing stock volume and 267-688 Mt of aboveground biomass were projected by 2036, jeopardizing the country’s commitments towards international conservation as well as climate targets. Importantly, we found a mismatch at the department level on biodiversity and biomass losses, which highlight an urgent need to generate coherent policies at a national level aiming to tackle both issues.
Sucesión ecológica y restauración en paisajes fragmentados de la Amazonia colombiana. Tomo 1. Composición, estructura y función en la sucesión secundaria.
Book
Full-text available
  • Dec 2020
En el libro SUCESIÓN ECOLÓGICA EN PAISAJES FRAGMENTADOS DE LA AMAZONIA COLOMBIANA se presentan los principales avances, en la generación de conocimiento, sobre la sucesión ecológica en los bosques secundarios, en áreas con alto grado de fragmentación en la Amazonia colombiana. A partir de dicho conocimiento, se muestran los diseños y las consideraciones técnicas y sociales para la implementación de acciones de restauración ecológica. La síntesis aquí presentada es una fuente de información académica para la formación de recurso humano y es el punto de partida para investigaciones futuras en torno a la sucesión ecológica, en bosques secundarios y su restauración. Adicionalmente, se constituye en una oferta tecnológica relevante para la Amazonia nor-occidental, para el desarrollo de procesos de restauración ecológica de las áreas de pasturas degradadas por uso ganadero y las áreas de protección de fuentes hídricas y humedales, consideradas como los ecosistemas más impactados en la intervención agropecuaria de la Amazonia y de mayor vulnerabilidad ante los efectos del cambio climático. Los resultados contenidos en esta publicación se obtuvieron en desarrollo del proyecto de investigación “Restauración de Áreas Disturbadas por Implementación de Sistemas Productivos Agropecuarios en zonas de Alta Intervención en el Caquetá “ejecutado mediante el Convenio No. 60-2013 suscrito entre la Gobernación del Caquetá y el Instituto Amazónicode Investigaciones Científicas SINCHI; co-ejecutado con la Universidad dela Amazonia, la Asociación de Reforestadores y Cultivadores de Caucho de Caquetá, (Asoheca) y la Federación Departamental de Ganaderos del Caquetá, (Fedeganga); cofinanciado con recursos del Fondo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación - FCTeI del Sistema General de Regalías – SGR
Integrating forestry, sustainable cattle-ranching and landscape restoration
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2012
The livestock sector occupies about 30 percent of the land surface of the planet through grazing and feed-crop production. It is a leading driver of deforestation, land degradation, pollution, climate change, the sedimentation of coastal areas and invasions by alien species. Despite its inefficiency and its multiple negative effects on the environment, cattle ranching is not likely to decline any time soon in Latin America. First, this activity is deeply rooted in the Portuguese and Spanish ancestry of the region. The inputs of naturally intensive systems are biological processes rather than fossil fuels and synthetic compounds, and they apply modern scientific knowledge to combine and manage species with different traits. ISPSs respond to the increasingly urgent need to transform tropical cattle-ranching into an environmentally friendly activity that can be profitable in the short and medium terms and capable of generating more and better rural jobs while providing safe, high-quality food, hides and wood.
Conserving Biodiversity in a Complex Biological and Social Setting: The Case of Colombia
Chapter
Full-text available
  • Jul 2013
The multi‐temporal and spatial scale interaction of history, geography, and evolution are responsible for Colombia's extreme diversity. This chapter first describe Colombia's biological complexity and its conservation context. Then, it presents some of the main challenges for conservation professionals, managers, and decision makers in their aim to preserve Colombia's rich biodiversity for generations to come. These challenges for biodiversity conservation in Colombia are divided into two categories: (1) territorial issues and current development models; and (2) threats specific to the different ecoregions. In addition, the challenges associated with conservation strategies, specifically the creation and management of protected areas (PAs) and ecological restoration are discussed.
Good news from Latin America and the Caribbean: National and international restoration networks are moving ahead
Article
Full-text available
Degradation of ecosystems is ongoing in Latin America but there is also a strong upswing in conservation and restoration efforts. SIACRE – the Ibero-American and Caribbean Society for Ecological Restoration – is playing a key role in coordinating and promoting this trend at international, national, and subnational levels. In October 2014, SIACRE members organized the first national seminar on ecological restoration in Chile, with participants representing both academic and non-academic sectors. This seminar served as the catalyst for this essay and was an historic event at the national level. Much work has been underway in the science and practice of restoration in Chile, but until now it has been fragmented. This first national seminar enabled helped the principal strengths and challenges that Chile has and must face in the transdisciplinary domain of ecological restoration. Since 2004, various meetings have been organized in the region, in order to communicate the importance of restoration, especially in Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, and more recently in Chile and Argentina. Here we trace the history of national and subnational restoration networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, and of SIACRE, and then outline some goals and challenges for the coming years.
Guías técnicas para la restauración ecológica de los ecosistemas de Colombia
Book
Full-text available
  • Jan 2012
Guía Metodológica para la Restauración Ecológica del bosque altoandino
Book
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  • Nov 2007
Forests in the Time of Violence: Conservation Implications of the Colombian War
Article
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Forest remnants in the Colombian Amazon, Andes, and Choco are the last repositories of a highly diverse and endemic biota. Historical changes in the Colombian landscape have been dramatic, but the magnitude and rate of change has increased over the last half century, while conflict has consumed the capacity of Colombian society to respond to environmental threats. Academic experts in the study of the Colombian conflict have explored the social, political, and economic implications of the war. However, the environmental consequences of conflict are documented only when groups in conflict target salient economic resources. This paper presents the first analysis of the geographic distribution of forest remnants in relation to armed conflict in Colombia. Results show that guerrillas and/or paramilitaries range throughout areas of human encroachment into remnant forests. The policies promoted by Colombia's irregular armed forces range from "gunpoint conservation" rarely applied by guerrillas, to the rapid conversion of forests and crops to cattle ranches and coca (Erythroxylum sp.) plantations, following paramilitary occupation. Because the rates and extent of fragmentation are linked to such land use practices, armed groups may play a crucial role in determining the fate of Colombia's forests and their endemic biota.
Land Cover Change in Colombia: Surprising Forest Recovery Trends between 2001 and 2010
Article
Full-text available
Background Monitoring land change at multiple spatial scales is essential for identifying hotspots of change, and for developing and implementing policies for conserving biodiversity and habitats. In the high diversity country of Colombia, these types of analyses are difficult because there is no consistent wall-to-wall, multi-temporal dataset for land-use and land-cover change. Methodology/Principal Findings To address this problem, we mapped annual land-use and land-cover from 2001 to 2010 in Colombia using MODIS (250 m) products coupled with reference data from high spatial resolution imagery (QuickBird) in Google Earth. We used QuickBird imagery to visually interpret percent cover of eight land cover classes used for classifier training and accuracy assessment. Based on these maps we evaluated land cover change at four spatial scales country, biome, ecoregion, and municipality. Of the 1,117 municipalities, 820 had a net gain in woody vegetation (28,092 km2) while 264 had a net loss (11,129 km2), which resulted in a net gain of 16,963 km2 in woody vegetation at the national scale. Woody regrowth mainly occurred in areas previously classified as mixed woody/plantation rather than agriculture/herbaceous. The majority of this gain occurred in the Moist Forest biome, within the montane forest ecoregions, while the greatest loss of woody vegetation occurred in the Llanos and Apure-Villavicencio ecoregions. Conclusions The unexpected forest recovery trend, particularly in the Andes, provides an opportunity to expand current protected areas and to promote habitat connectivity. Furthermore, ecoregions with intense land conversion (e.g. Northern Andean Páramo) and ecoregions under-represented in the protected area network (e.g. Llanos, Apure-Villavicencio Dry forest, and Magdalena-Urabá Moist forest ecoregions) should be considered for new protected areas.
What Role Should Government Regulation Play in Ecological Restoration? Ongoing Debate in São Paulo State, Brazil
Article
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Around the world, there is growing desire and momentum for ecological restoration to happen faster, with better quality, and in more extensive areas. The question we ask is how can laws and governmental regulations best contribute to effective, successful, and broad-scale restoration? In the state of São Paulo, Brazil, there is a legal instrument (SMA 08-2008) whose aim is to increase the effectiveness of tropical forest restoration projects in particular. It establishes, among other things, requirements regarding the minimum number of native tree species to be reached within a given period of time in restoration projects and the precise proportion of functional groups or threatened species to be included when reforestation with native species is used as a restoration technique. There are, however, two differing perspectives among Brazilian restoration ecologists on the appropriateness of such detailed legal rules. For some, the rules help increase the chances that mandatory projects of ecological restoration will succeed. For the other group, there is no single way to achieve effective ecosystem restoration, and the existing science and know-how are far from sufficient to establish standardized technical and methodological norms or to justify that such norms be imposed. Both points of view are discussed here, aiming to help those developing new legislation and improving existing laws about ecological restoration. The precedents established in São Paulo, and at the federal level in Brazil, and the ongoing debate about those laws are worth considering and possibly applying elsewhere.
Historical Patterns and Drivers of Landscape Change in Colombia Since 1500: A Regionalized Spatial Approach
Article
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The extent and the spatial patterns of landscape transformation we observe today are the result of the historic human settlement process, often dating back hundreds or thousands of years. Analyzing and reconstructing those historical patterns helps to advance the understanding of the dynamics and persistence of present-day ecosystems. This article explores this reconstruction by identifying and analyzing historic drivers of landscape change for seven periods between 1500 and 2000, and presents historical land use maps showing major trends and impacts on natural ecosystems. Historic land use maps were built using an ecosystem map of 1998 and a “preclearing” ecosystem map, by constraining the spatial change of transformed areas using data on accessibility to rivers and roads, elevation, slope, moisture availability, and settlement areas. We estimate the transformed area rose from approximately 15 Mha in 1500 to 42 Mha in 2000, and land use changed from cropping in 1500 to predominantly grazing in 2000. Demographic impacts of colonization and the introduction of cattle were major drivers of change, but rates and trends of land cover change varied between regions and from period to period. The most impacted ecosystems have been the Andean and tropical dry forests, with the most recent trends toward clearing of humid lowland forests, especially in the Amazon and Pacific. Some landscapes have been subject to strong human influence continuously for more than 500 years, whereas others have been transformed for less than thirty years. We discuss the relevance of a historical approach for guiding conservation goals, ecological restoration efforts, and research hypotheses.
Illicit Crops and Armed Conflict as Constraints on Biodiversity Conservation in the Andes Region
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2005
Coca, once grown for local consumption in the Andes, is now produced for external markets, often in areas with armed conflict. Internationally financed eradication campaigns force traffickers and growers to constantly relocate, making drug-related activities a principal cause of forest loss. The impact on biodiversity is known only in general terms, and this article presents the first regional analysis to identify areas of special concern, using bird data as proxy. The aim of conserving all species may be significantly constrained in the Santa Marta and Perijá mountains, Darién, some parts of the Central Andes in Colombia, and between the middle Marañón and middle Huallaga valleys in Peru. Solutions to the problem must address the root causes: international drug markets, long-lasting armed conflict, and lack of alternative income for the rural poor.