Panel: Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC)

Priority Area Biodiversity

Biodiversity, world’s natural capital, is the result of millions of years of organic evolution tailored by the hand of the environment. It comprises the living component of the Life Supporting System of our planet and is the source of numerous and vital ecosystem services.

The biodiversity of Mesoamerica represents the confluence of flora and fauna from two biogeographic regions, the Nearctic of North America and the Neotropical of South and Central America and the Caribbean. Although the region contains only 0.5 percent of the world’s land surface, because of the variety of its ecosystems and its location, which links the Americas’ northern and southern biotas, Mesoamerica is home to a disproportionate share—about 7 percent—of the planet’s biological diversity.

For example,Panama, has 929 species of birds — more than Canada and the United States combined. Belize, a tiny country is home to more than 150 species of mammals, 540 species of birds, and 152 species of amphibians and reptiles. Mexico possesses the world’s largest variety of reptiles (717) and 4,000 species of plants used for medicinal purposes. In Guatemala’s high central mountains, nearly 70 percent of the vascular plants are endemic.

Priority Area: Biodiversity

The ICSU ROLAC biodiversity science plan identified several research and policy priorities for the LAC region

• The evaluation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, • the consolidation of a network on ecological observatories, • the development of a regional-scale assessment of the impacts

of invasive species, • the transference of biodiversity and biocultural knowledge into

sustainable economic activities.

Biodiversity

Knowledge, preservation and utilization of biodiversity of all countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region, and to ensure that the scientific community of the smaller countries of the region are fully integrated in DIVERSITAS.

Is an international program of biodiversity science which addresses critical biodiversity issues; produces and synthesis new biodiversity knowledge to address the global science priorities; it ensures an engagement of the biodiversity science community with policy and decision makers.

http://www.diversitas-international.org/

• 1 mammalian species every 400 years

• 1 bird specie/200 years

Today…………...

10,000 times higher than the natural rate!!

• 20-75 species plants/animals per day?

Natural rate

The loss of biodiversity constitutes a critical problem for human existence to the extent that biodiversity science is amply recognized as a priority area of scientific research in both the developed and developing world.

The priority research themes recommended by the SPG on Biodiversity are:• Development of georeferenced data bases and completion of biological inventories for testing hypotheses on the large-scale planetary patterns of biodiversity and for detecting the impacts of global change drivers, climate change included, on biodiversity, with emphasis on the major knowledge gaps, as well as on the opportunities provided by LAC´s model ecological gradients.• Synthesis of molecular phylogenetic information for the region with the aim of detecting phylogen etic patterns and phylogenetic diversity in the biota of Latin America and Caribbean.• Evaluation of the biodiversity and ecosystem services on managed and unmanaged landscapes and of the conservation status of organisms that play known important ecological roles, including biological control agents and pollinators.• Consolidation of a network of Ecological Observatories in LAC to undertake experimental studies and long-term monitoring on the impact of climate and land use changes on biodiversity.• Development of a regional-scale assessment of the impacts of invasive species in the context of early warning systems.• Transference of biodiversity and biocultural knowledge into sustainable economic activities, including any benefits of bioprospection, and the conservation of critical ecosystem services.• Finding solutions for the implementation of biodiversity conservation measures in managed landscapes and seascapes.• Development of studies on the ecosystem service value of urban biodiversity.

In 2013 Access-Benefit-Sharing (ABS) a workshop for Latin America and the Caribbean was coorganized by ICSU ROLAC, Diversitas, SCNAT (Académie de Sciences Naturelles de Suisse) e IUBS (International Union of Biological Sciences).

The aim of this workshop was to develop a guide to promote dialogue between researchers working with genetic resources and decision makers who are the focal points responsible for implementing international regulations of ABS in the LAC. This workshop included examples of good practices in the region and the positions of other users, such as indigenous communities. This can be a pilot Project to: 1) establish a dialogue between science and policy, 2) promote actions of mutual benefit and 3) promote international cooperation.

DIVERSITAS, ICSU ROLAC, SCNAT, and IUBS were the organizers. There were 30 participants among academicians, policy makers and indigenous from 9 countries of the region.

ACCESS AND BENEFIT SHARING (ABS) IN LAC: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND POLICY FOR ACADEMIC RESEARCH

• The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol (NP) is an appropiate international regulatory freamework for ABS

• ABS is important for non-comercial biodiversity research (academic research): a lever for valuing genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.

• ABS is a cross-cutting issue invoving different governmental agencies and stakeholders groups.

Challenges in biodiversity for ROLAC:

• The rescue of local knowledge on biodiversity• To put an end to deforestation, fragmentation and loss of

soils, halting the habitat and biodiversity loss for wildlife• To encourage economic activities based on the sustainable

use of biodiversity• To establish relationships between biodiversity and infectious

vector-borne diseases in the context of environmental and social change

• To identify conflicts and priorities between local and regional provision of ecosystem services and global strategies to mitigate carbon emissions,

• Proper management of the mutual dependence between agrobiodiversity and traditional rural communities

• To develop mitigation measures and adaptations to global climate change

• To persuade governments and the society at large that the loss of biodiversity at any level, from the genetic to the ecosystem, is against human well-being and the poverty eradication, among others.

Exploring the canopy

Barro Colorado,Panama

Panama Biomuseo by Frank GehryOccupying a site on the Amador Casueway at the entrance to the Panama Canal, the 4,000 m2 Biomuseo by Frank Gehry includes eight galleries.