Ecuador has 137 global Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs)which will be evaluated by experts, who will also identify new sites within the country that are of ecological importance for the planet.
These points are sites of global importance for the general health of the planet and the persistence of biodiversity, indicates the Jocotoco Conservation Foundation. Are the places where they live species that are unique or threatened with global extinction or that are home to endemics, that is, they are not found anywhere else in the world.
Globally there are more than 16,000 KBA identified as of March of this year.
Between August and September, the first training aimed at local experts and researchers was held in Quito in order to train them in the evaluation criteria.
The workshop was organized by the NGO BirdLife International in collaboration with Jocotoco.
Researchers and local and international institutions and organizations participated in the training, such as Fundación Jocotoco, EcoMinga, Fundación Futuro, Fundación Cóndor Andino, Conservation International (CI), Society for the Conservation of Wildlife (WCS), EcoScience, Nature and Culture International (NCI), A&C, Cornell University, Charles Darwin Foundation, Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAATE), Consortium of Provincial Autonomous Governments of Ecuador (CONGOPE), National Institute of Biodiversity (INABIO) , Critical Geography, National Herbarium, San Francisco de Quito University (USFQ), IKIAM, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), among others.
In addition, the KBA initiative created the National Coordination Group in Ecuador, in which representatives of several of the aforementioned institutions and KBA’s global partners such as WWF and IUCN will manage the contributions of the scientific consensus together with biodiversity experts, so that these areas be considered in the national development and conservation public policy.
Manuel Sánchez Nivicela, national coordinator of the KBA, affirms that the activity “is a large exercise in the management of relevant scientific information for conservation”, since it implies the participation of different sectors involved in the investigation, protection and conservation of nature.
One of the objectives is that the people who best know the threatened biodiverse territories are the ones who propose and validate these priority biodiversity areas for their protection.
Mapping these key areas for biodiversity in the country and providing verified information about the wildlife that lives there helps local governments and other stakeholders to make the best decisions to manage these spaces and propose the best ways to protect and conserve them. species of flora and fauna threatened with extinction and unique to Ecuador and its regions, reports the Jocotoco Foundation. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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