A study using digital tools determined that the lost tree cover (trees with a minimum height of 5 meters) in the province of Guayas, in the period 2001-2021, was 46,000 hectares (ha), mainly of native ecosystem.
This area of felled forests in Guayas is equivalent to approximately 60,800 times the field of the Banco Pichincha stadium in Barcelona and 64,425 times the field of Emelec’s George Capwell.
The calculation is made based on the size of the field that both stadiums located in Guayaquil contain.
In the years 2007, 2013 and 2012, the greatest forest loss was recorded in that period of time, says Cristian Barros, president of the Japu Foundation for Conservation and Research and author of this research, with 5,361 ha, 5,055 ha and 4,573 ha. , in that order.
The most affected ecosystem is the tropical dry forest (BST). “Less than 10% of what was in Ecuador remains, studies agree.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared the BST in critical danger of extinction and asked at its 2020 congress that “the increase in the protected area of this ecosystem be established as a priority under different legal figures” and that Give an assessment of its state of conservation.
In 2000 there was a tree cover of 776,817 ha in Guayas, while in January 2022 753,017 ha were registered.
However, the real loss, mainly of native forest in that period, argues Barros, is 46,000 ha, but a gain of 22,200 ha was also evidenced in that same period of time, which would be mainly forest plantations for commercial purposes of exploiting the wood .
There is no political interest in studying and conserving the BST since foreign funds do not enter with the same size as they do in the case of the Amazon forests, which have greater biodiversity and than the Galapagos, indicates Barros. “You have to value the dry forest more. While their biodiversity is not comparable to that of the Amazon, instead they have a high degree of endemism,” he adds.
National legislation does contemplate ecosystems that are part of Guayas, such as the tropical dry forest and mangroves, says Inés Manzano, an expert in environmental law. “They are in the same category as any other protection forest.”
The art. 406 of the Constitution expressly says: “The State will regulate the conservation, management and sustainable use, recovery, and domain limitations of fragile and threatened ecosystems; among others, páramos, wetlands, cloud forests, dry and humid tropical forests and mangroves, marine and marine-coastal ecosystems”.
So they are at the same level, adds Manzano, because the BST is one of the most deteriorated ecosystems. “Even in 1994 the first basic environmental policies were established. There was a determination that is in the Unified Text of Secondary Environmental Legislation (TULAS), based at that time on studies that indicated the areas of greatest risk that were the mouth of the Babahoyo, Daule and Guayas rivers until they reached the sea and the entire continental strip from Esmeraldas to El Oro due to the issue of mangroves”, says Manzano.
One of the problems is that the conservation attempts of the BST are isolated, which generates a fragmented ecosystem, he adds.
This is counterproductive since these are areas that in Guayas reach the intertidal zones that are connected in turn with the mangroves. There is even interaction with bird species that move between these ecosystems.
“We have this in person on the road to the coast, in Guayaquil, right in the area destined for urban expansion with residential development, up to kilometer 40 as determined by an ordinance,” says Manzano.
In this strip of the road to the coast, you can see these three ecosystems very close together, he adds. On the right hand side out of Guayaquil is the BST, the intertidal or connecting ecosystem is where the highway and the housing estates and commercial development are today. And further to the west are the coastal mangroves.
Conservation efforts must cover biological corridors to preserve this interaction between ecosystems and the mobility of fauna, agrees Barros.
The list of endemic fauna in the area includes the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus peruvianus) and the Guayaquil parrot.
“There are other regulations that talk about dry forests. For example, the objective of reducing deforestation is part of a state action plan contemplated in a ministerial agreement that mentions the BST”, adds Manzano. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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