Establecimiento de áreas prioritarias para la conservación en Norte de Santander, Colombia

Abstract

The decrease in biodiversity in Colombia is affected by anthropogenic activities such as habitat fragmentation and illegal wildlife trafficking. Faced with this problem, the creation of protected areas is an optimal strategy that allows the conservation of species and their viable populations. The delimitation of priority areas for conservation would represent an important input for the protection of biodiversity by focusing conservation efforts, complementing protected areas and allowing connectivity between ecosystems due to their potential use as biological corridors. This is how an evaluation of the existing protected areas in Norte de Santander was proposed through a rapid survey, so that weaknesses in the management and role of protected areas in biodiversity conservation could be known, determining the importance of identifying priority areas for conservation. It was determined that the PA system presents pressures and threats, highlighting agricultural activities and forest fires, monitoring staff is very limited, making the management and compliance tasks of the conservation objectives practically impossible and ultimately the representation of ecosystems is not complete. Due to the need to conserve biodiversity locally, in the department since the existing studies have only had a global and national character. Priority areas were identified through WCS Toolbox considering biological importance (ecosystems, species richness, endemism and threatened species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians), anthropogenic impact threats and opportunities. The priority areas considered to be of high importance, low and no threat and timely or not for conservation amount to 179697.82 h of which, according to the NDVI, 99.92% corresponds to a largely healthy vegetation cover. Finally, preliminary results are presented in the determination of wildlife release sites, through spatial modeling, using as input priority areas and other variables such as presence of groups outside the law, spatial distribution of the mostly trafficked species in the department, slope of the terrain, distance to roads and populated centers.