Bridging the gap between ecology researchers and managers of protected areas : looking for efficient mechanisms of transference in the Ibero-American zone

Initiator: Regino Zamora (Spain)

The considerable body of knowledge on environmental issues is often restricted to or formatted for consultation and use by researchers and research-oriented professionals. However, policy decisions and their implementation require a knowledge base that is objective, authoritative and policy relevant. There is a crucial need to inform and educate the key players in the various sectors involved in the management of the Earth’s resources, at local level as well as national and higher levels.

Most criteria currently used by decision-makers to manage the environment are based on research developed many years ago that fails to take into account both the changes that are currently affecting the functioning of the Earth system and the present state of the scientific understanding. (Lubchenco, Science, 1998; Wall et al. TREE, 2001).

Science-based management and conservation practices developed in scientifically and technologically advanced countries have been directly transferred to other countries with different ecological conditions (climate, biotic communities, degree of human impact). In the case of the Mediterranean and Ibero-american countries, the mixed results obtained clearly indicate that most management protocols developed in temperate and boreal ecosystems need be carefully adapted before they can be applied successfully in Southern ecosystems.

Furthermore, the spearhead language of research is English, and there is a need for science-based management practices and policy options to be translated in the mother language of the people who make the decisions affecting the environment and put them into practice (Spanish or Portuguese in the case of Latin-America).

Bearing these considerations in mind, the first symposium of this project “Bridging the gap between environmental scientists and policy planners” was convened as a part of the 47th Open Executive Meeting in Granada, Spain (June 2003). Two case studies were explored: “Environment, chemical risk and human health”, and “Biodiversity, conservation and management".

This SCOPE project is developed in close connection with a CYTED (Ibero-american cooperation program) project on “Plant-Animal Interactions as the Framework for Biodiversity: Their Role in Ecosystem Dynamics and Conservation”. Twenty research groups in 7 countries (Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Chile) are involved in this project. The first coordination meeting of the CYTED project was held on May 21-24, 2004 in Granada.

With the support of the CYTED project a meeting will be organised in Belem (Brazil) entitled: Papel das interaçoes biológicas na manutençao de unidades de conservaçao (13 and 14 October 2005), and another in Santiago, Chile, in collaboration with the Centro Milenio (title and dates to be determined).
Contacts have been made with other Latin American organizations (public, NGOs, private) to develop coordinated plans where similar initiatives are developed, such as the fore-mentioned Centro Milenio of the University of Santiago of Chile, the University of Rio Claro and the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, the Goeldi Museum of Belem, Brazil, or the IMBIO of Costa Rica.

There has also been collaboration and exchange of information with the WWF international programme Across the Water (WWF Mediterranean Programme Office), following a workshop held in Granada on 15-17 September of 2004, on new techniques for the conservation and restoration of forest biodiversity addressed to environmental managers of the countries of the Mediterranean Basin (especially countries of the southern Mediterranean: Morocco and Tunisia).

A symposium entitled "Bridging the gap between natural science and stakeholders for the management and restoration of Ibero-american ecosystems: Looking for efficient mechanisms of transference” will be convened by the project leader at the World Conference on Ecological Restoration International (SER International) to be organized by the Society for Ecological Restoration in Zaragoza (Spain), 12-18 September 2005.

Last up-dated 26 May 2005