Ecosystem Sustainability and Poverty Alleviation in the Amazonia/Andes Region (AMAR):

A Preliminary Scientific Framework for Catalyzing System Changes

Germán Poveda, Remigio Galárraga, Carlos A. Llerena, Eduardo Palenque, Lelys Bravo, Sara E. Bennett, Peter Bunyard, John Gash, and Carlos A. Nobre

International Scientific Conference Amazon in PerspectiveIntegrated Science for a Sustainable Future

Manus, November 17—20, 2008

Rationale (1)• The mountainous areas of the tropical Andes harbour major cities like Bogotá,

Quito, La Paz, Medellín, Cali, Cajamarca, Cuzco, Arequipa, San Cristobal, Riobamba, Ambato, Ayacucho, Huancayo, Oruro, Cochabamba, and hundreds of medium and small sized towns and villages that demand an ever increasing supply of natural and socio-economic resources and services.

• A degraded environment feeds back on the well-being of human communities, in terms of its failure to provide natural resources such as fresh drinking water and a sound agricultural basis. A degraded environment is also less able to respond to climate change, and the countries of AMAR are particularly vulnerable in that regard, dependent as they are on the each other’s conservation policies and practices.

• In spite of the large body of scientific research and acomplishemttns of LBA, no concomitant research efforts have been developed to link the hydrological, ecological, bio-geochemical and climatic dynamics of the Amazon River basin with its Andean headwaters, let alone to study the interactions between their natural and social systems.

Rationale (2)• A thorough understanding of the AMAR system is necessary, including the functioning

of their natural ecosystems, as well as their interactions with social systems.

• Increasing poverty in the region, disappearance of native and ancestral cultures, human encroachment, large scale deforestation, erosion and land degradation, landslides and debris flows, increasing vulnerability and risk of human populations and settlements, accelerated loss of biodiversity and soils, large-scale pollution of water sources owing to mining activities, oil industry activities, agriculture, cattle dwellers, tourists, coca growers, makes it all the more urgent that basic studies and applied research.

• An increase of water-borne and climate-driven diseases (i.e., malaria, dengue) imposes serious challenges to regional development.

• A suite of opportunities arise from the region’s natural biodiversity, as well as from the importance and breadth of current and potential environmental services provided by their ecosystems, and the considerable possibilities of sustainable development.

• It is necessary to create a new paradigm for development of that region, one that contemplates a large focus on conservation, valorizing ecosystems services, but allied to sustainable management and rational exploitation of economic value of biodiversity for the improvement of the livelihoods of the AMAR inhabitants. Such new development model for Amazonia must rest on science and innovative appropriate technologies.

Proposed Situation Analysis1. Climate change impacts on Andean glaciers, paramos, punas,

and cloud forests and their impact on the hydrologic cycle and water supply.

2. Risk, Vulnerability, Environmental Degradation and Poverty in and caused by Andean cities.

3. Water, energy and carbon budgets along the AMAR, their feedbacks at a wide range of space-time scales and the effects of climate variability and change.

4. Socio-environmental vulnerability of the Andes/Amazon region and the impacts of climate change and land use-land cover change.

5. Mechanisms to prevent further deforestation and environmental degradation of AMAR through sustainable and rational exploitation of natural resources including water, biodiversity, forests, fisheries, and agriculture to improve the livelihoods of the region’s inhabitants.

1. Climate change impacts on Andean glaciers, páramos,

punas, and cloud forests and their impact on the hydrologic

cycle and water supply

Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, Colombia

Pineda y Poveda (2007)

Landsat Diciembre de 1987, C542 Landsat Enero de 2007, C542

Pérdida de área glaciar S. N. Cocuy

10

14

18

22

26

30

1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Año

Are

a (k

m2)

En el periodo 1989-2007 se perdió el 41% del área glaciar existente.

La tasa media anual de pérdida de área glaciar es de 648000 m2.

A partir de 2000: 843000 m2.

Pineda y Poveda (2007)

Glacier Retreat Rates in Colombia

Glacier Loss

(%)

Period Remaining area (km2)

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

41 1989-2007 6

Sierra Nevada del Cocuy

401989-2007

17

Nevado del Ruiz 38 1989-2004 8.5

Nevado de Santa Isabel

491989-2004

4

Nevado del Tolima

24 1991-2004 2

Nevado del Huila 58 1989-2005 8

Pineda y Poveda (2007)

Fate of Paramos, Yungas, Punas, & Cloud Forests?

2. Risk, Vulnerability, Environmental Degradation

and Poverty in and caused by Andean cities

Deforestación en Colombia: Riesgos y Vulnerabilidad Social & Ambiental

+ =

Climate Change and Human Health

From: Duane J. Gubler, University of Hawaii

3. Water, energy and carbon budgets along the AMAR, their feedbacks at a wide range of

space-time scales and the effects of climate variability

and change.

Long-Term Water BalancesPotential Evapotraspiration

Salazar and Poveda (2007)

Long-Term Water BalancesModel vs. Observed Runoff

Salazar and Poveda (2007)

Fluxes on River Basins of Increasing Order

Salazar and Poveda, Water Res. Res., 2008

Amazonian River Discharges

Scaling of Amazonian Peak Flows

ArrQE r loglog

Salazar and Poveda (2008)

Scaling of Amazonian Rainfall MCS in the Colombian Amazonia, TRMM Data; Multi-Scaling

Mejia & Poveda (2002)

Hydro-climatological Feedbacks between Andes & Amazonia

Poveda et al., Paleo-3 (2006)

4. Socio-Environmental Vulnerability of the

Andes/Amazon region and the impacts of climate change and

land use-land cover change

Potential Effects of Climate Change on Human Health

Frumkin (2008)

Human Health Risks due to Climate Changes

Frumkin (2008)

Malaria in ColombiaClimate Change? + El Niño

Poveda & Rojas (1995)Poveda et al. (2000)Estrada & Poveda (2007)

DEFORESTATION• Más del 50% del bosque

tropical.• Cambios Climáticos

regionales y globales.• Desertización y pérdida

de suelos.• Amplificación de

extremos hidrológicos.• Contribución al efecto

invernadero. • Daños Ecológicos.• Distorsión Económica.

Tropical Andes: The most critical hotspot for biodiversity on Earth

Myers et al., Nature, 2000

Coca: actual problem, wrong solutions. Land use change and

downstream water pollution

5. Mechanisms to prevent further deforestation and environmental

degradation of AMAR through sustainable and rational exploitation of natural resources including water, biodiversity, forests, fisheries, and

agriculture to improve the livelihoods of the region’s inhabitants.

Mechamisms (1)• Right economic value of ecosystem services,

as defined by the MEA. • Assessment, have to enter into the accounting

economic systems at national, regional and local levels.

• Introduce the concept of an optimal scale of the aggregate economy relative to the ecosystem.

• The aggregate economy is assumed to grow forever (Brown, 2005).

Mechamisms (2)• Tropical rainforests are also highly productive ecosystems

when intact. • Services include climate change control,

evapotranspiration, flood regulation, erosion control, nutrient storage and recycling, and recreation: US$ 33 trillion in 1997 (Constanza et al., Nature, 1997).

• Forest carbon financing and trading to be allowed in global carbon and biodiversity markets, and the economic valuation of biodiversity as strong financial incentives to avoid deforestation, while offering developing countries in Latin America additional funds to improve forest governance, encourage sustainable land management, and boost rural incomes.

• Sustainable management, use and exploitation of the region’s extraordinary biodiversity require the valuation of conserving/reserving areas as banks of biodiversity.

• Other options of sustainable exploitation, including non-timber forest products, and payments for maintaining forest as a carbon store raises the question of the value of forest as a carbon store.

• Need to develop a new paradigm for a forest-based economy for Amazonia, in which innovative appropriate technologies are needed to add value to the heart of the forest. It will be virtually impossible to provide for the livelihoods of the inhabitants of the AMAR without a major thrust of scientific discoveries on economic uses of biodiversity and the subsequent technological development to transform those discoveries into innovative products to the regional and global markets.

• A conservation strategy per se, though critically important, cannot by itself guarantee the maintenance of the ecosystems of AMAR.

Mechamisms (3)

Summary (1)

• We propose to develop an interdisciplinary and international Situation Analysis for the Amazonia/Andes Region (AMAR).

• To inform the design and facilitate the implementation of subsequent policies for research and political action that effectively and simultaneously address the interrelated, yet distinct challenges to maintain ecosystem services and improve human well-being regionally and globally.

Summary (2)

• Our focus is the core of the conflict between development and conservation, by proposing a research agenda to address the fundamental overarching question ‘How to make people part of the solution, rather than part of the problem?’

Summary (3)

• The proposed work will help to identify and focus the scientific needs of governments, NGOs, private sector and organized society to respond to increasing pressures on natural resources and to the challenge of climate change, in such a manner that socio-eco-economical interests of AMAR’s countries are genuinely represented, within the framework of OTCA’s and Andean Countries Community’s social and environmental themes and objectives.