Global South Development Expo 2012 Nomination Form
Nomination from (choose all that apply):
o National Govt.
o UN agency
o Private sector
o NGO/Civil society org.
Name of group or organization being nominated:__Alexander Von Humboldt Institute____
Nominee details:
Address_Calle 28 A. No. 15-09 _____________________________________________
City_Bogota_____________________________________________________________
Country____Colombia__________________ Postal code_________________________________
Business telephone number _____(571) 3202767____________________________________
Mobile telephone number ______________________________________________________________
Fax number __(571) 3202767________________________________________________
Email _secretariadireccion@humboldt.org.co________________________________________
Kindly answer the following questions using a maximum of six to seven pages:
1.
Description of the initiative, including background and challenges:
The initiative to define a portfolio of conservation priorities for the hydrocarbon sector in the
Middle Magdalena and Llanos Orientales of Colombia is an example of synergy between the
national oil company (Ecopetrol) and the National Biodiversity Institute (Instituto Alexander
von Humboldt). The purpose of this initiative was to support the development of scientific and
biodiversity mainstreaming in the work of sectorial development planning. It is thus an
important milestone in this regard, to the extent that a company whose business is focused on
the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons recognizes the need to invest in an
environmental outreach program focusing on biodiversity. The study took place over 18
months and included within the actions of biodiversity conservation, both preservation
guidelines (protected areas) and ecological restoration, ecological connectivity, sustainable use
of natural resources, and ex situ conservation of species in critical conditions of threat. The
spatial scale of analysis of 1:100,000 (100K), spanned nearly nine million hectares of the
country. These priorities were then evaluated in the field, by approximating 1:25,000 scale
pilot studies (25K), on which management guidelines were generated as biodiversity action
plans, developed as interinstitutional and mixed (civil society, companies and environmental
authorities) projects.
With the support of local organizations, baseline conditions of those attributes of biodiversity
were generated and identified as important at scale 1:25,000. Based on this identification, a
monitoring system was designed to evaluate, in time and with accurate methodological
standards, the transformation of ecosystems and habitat of the selected species as
conservation targets. In parallel, a system was designed to monitor and track business
management in environmental issues. As a prototype, the generation of a support system for
decision making about the location and definition of the forcible inversion of 1%, as defined at
the environmental legislation as a compensation mechanism, was included.
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2.
Main partners:
The Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute was created in 1993 and
is responsible to promote, coordinate and conduct research on biodiversity as part of the
National Environmental System (SINA). The Institute is affiliated with the Ministry of
Environment and Sustainable Development. As part of its functions, the Institute is responsible
for conducting, on the mainland of the Nation, scientific research on biodiversity, including
genetic and aquatic resources. It also coordinates the biodiversity information system of
Colombia and the formation of the national inventory of biodiversity. Ecopetrol is the largest
company in the country and is the leading oil company in Colombia. It is also one of the 35
largest oil companies in the world and one of the four largest in Latin America. It is linked to
the Ministry of Mines and Energy and has a majority participation of the transportation and
refining infrastructure in the country. It has also recently come to incorporate private
investment. The Humboldt Institute participated in the project by providing technical and
scientific expertise and a percentage of resources in exchange for about $ 250,000. In addition,
ECOPETROL contributed a significant percentage of financial resources (approximately
800,000 USD) and also provided information related to the areas of operation. The two main
entities involved were the project managers and engineers. However, due to the characteristics
of the project, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the National Parks
System, 8 Regional Autonomous Corporations (regional environmental authorities), various
NGOs and the academy at the national and regional levels were also involved in the project
construction.
3.
Achievements and impact:
The project had a geographical coverage - in the analysis at scale 1:100,000 – of 9 million
hectares, of which about 62 ecosystems were evaluated, many of them strategic for the country
due to the goods and services they provide and the enormous diversity they contain, to the
point that some of them are considered global biodiversity hotspots. 85 municipalities and 10
areas of jurisdiction of autonomous corporations were involved. The study phase, at scale
1:25,000, allowed the generation of work guidelines that caused direct impact to the
communities where the field work was conducted. This directly comprised communities from
about 8 municipalities, in which projects related with the use and conservation of species and
ecosystems identified in the field were generated.
4.
Sustainability:
The project defined the actions and initiatives of biodiversity management that contribute to
the restoration and maintenance of ecosystem ecological integrity and of keys species due to
their value to conservation and restoration. For this reason, management guidelines have been
designed and applied to specific ecological systems. The guidelines seek to link ecological
integrity and social viability in a single conservation project. For this, the National Policy on
Biodiversity was the framework for the selection of criteria and the spatial results have been
captured in the planning processes of the autonomous corporations and the Ministry.
Furthermore, several guidelines have been used in a call for support for research projects
funded by ECOPETROL
To ensure the sustainability of the project, several strategies have been included to ensure the
addition of their impact on decision making:
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5.
An accompaniment to ECOPETROL, which ensures, particularly in the design of their
support system to decision making, that the information generated is included in this
system. The accompaniment is secured as well in that a new agreement between the two
entities was signed in 2012 to continue the Environmental Planning for Biodiversity
Conservation in other operational areas of Ecopetrol in the country (about 30 million
hectares, that is, the size of Paraguay).
The implementation of the proposed guidelines is assured by Scholarships for biodiversity
research supported by Ecopetrol in association with the Ministry of Environment, which
financed more than 10 projects that give continuity to the results generated by the project.
The project has secured the invitation of the Ministry of Environment, environmental
corporations in all areas of socialization, and in other instances of environmental planning
discussion around the country.
From the Policy and Legislation Program at the Institute, technical results from the project
have been utilized in exercises directed to the Ministry of Environment to support the
Ecosystem Map 1:100,000 (100K) of the country, and the Main Ecological Structure Map as
an obligation of the country towards the Development Plan of the national government.
Innovation:
The methodology used in this project had to be adapted in many ways to fit the information
restrictions, work scales and ecosystem reality of the country. For example, based on regional
scales, ecosystem types present in the study region were identified. For each, the
subclassification of ecological units from abiotic and biogeographical information and the
concept of regional experts were performed with higher resolution. These nested ecological
units represent ecological, biological and biogeographic processes, which are distinctive in the
regions. In assessing the importance of the identified objects, both quantitative and qualitative
analysis of viability, threats, opportunities and uses, and incorporated aspects of habitat
diversity and functional traits for the species were utilized. Moreover, the whole process of
selection and weighting of the objects was consolidated and validated through the knowledge
of regional experts in various workshops. An interesting approach has been to consider the
fine grain strategy - coarse complementary function incorporating multiple spatial scales
The results of this project have high applicability to both the national and the regional scale,
however, for this to be achieved, it must take into account the different connotations, both
from the perspective of the land, and the jurisdiction of territorial and environmental
authorities. It is therefore necessary that the coordinated action of local and regional actors in
the Middle Magdalena and Llanos Orientales ensure the effective conservation of biodiversity.
Certain issues, such as the implementation timeframe of conservation actions, should be
discussed. Priorities should be based on biological characteristics and consideration should be
given to the real opportunities and constraints that affect these actions, mainly considering the
local communities. Thus, decision makers can develop urgent conservation initiatives, which
are relevant not only in relation to the biological needs, but also to the social and economic
characteristics of the areas that incorporate the study.
6.
Replicability and scaling up:
The project is based on an ecological land planning exercise and is aimed towards the
hydrocarbon sector. Obviously, the work methodology can be replicated in other sectors that
use the territory, identify it as a need in their planning exercises, define the priorities for
conservation and management guidelines, or that act as a basis for maintaining ecological
functions and services of biodiversity. Similarly, the project is multi-scaled from a spatial
perspective. An area equivalent to about 10 million hectares was assessing conservation
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priorities at 1:100,000 (100K), and four areas were selected because of their importance for
the conservation of biodiversity. They were assessed on the status of priorities, at 25K, and
defined the methodology sheets for the monitoring system of these priorities over time.
The success of this project has been such that ECOPETROL, like other hydrocarbon sector
entities, has shown interest in providing continuity in other regions and other spatial scales of
analysis. With Ecopetrol, the Humboldt Institute has begun a project of the same nature, which
in three years, will address more than 30 million hectares complementary to this project on a
scale 100K, and will work on 12 windows at 25K to define state priorities and monitoring
system. With Occidental de Colombia (OXY), an agreement is being signed to cover the
Colombian Orinoco region, a draft environmental planning of the territory in a region of great
environmental importance called Estero del Lipa. This region was identified in an exercise of
conservation priorities for the Binational Basin Orinoco (exercise done between Colombia and
Venezuela) as one of 12 most important ecological areas of the Orinoco. With the company
Pacific Rubiales an agreement is advancing to apply the same methodology of the project, in
some areas of future oil development in the Colombian Caribbean.
7.
Areas of contribution:
a.
Job creation: How has the initiative had an impact on unemployment, etc.
The research guidelines generated by the project were the basis for the most important
call on biodiversity research in the country, which in a partnership between Ecopetrol and
the Ministry of Environment supports research with a fund of $ 2 million USD.
b.
Infrastructure development:
Based on the results generated by the project, Ecopetrol is designing its system to support
environmental decision making. This is a software development system that links basic
cartography, thematic mapping, distribution records of species with conservation interest,
infrastructure information of the sector, and through cross -consultations gives the best
environmental options for sectorial decision making over the territory.
c.
Social inclusion:
The project gives recommendations to the company for implementing the conservation
guidelines largely through the social base of the territory that has interest on
environmental management. In this sense, private owners, social associations, and NGOs
with biodiversity conservation projects are articulated with conservation guidelines of the
project.
d.
Outreach:
The results of the project have had a significant effect on the vision of biodiversity in
maintaining key ecological functions for the hydrocarbon sector. Even within the
framework of the project, an international conference called "Biodiversity and Oil" was
generated, which enhances and feeds the paradigm shift between conservation and
development. This is accomplished not as two opposing dimensions, but as
complementary and interdependent dimensions, which is evidenced by the continuation
of the project with a new agreement, and other agreements signed with other companies,
where it is becoming more relevant to include biodiversity and ecosystem services in land
planning exercises of the hydrocarbon sector.
e.
Networks:
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The project, in its execution, linked to more than 93 researchers in the country,
representing 40 organizations. Many of the participating entities that tracked the project
were subsequently benefitting from the scholarship program to biodiversity research
mentioned above. Also, as part of the project, two workshops were organized with
decision makers, which presented the results and their relevance to other decisionmaking scenarios through the Ministry of Environment and Regional Environmental
Corporations.
f.
Environment:
It is the highest level of incidence. Project results define biodiversity conservation
priorities in the territory where Ecopetrol is operating, gives some guidelines for their
management and conservation, and contributes a monitoring system on the status of
these priorities and their inclusion in the system to support decision making of the
Company. Further information is public, and is available from the Institute to other
decision-makers in the sector, such as the Ministry of Environment and Regional
Environmental Authorities (CARs).
g.
Global health:
For a country with a projected growth of its National Oil Company in 2020 with over a
million barrels a day, and an environmental impact that can have this growth without
proper planning, it is evidently hoped that the results of the project on the decisions of
business activity in the territory have a significant effect on the protection of key
ecosystems and the generation of ecosystem services associated with climate and water
regulations, among others.
8.
Awareness of the initiative:
As part of the communication strategy of the project, the following products can be referenced:
• International Meeting on Biodiversity and Oil, which included the participation of successful
projects in this area and in other Latin American countries like Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador.
Participation also included the institutional and environmental sector of the country, and the
global initiative that certifies successful conservation projects for the hydrocarbon sector
(IPIECA).
This
event
was
covered
by
the
national
press.
(http://www.humboldt.org.co/memoriasbiodiversidadypetroleo/)
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9.
Technical publication of project results. This publication contains the technical proposal of
the project, the results and some case studies done under the project with other members
of the academy in the country.
Publication of the project summary. This publication is a short document aimed at
entrepreneurs and decision makers with the scope of the project.
Documentary "After seeking conservation targets", which summarizes the project. 11:30
minutes in duration.
Documentary "Oil and biodiversity: a space in Fima" for use in the Bogota International
Environmental Fair. 5 minutes in duration.
Multi-image of the project "The Orinoco and Magdalena Medio: land for a unique look."
5:28 minutes in duration.
Other information:
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Many of the countries in the southern hemisphere are basing expectations of economic growth
on the exploitation of natural and non-renewable resources. This operation, in addition to
having an impact on the target resource utilization, has an impact on the natural basis
(ecosystems and species) of the territories where they operate. This natural base is essential
for the conservation of biodiversity itself, and key ecological functions for the generation of
ecosystem provision and regulation services. It is necessary to work with the environmental
sector in generating baseline data on ecosystems and their importance, and to influence
planning exercises of sectors to ensure the conservation of biodiversity and the key services
for local, regional and even global population in their occupied territory. This project has been
a success in its impact on the sector and in the generation of information for the
documentation of environmental authority decisions. We believe that the experience gathered
during the 10 years of the Institute in these ecological land planning exercises is an
opportunity for other countries in the southern hemisphere, both for its technical aspect in the
construction of knowledge, and in its incorporation in policy instruments and environmental
decision making.
Please send the completed form to:
Bob Kakuyo: Bob.Kakuyo@unep.org
Rui Zhang: Rui.Zhang@unep.org
Thank you
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