biodiversity

International Galapagos Tour Operators Association Assists Nonprofit in Cargo Inspection / Quarantine Work To Secure Healthy Biodiversity on Archipelago

The International Galapagos Tour Operators Association (IGTOA) is providing funds to a leading nonprofit organization which assists quarantine protocols and inspections of cargo at ports of departure for the endangered archipelago.

This work is conducted primarily at Ecuador's marine port city of Guayaquil. Introducing diseases and non-native plants, animals and insects is one of the greatest threats to the islands’ biodiversity.

By Robert Blasiak for United Nations University (UNU)

At first, the story of Costa Rica's forests seems like a tragedy. In the 1940s, over 75 per cent of the country was covered in indigenous woodland, mostly tropical rainforest. In the subsequent decades, however, rampant and unchecked logging ensued as the nation's valuable forest resources were transformed into cash profits. By 1983 only 26 per cent of the country retained forest cover, and the deforestation rate had risen to 50,000 hectares per year.

At this point, something amazing started to happen. By 1989 the annual deforestation rate had dropped to 22,000 hectares per year. The figure dropped even lower to 4,000 hectares per year by 1994 and in 1998 the deforestation rate had dropped to zero. Today forest cover has increased to 52 per cent (double 1983 levels), and the government has set the ambitious goal of further increasing this figure to 70 per cent and achieving carbon neutrality by 2021.

IUCN Global Business and Biodiversity Programme

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is developing a set of biodiversity conservation principles for the siting and design of hotels and resorts, as part of a wider project that aims to enable key players in the hotel sector to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in the Insular Caribbean. In order to illustrate the Principles, IUCN is working with The Tourism Company, a UK consultancy, to prepare a report with examples of good practices, and is seeking case studies that relate specifically to hotel developments (rather than operations) and are examples of:

Vacancy Announcement

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as the leading global environmental authority within the United Nations system, promotes the environmental dimension of sustainable development and serves as the authoritative advocate for the global environment. UNEP administers the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD), in line with its relevant articles, Decisions of its Conference of the Parties as well as Decisions of the Governing Council of UNEP.

The Convention has three objectives: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into account all rights over those resources and to technologies, and by appropriate funding.

Picture by Duncan Wright

We Can't Afford to Protect Biodiversity?

Lisa Naughton, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jennifer Alix-Garcia, an assistant professor of agricultural and applied economics at UW-Madison, and Colin Chapman, an anthropologist at McGill University, have conducted a 10-year study of people living around Kibale National Park in Uganda, and the study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This study, focusing on the changes that occurred over time to poor communities living around the national park and to their assets (most notably, their land), challenges the "conventional wisdom" that national parks in developing countries are often to blame for the poverty found at their borders.

Ecuador's Avitourism Strategy

Ecuador's national avitourism strategy was published in 2006 by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Tourism, copyright Mindo Cloudforest Foundation (MCF) and CORPEI. The national strategy outlines eco-scenic birding trails in different habitats around the country, and we all look forward to their continuing implementation with local partner organizations, local governments and the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment and Tourism. This strategy shows how rural communities can become active habitat defenders while tangibly benefiting from biodiversity. MCF and all of the various actors involved need support from other NGOs, individuals and tour companies to see that this strategy is carried out to its true potential.