Bolivia - Research

BOLIVIA - Biodiversity Conservation Through Integrated Management

Bolivia is a leader among Latin American countries in setting aside areas for conservation, with a protected area system that covers an impressive ten percent of the country and encompasses a tremendous diversity of ecosystems. Bolivian resource managers and planners require detailed surveys of critical habitats within these vast areas to provide them with baseline data for management and monitoring. In 1998, the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) initiated the Conservación de la Biodiversidad para un Manejo Integrado (COBIMI), or Biodiversity Conservation through Integrated Management. This is a collaborative effort, with the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural (La Paz), the Colección Boliviana de Fauna, and the Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado (Santa Cruz), to map biological diversity and its distribution, zone for resource use, monitor impacts from agriculture and resource extraction, and develop outreach programs to encourage broad participation in conservation.

Program Highlights
In 2001, Bolivia became the first country to participate in the CBC’s Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP), which targets instructors at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. Led by CBC Director Eleanor Sterling and SUNY colleague James Gibbs, an August 2001 workshop represented the first stage in a campaign to increase the capacity of university faculty to teach biodiversity conservation in tropical countries worldwide. A second series of workshops was held in Cochabamba in July 2002.

To date, the CBC’s field research has focused on describing natural ecosystems along the Amboró-Madidi corridor of the Bolivian Andes—a biodiversity hotspot highlighted for immediate conservation action. Project scientists selected three sites for their core efforts: Apolobamba National Integrated Management Area, located in northern Bolivia’s Apolobamba mountain range; Cotapata National Park and Integrated Management Area, 70 km from the city of La Paz; and Amboró National Park and Integrated Management Area, near Santa Cruz. These areas encompass a rich diversity of ecosystems, from glacial ice fields to rainforests to grasslands. Significantly, the three protected areas also have growing human populations (totaling nearly 40,000 residents) that depend on the natural resources of the areas for their own survival.

During pilot expeditions in 1999 to the Apolobamba and Cotapata areas, project researchers conducted surveys of animal groups at various altitudes. Based on this ongoing research, our Bolivian colleagues will be able to target ecologically sensitive “indicator” species and develop long-term monitoring programs. In 1999 and 2000, CBC scientists spent several months mapping, collecting, and identifying specimens in the field, and working with Bolivian counterparts to develop teaching and research collections.

Recognizing the urgent need for communities living in and around protected areas to actively participate in and benefit from the conservation of the resources upon which they depend, the CBC and its Bolivian partners have:

facilitated dialog among residents, protected-area personnel, and Bolivian educators and scientists;

offered training in education and outreach to define specific strategies for addressing local conservation issues; and

provided financial resources and technical assistance for communities and protected area staff to design and implement, for the first time, their own conservation projects, including: interpretive and artisanal centers, an interpretive trail, ecotourism facilities, informational outreach materials, and waste management programs.

In addition, the CBC, NASA, and other agencies developed the Inter-Andean Geographical Information Systems Data Center at Museo Noel Kempff Mercado, in Santa Cruz. This regional center, opened in 1998, supports training programs for conservation specialists and supplies data to document patterns of land use and rates of conversion from natural to human-dominated ecosystems.

Next Steps
CBC will continue biotic surveys in Bolivia, and is seeking funding for a major collaborative project to map the distribution of freshwater biodiversity in high elevations along the Andean chain.

COBIMI will continue to work with community recipients of small grants to promote their projects and provide information to local residents and tourists about the importance of Bolivia’s protected areas and biodiversity conservation.

COBIMI will focus on capacity building, encompassing: project administration, environmental interpretation, and monitoring of environmental and cultural impacts.

The CBC and Bolivian museum partners are planning an exhibition (to be shown in New York and in Bolivia) that will explore Bolivia’s biodiversity through the relationship between Bolivian peoples and nature.

Bolivian universities will continue piloting and developing NCEP modules.