Thanks to the efforts of the International Waterfowl Research Bureau, during 1982Bureau, during -1984, geographic and biotic data from 368 wetlands across South America were gathered. However, the conservation impact of this inventory has not been as striking as expected because of two reasons. First, since most contributors did not work for governmental agencies, the major points stressed in the document have been overlooked by local authorities. Second, because of logistic limitations of the inventory, large wetlands (i.e. those across the Amazon basin), were not inventoried using the IWRB criteria and thus considered as one large wetland. A critical, comparative, review of the results of the inventory revealed that in addition, the reliability of the inventory is questionable because of the differential effort put into the compilation of the information. Several countries appear to contain only a small percentage of South American wetlands, while in fact they have as many wetlands of international importance as countries that have many times their estimated area of wetlands.
La aceleración creciente de la crisis ambiental global demanda con urgencia respuestas contundentes de la comunidad de naciones y de la sociedad. A pesar del incremento de la conciencia colectiva acerca del deterioro de la biodiversidad y de los numerosos instrumentos, políticas acuerdos y convenios internacionales existentes para enfrentar este problema, los indicadores del estado de los ecosistemas, especies, poblaciones y servicios ecosistémicos continúan su declive incesante. Es necesario por lo tanto poner en marcha acciones distintas a las que hasta ahora han producido las numerosas iniciativas emprendidas durante los últimos cincuenta años, orientadas a la construcción de un poderoso imaginario social de naturaleza encarnado en todos los niveles de la sociedad.
The Orinoco river basin is the third largest river in the world by volume. Its catchment encompasses 27 major sub-basins including the Bita with a catchment area of about 825,000 ha, which originates in the Colombian high plains in the Llanos ecoregion. It has been recognized as a priority area for conservation through different gap analyses and overall determined to have good health according to the Orinoco report card 2016. The natural climate and hydrologic processes, and their synergies with flooded forests, savannas, wetlands, species diversity and local economic activities, are part of a dynamic and sensitive system. With the purpose of conserving the ecological, social and cultural benefits that it brings, the Colombian Government, with the support of regional and local civil society organizations, promoted the designation of a conservation area. Technical exercises were carried out including biological and socioeconomic surveys, local stakeholder consultations and future scenario modeling. In June 2018, the Bita River basin was designated as the largest Ramsar site in Colombia, providing a worldwide example of explicit protection of riverine systems. In order to maintain this free-flowing river, land use and fisheries management, in conjunction with other conservation actions, are being implemented and provide a model of protection for freshwater ecosystems that could be replicated elsewhere.
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