Spain, through the Global Nature Foundation, has joined a joint initiative of several NGOs for the conservation of high mountain wetlands in Latin America and will be presented during the next World Congress of Nature.
The group promotes a motion before the Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) after the alarming data that in the last 50 years, Latin America and the Caribbean have lost or degraded 59% of their wet territories known as wetlands, according to numbers of the Ramsar Convention and the United Nations Program for the Environment (UNEP). This figure makes the region one of the most affected in the world, exceeding the global average of loss, which is 35% Colombia, for example, it houses more than 31,000 wetlands, which represents 26% of the national territory and it was from the South American country that local Oenegés, of Peru, Mexico, Argentina and Spain decided in mid -July to boost the motion 024 denominated as «declaration on the urgent preservation of the urgent preservation of the urgent High mountain wetlands in Latin America ».
Abu Dhabi
The proposal will be presented at the World Congress of the Nature of the UICN, an event that will take place from October 9 to 15 in Abu Dhabi and in which issues of biodiversity and sustainability must be thrown. In addition to the more than 1,400 members of the IUCN, one of the most influential organizations in the world in environmental issues, representatives of governments, NGOs, independent, indigenous peoples and experts from more than 160 countries will participate in Congress. The declaration is promoted by the Peruvian Society of Environmental Law -SPDA-, the Board of Trustees of the Nor Yauyos Cochas Landscape Reserve and the Green Fund Organization (Peru); The Wetlands Foundation (Colombia), the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Mexico), the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Argentina) and the Global Nature Foundation (Spain).
«High mountain wetlands are strategic ecosystems. In some cases they are already in critical condition, therefore, implementing, articulating and coordinating national and international efforts for their protection are peremptory tasks that require immediate action in the region, ”says Mauricio Valderrama, director of the Wetlands Foundation.
This joint motion recognizes the strategic and ecological value of high mountain wetlands and their ecosystem services, being fundamental, among others, for water and climatic regulation, food security and biodiversity preservation. At the same time, their drivers highlight, alert to the threats faced by wetlands due to the expansion of activities associated with the energy transition, the abandonment of cultural practices for their management, aggravated by the lack of regulatory, institutional and financial frameworks that guarantee their conservation.