Salinas Chávez, Eduardo; Middleton, John. 1998. La ecología del paisaje como base para el desarrollo sustentable en América Latina / Landscape ecology as a tool for sustainable development in Latin America. http://www.brocku.ca/epi/lebk/lebk.html
SUMMARIES IN ENGLISH
N. R. Biasatti, M. C. Romano, E. F. Pire, E. N. Micol, C. Diaz, & A. Fragapane. Evaluacion Ambiental Del Arroyo Saladillo Y Su Cuenca, Santa Fe, Argentina - Un Caso De Estudio Abordado Desde La Óptica De La Ecología Del Paisaje.
The Saladillo River is located in the north of the Argentine Pampas (the agricultural heart of the country) between 32º59' - 33º30' S and 60º37' - 61º50' W. It finishes in the Paraná river coinciding with the location of Rosario city (1 million inhabitants). Its basin has a length of about 130 km.. For its environment assesment, its basin was taken as landscape functional unit, this enabled the detection of some really interesting and trascendent symptoms, that from an integrated approach showed different situations and environment results due to human activity. The specific studies done to analize traditional variables like the quality of water, biota and others, only resulted to be simple tools for interpreting certain aspects in a reality whose social and cultural components determine changes of mater, energy and information that influence the conditions of the environment of this landscape unit. The most critical situation appeared to be in the area of interchange with the city. The most frequently detected symptom was the interrelation between the degradation of the environment and the slums. The most outstanding manifestation of this is the poverty belt that you can find on both banks of the river, also used for dumping the rubbish of the town, with which the local people have an important interaction. The most critical situation for this environment was, from our point of view, poverty and its interaction with rubbish, and the socio-cultural, economic and political connotations that are inevitably involved.
Laura Bracalenti, Graciela Cavagnero, & Laura Lagorio. La Ribera De Rosario, Argentina: Hacia Una Transformacion Ambiental.
[The Riverside Of Rosario, Argentina: Towards An Environmental Transformation]
This document describes advances and perspectives from a study of the transformation of the riverside of the City of Rosario, Province of Santa Fe, Argentina, developed in the context of Landscape Ecology and with an environmental focus on theory and methodology. The objective is to ensure that these transformations lead to an increase in the sustainability of the urban organism. To understand the riverside as a zone of encounter between a built system (the city) and a modified system (the river), we use the concept of interface, understood as the overlap between different systems, as a operative tool for the analysis of this case. We find the key moments in the process of configuring the riverine fringe defined by the dialectical relation among economic, political, social, and physical variables. We describe the current situation based on the following aspects: topographic characteristics, access to the river, and social interaction. We determine which aspects to modify, strengthen, or create in order to increase the sustainability of the city of Rosario. We propose orienting the course of transformations by establishing satisfactory relationships between open and closed spaces, built and modified, with qualitative and quantitative improvements to the latter by way of conversion of environmentally degraded spaces that are potentially recuperable. As a synthesis, we consider what configuration the riverine zone ought to have as an important element in the configuration of the mosaic. This includes not only its important role in social interaction inherent in its open spaces, but also its physical characteristics as a space for recovery of natural supports. That is, it ought to have the least construction possible to fulfil its role as an ecological corridor and to facilitate interrelations between society and environment.
Jorge F Cervantes-Borja, & Gloria Alfaro-Sánchez. La Ecología Del Paisaje En El Contexto Del Desarrollo Sustentable: Ordenamiento Ecológico De La Región De La Pesca, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
[Landscape Ecology In The Context Of Sustainable Development: Ecological Classification Of The La Pesca Region, Tamaulipas, Mexico]
The study of the global landscape under geographical complex point of view, is necessary to know new forms to study and resolve the sustainable development. In this way, the geo-ecodynamic analysis represent a conceptual model, done to drive the complex natural data set up in a systemic trans-diciplinary form. The General System Theory is the philosophical basis in which this model is done. The principal focus considering the Geo and Ecologic network system and its functional relations with cultural and economic basis.
The geoecodynamic analysis considers that natural and human (economic and social) processes maintain an whole operation of a set of interacting relationships components, and not as a isolated processes. For this reason, detailed knowledge of complex processes that come into a play in the internal operation of a natural-cultural system is fundamental for its integral analysis, so is a better way to build most appropriate models to look for the sustainable development.
The methodological model was applied to the landscape ecological planning and environmental impact of "La Pesca" a coastal region situated southern border of the Texas U.S.A. in the Tamaulipas State northern of Mexico. Actually this region is very important because it will be considering as land and waterway coastal route under the free trade agreement between U.S.A, Mexico and Canada.
The study results are relatives to define systematic landscape ecological regional units and its properties like potential land use units considering better ways to get sustainable management including biodiversity and wildlife conservation.
Key Words: Sustainability regionalization, Landscape synthesis, Geoecodynamic functionsl Landscape ecology, Geoecosystem theory, Geoecotope, Geographical System.
Elio Ricardo Di Bernardo. Paisaje Ambiental De Alta Diversidad. Mosaico De Naturaleza Interconectado, Una Manera De Recuperar El Soporte Natural En Las Áreas Urbanas (Argentina).
[An Environmental Landscape Of High Diversity. Natural Interconnected Mosaic, A Way To Recuperate The Natural Support System In Urban Areas (Argentina)]
Large urban systems, as complex adaptive systems, establish a delicate equilibrium with natural supports. The information flows of such systems introduce all the contradictions of the economic model of consumption. The market economy shows itself impotent for resolving adequately relations among people and relations between people and the natural support system, even when it introduces economic externalities into its analysis. Without a doubt, flows of information, which regulate flows of energy and materials in human systems, ought to assume responsibility for attaining an adequate equilibrium. It is clear that planet earth has been permanently modified, so that adaptation to new conditions (which does not necessarily signify "progress") is a given. The problem at hand is the temporal scale of the change.
Adding to all this the enormous increase in urban populations, we come to the necessity of worrying about the importance of impacts on the natural support system.For this reason it is necessary to study urban systems not only from the dimension of space designated for construction and technostructures, but also together with space occupied by agricultural production and a new type of land reserve for the recuperation and or conservation of the natural support system. This new dimension called "interconnected natural mosaic" seeks to establish a network of spaces with a low level of human intervention with the effect of recuperating and/or conserving many of the qualities of the natural support system, in relatively small spaces appropriately connected by way of green corridors that permit the migration of animal and plant species. This establishes a web of spaces dedicated to the production of food, to the recuperation of the natural support system, and to the built urban areas. This image is in distinction to the extended city with no solution of its continuity, with an immense degraded periphery, which characterizes the majority of large Latin American cities.
In the metropolitan area of Rosario a first mosaic is being constructed connecting the flood retention dam of the Ludueña creek with the "Los Constituyentes" wood. The "umbilical" cord is the creek itself, which forms on its banks a green space that allows migration of biological species while permitting a green trail for human excursions.
This metropolitan area offers great possibilities for such ideas, as "it's still not too late" toi avoid an extended and dull development, especially if one remembers the possibility of its future importance and the future increase in population, in the context of new city states, which go hand in hand with the new model of civilization with its emphasis on economic globalization and progressive informatic decentralization.
Interventions in the natural support system, given the complexity of urban systems, do not allow advance studies as if they were actual cause-effect experiments. As well, experience based on previous urban precedents has serious weaknesses when the hypothesis considerably transcends current urban realities. One can consider this intervention a "pilot" test. During the undertaking one can conduct studies on the natural functioning of the whole system and consequently its repercussions on improvement of urban quality of life.
Andrés Etter, Luis Alberto Villa, Felipe Cárdenas, Juan G. Gaviria, Alberto Rojas, Hernando Cordero, Carlos Devia, M. Adelaida Farah, Victoria Abad, & Armando Sarmiento. Hacia Una Planificación Transactiva Del Uso Del Paisaje: Integración De La Producción Y La Conservación Para La Recuperación Del Paisaje En La Cuenca Del Río Chicamocaha (Boyacá, Colombia) 1990-1996
[Towards A Transactive Planning Of Landscape Use: Integration Of Production And Conservation For Landscape Recuperation In The Watershed Of The Río Chicamocaha (Boyacá, Colombia) 1990-1996]
Since 1990 a Participatory Landuse Planning Project in the middle Chicamocha watershed in the eastern Andes of Colombia is being carried out involving local communities, local government and institutions under the guidance and coordination of the IDEADE of the Javeriana University. The Chicamocha is one of the most degraded areas in Colombia, posing severe problems to the sustainability of the actual farming systems. Partly due to this, during the last 20 years, peasants have been migrating towards the main Colombian cities and also to Venezuela. The area is dominated by strong mountaineous relief covering an altitudinal gradient from 1000 to over 5000 m.a.s.l., which makes the landscape very diverse in its biophysical setting as well as in farming systems. Inhabitants of the area are mainly smallholder farmers with low income. Few areas maintain their original vegetation and fauna, especially of forest areas of which only 10% remain.
The Project is guided by the concept of Participatory Land Use Planning (LUP), a process in which the local people are meant to actively participate in the diagnostic surveys, and in the definition and implementation of more sustainable land use alternatives for the region, by becoming the active promoters of the wished changes in the global planning process. Landscape Ecology, Integrated Farming Systems Analysis and anthropological work, lead to an overall and integrated approach of the study area. In this context, the concepts of Land Unit and Farm Unit proved to be very valuable means of communication and data analysis, being readily recognized by farmers and other locals. The survey was supported by remote sensing and mapping techniques, where satellite imagery, aerial photographs and Geographic Information Systems, have been basic tools to be able to conveniently systematize the large volume of fieldwork and participatory workshop's data. Cartography at 1:50.000 scale of Land Units, Farming Systems, Infrastructure and Population, and Critical and Valuable Areas were made. On site fieldwork was actively complemented by participatory Workshops and short technical courses. In most of this type of projects, the external agents suppose that the main constraint for the construction of new scenarios is the availability of up to date technology and information. Our experience has shown to the contrary, that the main limiting factors are the lack of auto-esteem and self-negotiating capacity of the local population, and the valuation of local outstanding management examples. By this the aim of the Project has been shifting from a technical emphasis to a more sociocultural one. On basis of the surveys and discussions, at present over 120 self-designed Collective Conservation/Production Projects spread over the region are being already executed, involving more than 700 peasants directly in the global project.
On basis of this material an analysis of the actual problems and their causes was elaborated, as a base for solution identification and imagining alternative scenarios at the farm, catchment and municipal levels. Special emphasis is given to the framing of the local farm or land unit analysis, in broader contexts, i.e. catchment, municipality and region.
Andrés Etter, Isabel Crizón, Armando Sarmiento, Marcia Imamoto, Manuel Romero, & Eduardo Fernández. Análisis Espacial Para La Evaluación Económico-Ambiental Del Sistema Extractivo De La Fibra De "Chiqui-Chiqui" En La Amazonia Colombiana.
[Spatial Analysis For Economic-Environmental Evaluation Of The Fibre Extraction System Of "Chiqui-Chiqui" In Columbia's Amazonia]
To study the potentiality of the extractive system of the the "Chiqui-chiqui" palm fiber, the work focuses on integrating biophysical, economic and cultural data in a base linked to a GIS, in order to establish the availability, distribution, extraction procedures and economics of the resource, in a study case in the north-east of colombian Amazonia. The palm Leopoldinia piassaba locally refered to as "Chiqui-chiqui", has a geographic distribution restricted to a medium sized forest type occuring on poor tropical podsols in the upper Orinoco and Río Negro watersheds in Colombia, Brasil and Venezuela, which makes imperative the need to look for sustainable extration systems of non timber forest products that can guarantee its conservation. The resource has been traditionally harvested by local indigenous communities, and since several decades on a market basis, used for broom fabrication.
A Land Unit map (scale 1:250.000) based on vegetation types was elaborated using satellite imagery, where the studied palm forests were delineated. A survey of soil, hydrology and vegetation, as well as the demographic structure of the palm population of the mentioned forests was carried out. Socioeconomic characteristics of the extraction system, commercial intermediation and industrial transformation was also done. The survey made possible to predict the distribution pattern of the palm forests, by establishing the existing relationship between vegetation types, soil and hydrologic conditions, and the one of the palm forests with other vegetation types along toposequences. Two palm forest types or "fibrales" could be identified, type F1 on leached sandy soils with a density of 377 palms/ha., and type F2 on clayey soils with an average of 602 palms/ha, with heights up to 12 meters. However the harvested palms are only in the height range of 1 to 4 m., which makes for 87 and 182 palms/ha. respectively. The measured total palm forest area is 347.592 ha. for F1 and 87.126 for F2. Considering the accessibility factor, which is determined by settlement location and 1 hour walking distance (3 to 5 km.) from navigable rivers, the harvestable area was calculated using buffer zones: 3 km. (F1 179.600 ha., F2 38.700 ha.), 4 km. (F1 220.600 ha., F2 62.500 ha.) and 5 km. (F1 347.600 ha., F2 87.100 ha.). The palm productivity according to existing data is of the order of 4.8 to 9.95 kg/ha.y-1 for F1 and F2. The economic analysis enabled to calculate the extraction costs by activity, and the valuation of the resource in terms of the beneficiary population, that by 1996 was of 369 families, which harvested around 500 Tons of fiber. The current national market was evaluated in relation to potential supply. An analytical approach to the sustainability of the system was carried out, taking into account biophysical, management, socioeconomic, politic and institutional aspects. According to it, the permanence in time of the system as a profitable activity for all actors involved, depends more on institutional factors, policy and market structure, than on the biophysical supply and harvest limits.
Audrey A. Grez, Ramiro O. Bustamante , Javier A. Simonetti, & Lenore Fahrig. Landscape Ecology, Deforestation, And Forest Fragmentation: The Case Of The Ruil Forest In Chile.
Deforestation and fragmentation of native forests is dangerously increasing around the world. These processes change landscape structure, affecting the persistence of populations. Here, we analyzed the deforestation and fragmentation of the Ruil forest, a temperate and endemic formation restricted to 100 km of the coastal range of Central Chile. Between 1981 and 1991, more than 50 % of the forest has been lost, mainly due to the expansion of plantations of Monterey pine. Currently, the 352 ha of the Ruil forest conforms an "archipelago" with many small, regular fragments and few large, irregular ones, relatively isolated, and surrounded by a matrix of pine plantations. Only 45 ha are under formal protection. This situation is critical because the direct and indirect effects of deforestation and fragmentation imply, in the short term, the loss of species and a whole and unique ecosystem. Therefore, today forest management is unsustainable. In Chile, landscape ecology should be further developed and applied for a more sustainable regional management which conciliates the interests of both the forest industry and conservationists.
José López García. Caso De Estudio: Levantamiento De Suelos De La Cuenca Del Río Pilón, Nuevo León, México.
[Case Study: Soil Survey In The Watershed Of The Río Pilón, Nuevo León, México.]
The field of action of landscape ecology is based on the structure, function, and dynamics of ecosystems, by way of an understanding of the interaction of ecology (the relation between biotic and abiotic factors) and geographic factors, at a spatial and temporal scale that allows study and evaluation of natural resources, and the setting of policies for use, conservation, or restoration, to achieve a sustainable development through time to guarantee permanence for future generations.
Ecosystems provide a great variety of goods and services by way of so called environmental functions. Among these are the capacity for providing resources and for assimilating wastes. Prominent in the first group are water, soil, air, forest resources, etc. With respect to soil one should consider the capacity of the land to produce, whether from the point of view of agriculture, fishing, or forestry. The sustainability of the development process requires that the use of renewable natural resources does not exceed the capacity for regeneration, that the carrying capacity of natural systems is respected, and that the benefits of their exploitation allows the generation of alternatives in view of their depletion.
José López García, & Lilia de Lourdes Manzo Delgado. Caso De Estudio: Evaluación De La Capacidad De Carga Como Una Alternativa De Desarrollo Sustentable En Un Sendero Ecoturistico Del Santuario Cerro Pelón, De La Reserva Especial De La Biosfera "Mariposa Monarca" (Mexico).
[Case Study: Evaluation Of Carrying Capacity As An Alternative For Sustainable Development In An Ecotourist Trail Of The Cerro Pelón Sanctuary, "Monarch Butterfly" Special Biosphere Reserve (Mexico)]
In light of the socioeconomic and environmental problematique presented by the "Monarch Butterfly" Special Biosphere Reserve, there is an urgent need to find alternatives and, at the same time, control or diminish impact on the forest environment in order to achieve sustainable development. This involves conserving and using the wooded zones which assure the future of the migratory and hibernation phenomena of the lepidoptera Danaus plexippus, known as the Monarch Butterfly, while at the same time protecting headwaters, and creating conditions so that the legal owners of the reserve lands protect, manage, and use its natural resources adequately.
Nevertheless, to conserve and use a resource it is indispensable to understand its dynamics and ecogeographic functioning, the interaction among environmental elements in the framework of landscape ecology. One can then link human communities with projects for use that lead towards a sustainable development.
One way to achieve this is to support ecotourism as an alternative for sustainable development in the "Monarch Butterfly" Special Biosphere Reserve, in the particular case of the Cerro Pelón Sanctuary and its area of influence. For this it is necessary to evaluate the carrying capacity for ecotourism, and to estimate the environmental impact it would entail. In this context, carrying capacity is a potential strategy for reducing the impacts of recreation of visitors in protected natural areas.
J. P. Metzger, V. Pivello, & C. A. Joly. Landscape Ecology Approach In The Conservation And Rehabilitation Of Riparian Forest Areas In S.E. Brazil.
The ideal of economic development followed by western countries in this century conflicted with a rational use of the natural resources and has been resulting in serious environmental losses. From the 70’s, environmental awareness became stronger and new alternative ways to reach development started to be sought, trying to bring together economic expansion and environmental conservation. In Brazil, the concern on sustainability comes to influence on decision making mainly after 1986, with a new environmental legislation. In this context, the landscape ecology approach, integrating social, biological and physical environmental elements at scales compatible with the management of territories, shows a great potential for planning towards sustainability. Analysis at the landscape level have recently emerged in Brazil, either in academic researches or in applied projects for territorial planning and environmental impact assessment. In this chapter, we present an example of the use of landscape ecology concepts for the sustainable development of the Jacaré-Pepira river basin, in SE Brazil (São Paulo State). This river lays in a region which had been highly deforested in the second half of last century and beginning of this century, and today, it presents serious problems of erosion, river filling, agricultural pollution and biodiversity loss. The main purpose of this project was to create a model for riparian forest rehabilitation, aiming at reestablishing the ecological functions of these ecotones, particularly relating to the protection of river margins, the purification of water table and the establishment of corridors for regional flora and fauna dispersion. Landscape ecology concepts were used to analyze spatial variations in the floristic composition and species diversity of riparian forest fragments and their relationship with the landscape structure. Fifteen riparian forest fragments under similar hydrogeological, topographic and edaphic conditions but at different landscape types - especially related to landscape composition and to degree of connectivity and isolation - were studied. The results show important variations in the species composition and diversity in the fragments according to the landscape type. One of the most relevant relationships was obtained between species diversity and forest connectivity. This relationship, always positive, was even more significant for the zoochoric (the most abundant) and climax (typical of the interior forest) species. Still, the results show it is necessary to adapt the rehabilitation action to each landscape type. Landscapes with higher connectivity may indicate advantageous conditions for a quicker rehabilitation or, inversely, the recovery of riparian corridors may be used to favour an increase in landscape connectivity. This study also adds on indicating species to be used in reforestation projects and on the assigning adequate forest widths for maintaining species diversity. The main obstacles to the application of the results obtained were due to unstable political and financial support. The understanding and the usage of landscape ecology concepts on sustainable development need long term research, carried out at the river basin level, and with the local population partnership.
M. Sebastiani, M. Villaró, & H. Alvarez. El Enfoque De La Ecología Del Paisaje Aplicado En Las Evaluaciones Ambientales. Caso En Estudio: Análisis De Sensibilidad Ambiental En Un Proyecto De Desarrollo Petrolero En Venezuela, Sur América.
[An Applied Landscape Ecology Focus In Environmental Evaluations. Case Study: Analysis Of Environmental Sensitivity For A Petroleum Development Project In Venezuela, South America]
As a case study we chose a petroleum exploration and extraction project. It proposes twenty years of activity under the new modalities established by Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) of Operation Service Agreements for reactivating existing petroleum fields. In these petroleum fields, PDVSA considers the production from existing wells to be marginal by the standards of crude production indices for Venezuelan operators. Nevertheless, it is necessary to take into account that the study area is part of the State of Anzoátegui, where petroleum activity has traditionally led the economy. Analysis of this case is under the modality of a "Specific Environmental Analysis" (República de Venezuela, 1996), given that the project is for the reactivation and enlargement of areas already in production. We present the methodological scheme used to carry out the Specific Evaluation, and the results obtained in the environmental sensitivity analysis of this project, pointing out the utility of incorporating a landscape ecology focus in environmental evaluations with the end of supporting a sustainable development.
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