By Tania Paz, general assistant, AIDA, @TaniaNinoshka
Latin America and the Caribbean stretches over more than two billion hectares, or about 15% of the earth’s total land surface area. The region possesses the richest persity of species and ecoregions in the world. It is home to one third of the world’s renewable water resources and close to 30% of the world’s total runoff, or the free flow of surface water into a drainage basin, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC, 2002). Even so, there are still many ecosystems that we don’t know much about despite their important role in maintaining the health and wellbeing of the environment and human society. These include mangrove forests, glaciers and páramos.
According to Mexico’s National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biopersity (CONABIO, in Spanish), mangroves are plant formations grouped into a distinct biome known as mangal, or a tree or shrub with branches that reach down and take root in the ground. They are a unique plant species for their resistance to salt and for growing in tropical coastal environments near estuaries and coastal lagoons. They are the transition between terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
Mangrove forests form a natural protective barrier that prevents wind and tide erosion. They play an important role in the environment by filtering water and allowing it to flow into underground aquifers, and they act as carbon sinks that helpmitigate the effects of climate change.
The major threats to mangrove ecosystems stem from urban, industrial, tourism and agricultural development given that they compete for land with these fragile ecosystems and cause heavy pollution.
This is happening in Marismas Nacionales and Laguna Huizache-Caimanero, where a mega-tourism resort is threatening a wetland ecosystem that protects Mexico’s last remaining mangrove forests and 60 endangered species.
Páramos (in Spanish) are wetlands found between 2,500 and 3,600 meters above sea level in a climate of high rainfall and dry winds. Páramos are known as water factories for their capacity to generate clean water. They also act as a climate regulator with capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. Colombia is home to the largest surface area of páramo ecosystems in the world, holding 98% of páramo plant species. These ecosystems also are home to an immense persity of flora and fauna, including the spectacled bear and Andean condor, the world’s largest flying land bird.
Rich in precious metals, the páramos are threatened by mining developments, both existing and planned. In Colombia, for example, miners are looking to undertake extractive activities in the Santurbán páramo, which would put in peril a vital source of fresh water for millions of Colombians. AIDA is leading a campaign (in Spanish) that calls for a proper demarcation of the Santurbán páramo’s territorial boundaries in an effort to stop mining development, an activity prohibited in officially declared páramo zones.
Glaciers are large bodies of dense ice, snow and rocks. They can stretch down or across mountainsides -- depending on their weight -- as they flow into the water system. They can melt, evaporate or break up into icebergs. In Latin America, 70% of the earth’s tropical glaciers are found high in the Andes mountain range of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru (OLCA, 2013, in Spanish).
Glaciers regulate water supplies by releasing water in the form of meltwater in the hot and dry seasons and by storing it as ice during cold and wet periods. In Ecuador, the city of Quito gets 50% of its water from glacier reservoirs and likewise Bolivia’s La Paz gets 30% from glacier catchment areas.
Glacier melt, caused by the effects of climate change, is the greatest threat to the glaciers. Since 1970 the Andean glaciers have lost 20% of their volume, according to a report by Peru’s National Meteorology and Hydrology Service (SENAMHI, in Spanish).
See the documentary La Era del Deshielo (The Age of the Thawing) by Señal Colombia. Source: YouTube
Glacier melt is putting the water production of Andean countries at risk. In Peru, for example, the volume of surface ice that has been lost as a consequence of melting equates to seven billion cubic meters of water, a quantity that represents around 10 years worth of water supplies for the city of Lima. If all the world’s glaciers melted, sea levels could rise by some 66 meters, causing catastrophic impacts on coastal cities (OLCA, 2013, in Spanish).
Como vemos, América Latina es una región totalmente rica en biopersidad que juega un papel importante en el mundo y en la continuidad de la especie humana. La belleza y riqueza del continente quedan expresadas en la letra de América, canción de Nino Bravo: “Cuando Dios hizo el Edén, pensó en América”. ¡Defendamos y preservemos nuestro Edén!
