In order to combat the growing threat of climate change, a proposal in the country aims to create 12 new biological corridors.
The coordinator of the National Program of Biological Corridors (PNCB), Jairo Sancho, explained that the initiative responds to the affectation suffered by the protected wild areas in the face of global warming and the need then to create new wooded passages so that the species can move in the territory.
“We have as a country analysis of conservation gaps that we call cranes, which at the time identified which are the priority ecosystems for the country and that are outside the protected areas and that we needed to generate some mechanism to help conserve them. or three years ago we made that same analysis, adjusting it considering climate change variables precisely to identify climatic refuges, which are those areas to which we must pay attention. In the case of corridors there is a proposal of 12 new biological corridors to serve as climate refuges, focused on climate change“, the official said on Thursday, on the radio program “Nuestra Voz” (Our Voice).
Sancho indicated – without going into detail – that this proposal is in the process of “officialization”. In Costa Rica, there are currently 44 natural and 2 interurban biological corridors, covering 33% of the national territory.
The Minister of Environment and Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, agreed with the vision of the coordinator, pointing out climate change as one of the threats of the natural passages, as an example of ants. The high-rank official reported that these insects do not survive in altitudes that are above 2,000 meters above sea level, but that with global warming, they will reach habitats that are in higher areas than ever before, which would end up causing an imbalance.
In addition to climate change, Sancho enunciated the fragmentation of forested areas as another of the threats facing the country in this regard. The official said that the forests are increasingly smaller and more and more separated from each other, which hinders the behavior of the flora and fauna.
The adviser of the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Conservation Areas (Sinac) and expert in ecological monitoring, Gustavo Induni, added that another problem faced by biological corridors is the lack of a solid land management plan.
“If in Costa Rica it is not possible to agree on all parties to a social agreement, a social pact that establishes the rules of the game clearly and that everyone respects, Don Carlos (Rodríguez) will not let me lie in this sense, no matter how much one invests in protected areas, parks, reserves, by more corridors that we have and by conscious producers that we have, the pressure of the rest of the territory will be increasing.
“The population is increasing, with climate change the migration of the rest of Central America in the coming years is something that we can not ignore … there will be increasing pressure and a growing demand for resources, and if we do not know how to use the resources – and not only in a park, but in general, in the territory – to ensure that the natural capacities of ecosystems are not overwhelmed and it will be difficult to be able to give sustainability, “he said.
For its part, the expert of the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GIZ), Maike Potthast, said that governance is another challenge since the parties involved in the biological corridor have to agree their interests and find those that bind them.
