Aproximación a la caracterización de la biodiversidad de las ciudades capitales como parte de la preparación para la participación de asocapitales en la cop16.

Abstract

The document presented below contains the analysis of the state of biodiversity in the municipalities that are department capitals in Colombia, which are 32 municipalities plus 2 additional municipalities, Soacha and Uribia, which are linked to Asocapitales. The data were extracted mainly from databases of the Alexander Von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute and the information provided by the Colombian Association of Capital Cities – Asocapitales. The Colombian Association of Capital Cities - Asocapitales is a non-profit entity whose mission is to represent and defend the common positions and interests of the country's capital cities through the generation of spaces for dialogue, integration, agreement and collaboration between municipal and national authorities for the design and promotion of initiatives that promote the development of capital cities and their inhabitants (Asocapitales, 2024, para. 1). From the environmental area, the function of Asocapitales is to articulate and integrate the environmental interests and concerns of the different territories, with the participation of municipal and national environmental authorities, to achieve the sustainable development of capital cities through the following lines of work: (1) Climate action and risk management, (2) Management of water, biodiversity and natural resources, (3) Urban environmental management and (4) Tools for environmental planning and financing. Within the Colombian context, as mentioned by the Alexander Von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute (2017): Colombian biodiversity has shown an average decrease of 18%. The greatest threat is the loss of natural habitats, generally related to agriculture and expansive livestock farming. Added to these factors are the risk of biological invasions, information gaps, the presence of invasive species, changes in climatic conditions and human activities of various kinds such as deforestation, illegal mining, illicit crops, overexploitation of wild species, trafficking, hunting, predation, water pollution, urban and industrial expansion, among others. (para. 3-4) On the other hand, the Chilean news media on the environment and nature, Ladera Sur, states: Colombia is the first country to publish its National Biodiversity Assessment after a process that began on a par with Cameroon, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Azeirbyán, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Grenada and Cambodia. And the result of this evaluation could not be more alarming: The loss of biodiversity threatens human life. That is the conclusion reached by a group of more than 100 thematic experts and experts on indigenous, Afro-descendant, Palenquero, Raizal, peasant and local peoples and communities from all regions of Colombia, who for nearly 4 years dedicated at least 93 thousand hours of volunteer work, in order to gather and analyze more than 1,500 sources of secondary scientific information, associated with terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, marine and islands, to prepare the National Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. In this note from our allies at the Humboldt Institute of Colombia, the results and the main findings of this great study are told (2021, para. 1). Therefore, the objective of this research is to carry out a characterization of biodiversity in capital cities, followed by an analysis of the function, powers and responsibilities of local governments and institutions in the face of biodiversity problems that will be discussed at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 16/2024. This research will be carried out through the internship modality, which will allow a deep immersion in the topic and close collaboration with various institutions and relevant actors in the environmental field of Colombia and with the organization Asocapitals.