Montreal, 30 May 2014 – To
avoid landscape fragmentation and loss of species and habitats for biodiversity,
participants to a three-day workshop in Kurupukari, Guyana, have agreed on a
Regional Action Plan related to biological corridors, connectivity conservation
and trans-boundary conservation within the Guiana Shield Ecoregion.
The agreed Regional Action Plan is especially important
in light of the fact that wildlife and habitats know no boundaries, that issues
in one country can impact another and that connectivity of habitats becomes ever
more important the more we learn about the effects of climate change.
“Corridors and connectivity are key to maintaining
biodiversity and promoting ecosystem resilience. I congratulate the Guiana
Shield countries and partner organizations who are advancing a challenging agenda
to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets through the further development of
corridors and transboundary conservation.” said Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias,
Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Guiana Shield, one of the most intact ecosystems in
the world, is increasingly under pressure from development and extractive
industries.
The twenty-six protected areas management professionals
and international biodiversity experts that participated in the ‘Workshop on
Biodiversity Corridors in the Guiana Shield to Streamline Support for the
Achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets’, held at the Iwokrama
International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development in Kurupukari,
Guyana, from 21 to 23 May 2014, shared their experience and best practice on
biodiversity corridors and developed a Regional Action Plan to facilitate biodiversity
corridors and achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
The Regional Action Plan calls on governments and partner
organisations to:
· Support national efforts to better manage and monitor
small and medium-scale gold mining,
including promoting best practices for biodiversity
conservation and water resources management.
· Encourage the further development of transboundary
marine protected areas in the Guiana Shield
through ongoing initiatives such as Marine Mammals
Conservation network (MAMACOCOSEA)
· Create synergies with existing global and regional
platforms in order to take advantage of efficiencies of scales efforts and
momentum
· Develop and strengthen linkages with collaborative
connectivity projects
· Organize a technical database that allows identifying
and prioritizing transboundary corridors
· Strengthen and facilitate academic research (university
research cooperation and other research institutions) into connectivity
science.
Participants pledged their support to work together to
fulfil the actions outlined as initial steps towards developing trans-boundary
cooperation and achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in the Guiana Shield.
Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources and the
Environment, Robert Persaud, reiterated that the approach taken in Guyana
towards conservation is to collaborate with stakeholders and relevant organizations
such as the United Nations Development Programme and WWF.
The Minister emphasized that Guyana is making headway
towards achieving Aichi Biodiversity Targets 11 and 16. He noted that, “Our
economic well-being and prosperity and our peoples livelihood depend on a
functioning, sustainable and viable extractive sector.”
He also expressed the view that an integrated approach of
working with all sectors towards conservation is the best option in order to
have them mainstream to contribute to biodiversity conservation.
The workshop benefitted from presentations made by the
Coordinator of the CBD’s LifeWeb initiative, the Executive Director of Tropical
Science Centre, Costa Rica and International Union for Conservation of Nature
representative, who highlighted examples of global transboundary conservation
efforts and outlined the support systems offered by their respective
institutions.
The Guiana Shield includes: Brazil, Colombia, French
Guiana, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela.
