From dsbaker@erols.com Thu May 7 09:32:15 1998 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id JAA25504 for ; Thu, 7 May 1998 09:32:14 -0700 Received: from smtp2.erols.com (smtp2.erols.com [207.172.3.235]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with ESMTP id JAA00441 for ; Thu, 7 May 1998 09:32:13 -0700 Received: from erols.com (207-172-37-65.s65.tnt7.ann.erols.com [207.172.37.65]) by smtp2.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA29730 for ; Thu, 7 May 1998 12:32:11 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3551E31B.12646197@erols.com> Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 12:36:43 -0400 From: Doug Baker X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Conservation Biology List Subject: Biodiversity Monitoring System for Brazilian PAs Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit (My apologies for any cross-postings) SIMBIO Sistema de Monitoramento da Biodiversidade em Unidades de Conservação Federais Brasileiras Biodiversity Monitoring System for Brazilian Federal Conservation Units Douglas S. Baker, Washington Consultant to SIMBIO April, 1998 Dear Colleagues, I am writing to you because I wanted to make sure that you knew of the initiative we are pursuing in Brazil which is testing aspects of developing a system for the monitoring of biodiversity and related conditions in the Brazilian federal protected areas. I am a consultant working here in Washington for IBAMA, the Brazilian agency responsible for the federal protected areas system, and for the GTZ, the German technical assistance agency which is supporting this effort with IBAMA. I will attach some more material to this and will tell you how to find more information on the Internet later, but I would like to tell you here, briefly, what we are trying to do and where we are in it. Together we are undertaking a project to eventually construct a system which will be able to rapidly tell IBAMA what is happening to the biodiversity in these protected areas and to be able to relate it to the socio-economic activities and conditions outside them as well as to the management actions undertaken in the system and in the specific parks. We recognize that this is quite an ambitious undertaking and we understand that there are unresolved philosophical and scientific questions regarding the real ability of anyone to directly relate socio-economic factors to biodiversity conditions, for instance, and that these uncertainties or limitations would prevail even in a situation where there was excellent information and unlimited technical ability to analyze it. Not even the more advanced countries of Canada, Australia, Europe or the US have yet been able to fully implement such a system although there are some very promising efforts underway. Testing a System Which Includes Indicators In this project we are testing the developing-country feasibility of creating workable partnerships with other governmental and non-governmental institutions, and from these the ability to produce timely, useful information which can be analyzed and used for management decisions. To accomplish this, we plan to utilize a limited number of indicators of biodiversity conditions, of socio-economic conditions, and of institutional performance and to test their usefulness in this setting. But in this test phase with limited time and resources we are testing a system and will not be conducting a complete, rigorous and wide-ranging test of the scientific validity of the specific indicators per se. For testing such a system in a developing country Brazil offers extraordinary potential for success, and not just because of its biodiversity. Brazil's protected areas system is large and covers a number of very different biomes. Other governmental agencies such as the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics, IBGE, collect reliable data and there is a very well developed community of NGOs, universities and individual scientists of the highest abilities to participate in this. We are confident that over the next few years we can accomplish something of great benefit to Brazil's biodiversity and which will also provide useful lessons for many other developing countries. The Information System Problem Here is the information system problem. We want to collect this (biological/ ecological/ biodiversity) data, some of which refers to water quality, some of which refers to species counts in ecosystems (presumably several systems in each protected area and its buffer zone), and some is habitat classification and change (fragmentation). We also want to collect socio-economic data on the buffer zone, some of which will be points, some polygons and some not geo-specific. We will also be using institutional performance data but this will pretty much only be at the protected area level (demarcation, guards, fines,...). What we ultimately want to do, of course, is to be able to put together the different types of data and info and ask questions about the relationships between actions and conditions. So, how do we fit this all together? I guess that's everybody's problem everywhere, eh? Now, IBAMA has some pretty sophisticated resources. Their Remote Sensing Center has been digitizing the protected areas and is capable of doing most anything that anyone else in the world can do in the RS/GIS area (given the money, of course). They also have a rapidly-improving protected-area management information system. And there is much "vontade" to work together on this. I am, of course, familiar with The Nature Conservancy's BCD (Biological and Conservation Data System) as I worked from them in Latin America for five years. And I helped the GEF/World Bank/Australia in the earlier stages of the design of Australia's Biorap which is being tested now in PNG. Biorap is a set of discrete tools in a toolbox. And I'm familiar with other efforts at data mgmt in other countries (Intergraph's BIMS at Inbio in Costa Rica, for example). But I would really like to get a discussion about what is happening out there and where we are going. This project in Brazil could really be at the forefront of the work and everyone could benefit from it. Project Timing The test phase of the project is planned to start this June and to last approximately one year. At the end of that period we hope to have sufficient information and experience that we can begin to implement a system to progressively cover more protected areas and include ever more indicators. Accomplishments to Date We have already accomplished much with: the holding of an international workshop, from which the book of contributed Papers and Proceedings is available; the consolidation of the Monitoring Office (Núcleo) within IBAMA, symbolizing their commitment; the development of criteria for selection of test protected areas, which are being applied now; the development of proposals for indicators for testing in the next phase; and various other products including case studies, information searches, partnership explorations, etc. Your Part In This All of this has been information which we think might interest you. What we would like to know is: first, if you want more information or if you want to be kept apprised of the project's progress; second, if you would be interested in reviewing our plans or the proposed test indicators in more detail before we begin the test phase third, if you are familiar with others carrying out work in this area which we should know about and which we might not have uncovered in our research, and fourth, your thoughts on funding support for the project as we move along in its phases. At present, we are not completely funded for the test phase and are looking for additional resources for this as well as funding for the actual implementation following this. Contacting me or IBAMA/GTZ I would very much like to talk with you folks more about all of this project here or in another forum. As I mentioned at the start, I do have more material which summarizes the project and its organization, some of which may can be viewed on the Internet at: www.erols.com/dsbaker/ This is not yet "official" and that's why it is there instead of on IBAMA's site. As we "officialize" it it will move there. Thanks you for you interest and attention. If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact me or Aline Tristão Bernardes at the address below. Doug Baker For further information, please contact me at: Doug Baker Environmental and Natural Resources Information Development Economics Project Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation tel: 301.856.8259 fax: 301.877.9292 e-mail: dsbaker@erols.com home page: www.erols.com/dsbaker ========================================================== or contact Aline Tristão Bernardes, the Coordinator in Brasília, at: Monitoring Nucleus Directorate of Ecosystems, DIREC Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, IBAMA SAIN L4 Norte - Edifício Sede do IBAMA. Cep. 70800-200 Brasilia - DF. Tel: (061) 316-1068 Fax: (061) 316-1281 E-mail: taline@sede.ibama.gov.br ========================================================== .