Páramos, water towers of peat: The need for a tool for decision makers

Grant Agreement nr. WGP1 02 GPI 20

Agreement holder: IUCN-Netherlands Committee

Country/region: Andes, South America

Activity period: 01/07/2001 – 30/06/2002

Objectives and results:

Inventory of Páramos, to provide local, national and international decision-makers with state-of-the-art information on the importance, diversity and conservation of humid tropical high mountain grasslands or páramos (Spanish for wastelands) focussed on the Latin American context. to produce current state-of-the-art information that will include:

• services to the GPI from NC-IUCN and partners;
• maps of all tropical high mountain grasslands of the world, but focussed on the páramos of Latin America;
• suggestions for the status of páramos in relation to international conventions (such as Ramsar, CBD and Kyoto);
• comprehensive data on their biological and cultural diversity and their importance on local, regional and continental scales, and
• a description of the threats affecting them, their conservation status and the development and conservation options.

Achieved:

A comprehensive inventory has been produced, which has become an international database which can be internationally accessed by decisionmakers, organisations and interested individuals/civil society. The establishment of the Grupo Páramos, facilitated by the GPI project, ensures the continuity of work concerning páramos.

• IUCN-NC has made significant contributions to the development and running of the GPI.
• Maps have been included in the inventory report
• Resolution on high-Andean wetlands, drafted and adopted regionally and by the Ramsar CoP8
• Comprehensive information provided in the inventory/data base
• Comprehensive data and preliminary analysis provided in the inventory report

In this project, particular attention was given to the páramo as a landscape of peatlands, with a special biodiversity and a high value as regulator of water systems. In practice, the project was presented as "the páramo atlas". The project was excellently received in the relevant countries of Latin America, and contributed to the establishment of the International Páramo Group (Grupo Páramo). It was the key towards integrating and exchanging information on Andean peatlands, with as goal to establish a plan of international action. The project was a major success, and contributed significantly to enhanced awareness of the importance of páramos for the local communities in the Andean mountain range, as well as to some of the mega cities in the region (as water providers). It has helped to identify priorities for follow-up, that have a strong backing by local stakeholders, including government. It resulted in the adoption regionally of a resolution on high-Andean wetlands, which has subsequently been adopted by the recent Ramsar CoP8.