The conservation priorities of Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador Hotspot, and the Chocó-Manabí Corridor within it, must be viewed from the perspectives of the region's biological, cultural, and social characteristics - in other words, from the region's potential to foster sustainable development. Its residents include more than 250 communities of African descendants and indigenous and mestizo groups.
The Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador Hotspot reaches from the southeastern portion of Panamá, along the western portions of Colombia and Ecuador, as far as northwestern Perú. Within it, the Chocó biogeographic region ("the Chocó") is globally recognized as one of the world's most biologically and culturally diverse. The Chocó provides habitat to an extraordinary wealth of plant and animal species.
The variety of ecosystems within the Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador Hotspot has given rise to high levels of diversity and endemism. Mountains trap humid air from the coast and contribute to the survival of tropical humid and very humid premontane forests. The Chocó supports an estimated 9,000 vascular plant species, approximately 25% (2,250) of them endemic. Some scientists believe the Colombian Chocó to be the most floristically diverse site in the Neotropics. The Ecuadorian Chocó is estimated to support 25% of the nation's flora, or approximately 6,300 species of plants, 13% to 20% of which are endemic. The region is also home to more palm species than any other part of the world.
The montane forests of western Ecuador also support large numbers of species and high levels of endemism. Many of the endemics here have small ranges, rendering them especially vulnerable to extinction. For the endemic flora, forest fragmentation might actually have stimulated speciation and diversification. Many families, genera, and species seem to be naturally constrained to elevations below 2,300-2,500 meters, and many are extremely localized. The region exhibits a large number of vegetation types, such as thorny desert scrub in the dry and very dry parts of the coastal plains, to the coastal mountain ranges in which dry thorny scrub covers the lower zones, while a premontane vegetation takes over on the foothills and slopes. Humid and very humid vegetation covers the peaks. Such humid vegetation extends along the Colombia-Ecuador border. However, it is declining at elevations between 300-900 meters close to the Perú-Ecuador frontier. The Ecuadorian coastal zone in the northwest, however, constitutes an extension of the Colombian Chocó. It contains humid rainforests and correspondingly specialized flora.
Bird species, including migrants, number approximately 830, of which 85 (10.2%) are endemic. The southern portion of the hotspot is particularly important for birds, with more than 40 bird species and 140 subspecies endemic to the dry forest biome. BirdLife International recognizes four Endemic Bird Areas within the hotspot.
Mammal diversity and endemism are also high, with 235 species, 60 (25.5%) of which are endemic. The location of the hotspot at the transition zone between Central and South America results in the occurrence of some largely Central American mammal species not found elsewhere on the South American continent. The Ecuadorian Chocó alone is home to 142 mammal species, of which 15 (10.6%) are endemic to the region.
There are approximately 350 species of amphibians, including 210 endemics (60%), and 210 species of reptiles, 63 (30%) endemic. Several reptile and amphibian species are endangered or threatened. Within the Colombian portion of the Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador Hotspot, endemic reptiles include four turtles in danger of extinction, and 11 species of amphibians are similarly threatened, nine of them vulnerable and one critically endangered.
The Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador Hotspot is home to a diverse range of distinct ethnic groups, including African descendants and indigenous and mestizo communities. Overall, the African descendant communities in Colombia and Ecuador occupy the coastal and riparian lowlands, while indigenous peoples have retreated to the lower hill slopes, leaving the higher slopes to the mestizo colonists. Even so, in Colombia, indigenous groups (Wounaan, Embera, Awa, Chachis, and Eperara-Siapidara) live in the lowland plains, and Afro-American communities live on the coast as well as in the sub-Andean hill complexes of Guarto, Santa Cecilia along the upper San Juan River.
Communities of African descendants in Colombia and Ecuador date back to the 16th century. They occupy diverse areas and ecoregions within the Chocó-Manabí Corridor, including the Pacific coast, low rainforest areas, terraces, hillsides, foothills, and sub-Andean slopes and páramos. Land use patterns of these communities include farming of crops (plantain, papaya, citrus, and sugarcane) on the banks of the rivers, and rice in the wetlands beyond. They also harvest timber, and hunt and fish in the rivers and along the coast. These practices are less ecologically invasive than the clearing of forest for pasture. Governments of both countries have adopted policies to improve the living conditions of their respective African descendant populations.
Colombia's new constitution (Law 21/91) and the new African Descendant Rights Law (Law 70/93) recognize the collective territorial land rights of Afro-Colombians to the public lands they occupy. These lands are administered through Community Councils (Consejos Comunitarios). The law provides instruments by which the Afro-Colombian communities can reclaim and control the resources and lands they have occupied for centuries. The Colombian Land Reform Institute (INCORA) began the process of titling Afro-Colombian community lands in 1996 with funding from the World Bank. Since then, 36 collective titles have been issued for approximately 1 million hectares, benefiting some 15,700 families and 14 municipalities.
In Ecuador, the Afro-Ecuadorian communities are concentrated in the Province of Esmeraldas, covering approximately 800,000 hectares, mostly along the region's rivers. Their history lies in the slave system, and often, economic and social discrimination still causes them to abandon their lands for the cities and towns, where many fall into a vicious cycle of poverty. Their poverty has been exacerbated as oil palm and forest extraction operations have resulted in their displacement. The national government is preparing legislation to recognize the collective land rights of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities, to provide them with autonomy to manage and control these territories and to determine their own development.
In Colombia, indigenous rights to land, culture and languages have long been recognized in law (Law 160 and ILO 169). In Ecuador, legislation to acknowledge communal property rights has been recently drafted. Land use patterns of indigenous populations differ from those of the Afro-American communities - indigenous systems are less diverse, less dependent on fishing and coastal resources, and more reliant on hunting and gathering and on handicrafts for sale in regional towns and cities.
In Colombia, many groups of the Embera, the largest indigenous tribe along the Pacific, live within the corridor, which holds 72 declared resguardos (reserves for indigenous groups) allocating ancestral and formal titles to 736,892 hectares. Some Paez people have recently migrated into the region from the Andean department of Cauca.
In Ecuador, the Awá occupy approximately 3,500 square kilometers and, with the Chachis, are concentrated in the north along the Pacific coast in the municipalities of Carchi, San Lorenzo and Esmeraldas. The Awá are organized into 18 groups within an Awá Federation, and exert their communal property rights on the principle of communal ownership of "Ethnic Forest Reserves." They currently occupy around 76,000 hectares in the counties of San Lorenzo, Esmeraldas and Tulcan, Carchi.
The Chachis and Cayapas live on the coast, while Afro-Ecuadorians occupy lands along the Santiago, Onzole and Canande rivers in Esmeraldas. In the 19th century, gold, rubber, and tagua and pita prospectors invaded their territories, as did banana plantations and loggers in the 20th century. Destruction of forests caused by the advancing agricultural frontier, colonists, and loggers has forced the Chachis from much of their ancestral land, which they have sold off to logging firms.
Mestizo colonization is driven by poverty and lack of access to land. The rise of the minifundio (subsistence farming), in combination with population density in the highlands of both countries, has given rise to mestizo migration into relatively uninhabited forests and indigenous lands - causing, in turn, conflict between ethnic groups and mestizos over land and resources. Mestizos bring with them highland farming and cattle raising practices, many of which depend on clearing considerable tracts of forest. Roads built by municipalities and the national government have expanded access to once-pristine areas.
Unlike Afro communities and indigenous cultures, mestizo farming practices have historically had adverse environmental impact; and, for the same reason, it is more difficult to promote conservation principles in mestizo communities than among Afro-American and indigenous groups. Mestizos are also more dispersed, often without fixed land tenure, and lack government support for their needs and claims.
Currently, mestizos are more numerous in Ecuador than in Colombia. Clearing of forests by mestizos has caused serious loss of biodiversity and degradation of habitat and soils. In Colombia, colonization of the corridor is relatively recent and concentrated in the department of Alto San Juan, municipality of San José del Palmar, and the middle and upper watersheds of the Calima, Garrapatas, Sanquini, Naya, upper Micauy, Guiza, and Mira rivers.
Based on stakeholder consultations, the CEPF selected the Chocó-Manabi Conservation Corridor, spanning the southern end of the Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador Hotspot, as the focal area for support. The Chocó region is globally recognized as one of the world's most important zones for the conservation of biological and cultural resources.
The Chocó-Manabí Corridor spans more than 60,000 square kilometres. Within Colombia, the corridor encompasses a full range of Chocó and Andean ecosystems as it stretches from peaks of Colombia's western Andean cordillera west to the Pacific Ocean. Crossing the border into Ecuador, the corridor traverses numerous life zones as it spans coastal and sierra ecosystems in the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve and Mache-Chindul Ecological Reserve. Cotacachi-Cayapas is located in the western foothills of the Ecuadorian Andes and covers about 204,000 hectares of coastal and sierra zones, ranging in elevation from 100 to 4,400 meters.
The Chocó-Manabi Conservation Corridor has an extremely high degree of endemism -- by some estimates, one of the highest in the world, possessing several important attributes from a conservation perspective:
- biogeographically important as a transitional area between two hotspots (Tropical Andes and Chocó);
- the most floristically diverse region in the Neotropics;
- habitat for 6,300 species of plants, 20%endemic;
- located in the Choco Endemic Bird Area designated by BirdLife International, with highest number of restricted-range species (62) in South America; and
- important to the survival of tropical humid forest and very humid premontane forest, as mountains trap humid air from the coast.
Based on a preliminary analysis of opportunities in the hotspot and threats to its ecoregions, the Chocó-Manabí Conservation Corridor was designed to address areas of priority for conservation. It includes areas that are severely degraded, and emphasizes improved management of these areas and closer cooperation among its local Colombian and Ecuadorian partners. With these considerations in mind, the corridor incorporates Katios National Park, Utría and Tatamá National Parks, and Ecuador's Machalilla National Park. The July 2001 workshop in Cali identified the following priority areas for conservation action:
- Ancón de Mataje (Dept. Nariño), an area of mangroves and adjacent coastal forests of northern Ancón de Mataje or southern Sardinas, at the mouth of the Mataje River and the Ecuador-Colombia border. This is the site of the least damaged mangrove forests on the Pacific coast, with trees reaching heights of 40 meters. The area is biologically significant as a large and representative sample of the mangrove associations with the world's most humid tropical forest. The area borders on the Cayapas-Mataje Ecological Reserve in Ecuador.
- Southern expansion zone of the Sanquianga National Park, including the buffer zone (Dept. Nariño). This area is of great interest for its swamp forests, which differ from mangroves, as well as for its transitional zones between hillside forests and terraces.
- Munchique National Park, Páramos of Tambito and Argelia, Serranía de Pinche, Napi and Guapi Mountains, and upper valleys of the Micay and Guapi Rivers (Cauca and Nariño).
- A pilot study area under the jurisdiction of the national Integrated Coastal Zone Management Policy, including the Gorgona Island National Park, its surrounding marine park zone, and the estuaries of the Guapi and Iscuande Rivers (Dept. Nariño).
- The Farallones de Cali National Park complex, Munchique, and Cuchilla Naya (Valle and Cauca), representing Pacific watershed western Andean cordillera forests.
- Serranía de los Paraguas, Cerro Torrá, and the connection with Tatamá National Park (Valle and Chocó).
- Utría Bay and Gulf of Tribuga complex and the mangroves between Bajo Baudó and Cuevita Bay (Chocó).
Within the Corridor, Esmeraldas Province contains some of the oldest and yet most highly threatened humid forests and mangroves; only 18% of the lowland evergreen forests along the coast still intact. The Muisne River estuary has lost approximately 75% of its mangrove forests. Habitat in the Sanquianga, Cayapas, and Mataje River estuaries, currently sheltering around 15% of the country's remaining mangroves, is also heavily degraded. These areas remain under heavy pressure from shrimp farmers, and has led the Government of Ecuador to declare the Province of Esmeraldas as a "special attention region," as defined in the National Sustainable Development Strategy. In order to extend and maintain the ecoregional unit encompassing the higher regions of the Cotacahi Cayapas and El Angel Ecological Reserves, the Provinces of Esmeraldas, Manabi, Carchi, and Imbabura have been identified as priority areas. Within these provinces, the following six areas are especially important for corridor conservation:
- Consolidation of three reserves (Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve in the Manabi-Esmeraldas region; Awa Indigenous Reserve in the Carchi-Imbabura-Esmeraldas region; and El Angel Ecological Reserve in Carchi Province) and extension of the Cotacachi-Cayapas and Cayapas-Mataje Ecological Reserves.
- The Mira River watershed and Golondrinas Protected Forest, with adjacent areas of paramo and montane forests of the western Andes slope. This region connects El Angel Reserve with Awa Reserve.
- Zones covering tropical and subtropical humid forest within the communities of Ventanas, Alto Tambo, Dureno, San Francisco, and el Dorado. This zone covers the Conservation Corridor of Awacachi, which connects Cotacachi-Cayapas and Awa Indigenous Reserves.
- Watersheds covering the Santiago, Cayapas, and Mataje rivers with wetlands and protected forests located within the basin. This tropical forest zone is located within an area of significant logging pressure, and connects the Cotacachi-Cayapas Reserve with the Mataje Mangrove Reserve.
- The coastal mountain range of Mache (which contains an important assemblage of subtropical and montane costal forest) is under pressure from aggressive logging and colonization. These forces combine to make this area one of the most critical and vulnerable priorities in the entire corridor. The Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve, which lacks a management plan to confront these threats, is located in this area.
- The watersheds of the Chone and Portoviejo rivers form part of the transition zone between tropical humid forest of the Choco to the north, with tropical dry forest to the south that crosses into Machalilla National Park and extends to Peru. This region lacks national reserves and has few protected forests.
Overall, the present levels of protection in the Chocó-Manabí Corridor are poor, particularly in coastal Ecuador. Here, the ecosystem is under the gravest threat, with only approximately 2% of the original forest cover remaining. In other regions, such as the northern Chocó, the ecosystem is still largely intact. Nevertheless, biodiversity in the Colombian side of the corridor requires significant protection. Much of the current protection is in the form of national parks, private protected areas and forests, and communally managed conservation areas. Approximately 24% of the corridor's original habitat is intact, much of it in the Colombian Chocó and parts of the Darién.
The Colombian section of the corridor contains six national parks administered by the special administrative unit of the National Parks System (UAESPNN), covering 429,400 hectares; three protected national reserves covering 11,267 hectares; and 11 Natural Private Reserves covering 4,724 hectares (see Table 1). Furthermore, four areas are currently under analysis as potential Ramsar sites: umarado-Perancho, El Trueno, Delta de San Juan River and the Delta of Baudó river.
Table 1: Selected Protected Areas in the Colombian Portion of the Chocó-Manabí Conservation Corridor
| PROTECTED AREA |
HECTARES |
| National Parks |
| Parque Nacional Utría |
43,440 |
| Parque Nacional Tatamáz |
25,950 |
| Parque Nacional Gorgona |
61,600 |
| Parque Nacional Sanquianga |
64,000 |
| Parque Nacional Munchique |
22,000 |
| Parque Nacional Farallones de Cali |
75,000 |
| Parque Nacional Galeras |
3,800 |
| Protective Forest Reserves |
| Area de Reserva Forestal Protectora La Planada |
1,667 |
| Area de Reserva Forestal Protectora Río Nembí |
5,800 |
| Area de Reserva Forestal Protectora Río Escalarete y San Cipriano |
3,800 |
| Natural Private Reserves |
| Reserva Natural de la Sociedad Civil Río Nambí |
1,000 |
| Reserva N.S.C. Civil la Planada |
3,200 |
| Reserva N.S.C. El Canto del Viento |
2 |
| Reserva N.S.C. Casa de la Vida |
9 |
| Reserva N.S.C. El Refugio Torremolinos |
18 |
| Reserva N.S.C. El Ciprés |
12 |
| Reserva N.S.C. Himalaya |
208 |
| Reserva N.S.C. El Pilar de Ana María |
257 |
| Reserva N.S.C. Estación Septiembre |
2 |
| Reserva N.S.C. Kakirí |
6 |
| Reserva N.S.C. Juná |
10 |
The Ecuadorian portion of the Chocó region is the most endangered. The humid tropical forests are the least protected life zones in the existing reserves, and they are the most fragmented and deforested areas in the region. The reserves in the province of Esmeraldas, for example, do not include the humid and very humid tropical forests below 300 meters. These forests are nevertheless noteworthy, harboring biodiversity and concentrations of threatened endemic species.
The last well-preserved fragments of coastal forests are in the northwestern buffer zone of the Awá Ethnic Reserve and in the upper watershed of the Onzole and Cayapas Rivers. Like the forests in northern Esmeraldas, those of the
cordillera around Mache Chindul are the last reasonably extensive fragments of tropical humid pre-montane forests in western Ecuador. Collectively, these primary forests occupy no more than 189,000 hectares. The reserve itself has no management plan or corresponding conservation program.
The Ministry of Environment (MAE) of Ecuador has directed conservation activities to focus on this region. However, even current efforts fall well short of the resources required to effectively protect the coastal moist forests. Overall, the government manages pproximately 1.7 million hectares of the Chocó region. Of this area, approximately 46% lies in protected forests, 28% in ecological reserves, and 22% in national forests. The rest is classified as national parks and as urban greenbelts around cities and other smaller communities (see Table 2). In addition, a number private and public protected forests exist.
Table 2: Selected Protected Areas in the Ecuadorian Portion of the Chocó-Manabí Conservation Corridor
| PROTECTED AREA |
HECTARES |
| National Parks |
| Parque Nacional Machalilla |
70,164 |
| Ethnic and Forest Reserves |
| Reserva Étnica y Forestal Awá |
101,000 |
| Ecological Reserves |
| Reserva Ecológica Cotacachi-Cayapas |
204,420 |
| Reserva Ecológica Cayapas-Mataje |
51,300 |
| Reserva Ecológica Mache-Chindul |
119,172 |
| Reserva Ecológica El Angel |
15,715 |
| Protected Forests |
Not Available |
| Wetlands |
| La Tembladera |
Not Available |
| El Relicario |
Not Available |
| La Segua |
Not Available |
| La Laguna |
Not Available |
| Laguna de Cube |
Not Available |
| Calguna de la Cuidad |
Not Available |
| Yalaré |
Not Available |
| Ciénaga de Same |
Not Available |
| Laguna del Mono |
Not Available |
Vision 2010 for the Chocó-Manabí Corridor, adopted at the Cali workshop, declares: "In ten years, the Choco ecoregion is managed as a biodiversity conservation corridor that functionally reconnects natural habitat, consolidates areas under protection, and maintains cultural integrity from Choco to Manabi by fostering and establishing sustainable development practices among stakeholders." This goal will be achieved through a variety of projects that target the following objectives over the next 10 years:
- improve decision-making processes and coordination of stakeholders within the region to maximize on-the-ground conservation;
- improve local and regional sustainable management;
- develop effective zoning and land tenure frameworks within the region;
- ensure that agricultural production systems are compatible with biodiversity conservation;
- launch an effective communication campaign;
- establish a regional scientific assessment and monitoring system;
- consolidate cultural and territorial elements of the region; and
- ensure long-term financial stability for conservation in the corridor.
Over a five-year period, the CEPF investment strategy will facilitate the initial implementation of Vision 2010 by mobilizing the NGO community around the three strategic directions: (1) establish and strengthen local and regional mechanisms to foster corridor-level conservation; (2) bring selected protected areas and species under improved management; and (3) identify and promote sustainable development practices in communities near protected areas. These strategic directions will be pursued to achieve the longer-term purpose of attaining greater harmony between development and conservation through decentralized management of the hotspot's biological resources.
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