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Resolution 1: Support for the Consolidation of the MesoAmerican Biological Corridor / Apoyo a la consolidación del Corredor Biológico Mesoamericano

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WHEREAS

After two decades of initiatives promoting the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (CBM as per the Spanish acronym) and the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in related projects, the negative trends of deforestation, loss of wetlands, deterioration of marine-coastal resources and the fragmentation of habitat still persist in the Mesoamerican region.

THEREFORE

We recognize the global importance of the CBM as a pioneering multinational regional initiative in promoting ecosystem conservation and connectivity and the protection of wilderness in one of the regions with the greatest biodiversity in the world.

We recognize and applaud the support of the governments of Central America, Mexico and the international community in making the CBM the fundamental core of Mesoamerican environmental policy.

We recognize that cumulative experience in the region shows the most successful CBM-related investments and projects prioritize the active participation of local players and land use planning, using decentralized administration through effective and participatory governance and management alternatives as basic elements for maintaining biodiversity and restoring ecological connectivity.

RESOLVED

• To call upon the governments of the countries in the region and of the community of donors to continue supporting the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor through investments that will transform the great vision of the corridor into specific actions land use planning and management with the active participation of civil society.

• Call on the governments of the region and support institutions to redouble their efforts to conserve the strict protection of wilderness (IUCN categories I-IV) and distribute the investments between the core areas and the buffer and connectivity areas.

• Encourage the creation of new conservation models, particularly as regards strictly protected areas (IUCN Category I), pristine areas within other international categories, as well as the designation of national scenic and wild rivers and national trail systems as new conservation tools.

• Ensure that this new phase incorporates mechanisms to mitigate and adapt to climate change and that it be considered the fundamental core of such new approaches and programs to reduce deforestation and degradation (REDD) as may emerge from the Copenhagen agreements as well as other initiatives for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

• Ensure that investments in the consolidation of the corridor support the fulfilling of the Millennium Goals and national and global strategies to combat poverty and desertification, deforestation, the degradation of forests and marine-coastal ecosystems.

• Incorporate climate change as the principal parameter in “conservation gap analyses” for designing local corridors that favor long-term environmental resilience and fauna and flora dispersion.

• Not omit the strategic importance of small Central American countries within the context of regional connectivity.

• Call on the Mexican government, as part of hemisphere-wide initiatives like the Pan-American corridor, to increase its participation in managing the CBM and also in designing and instituting a national connectivity strategy that will extend the CBM initiative throughout Mexico.

• Find issues of agreement between Mesoamerica and Caribbean nations in order to link connectivity initiatives within a broader geographic context.

• Ensure that regional financial development initiatives such as the Mesoamerica Project and free trade agreements take into account and adequately compensate for the potential impact of infrastructure development and development projects on ecological conservation and connectivity.

PROPOSER

Olivier Chassot
Escuela Latinoamericana para Áreas Protegidas, Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional,Costa Rica

SECONDERS

Liza González
Paso Pacífico

Jim Barborak
Colorado State University

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