Contribution at the Colombia 2020: International Conference on Marine Science: Tropical Oceans for the future 28Sep – 03Oct 2020
Abstract
The Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta Ecoregion (CGSM) is the largest coastal wetland in Colombia. Since the 1960s, its water balance had been so disturbed that the original 512 km2 of mangrove-covered area decreased to only 226 km2 in 1995, having serious consequences for the artisanal fishery and the socio-economic situation of the local population. The Colombian-German project Pro-Ciénaga (1992-2001) largely restored the water balance of the CGSM. Moreover, CGSM was declared the first Ramsar area in Colombia in 1998, a biosphere reserve in 2000, and an important bird and biodiversity area in 2001. Today, however, no management plan for the ecoregion is being implemented, and the experience of the former Pro-Ciénaga project and other ventures cannot be used because the once established documentation center with hundreds of documents was not maintained.
Since 2015, more than 1000 references of edited and unedited scientific work about the CGSM ecoregion have been collected and classified in a Zotero database. These will be used to build up an information system for the CGSM, which will provide policymakers with sound and up-to-date information, e.g., for adequate management plans. The available information is presented to the interested scientific society on the Sí-CGSM platform sicgsm.co [now: https://cgsm.cemarin.org/], which can be used not only for the social acquisition of knowledge but also to promote community participation in resource management.
The present document is a call for cooperation.
