2024-04-16 10:06:44
The incursion of livestock, forest fires and pollution are some of the causes that generate this problem.
According to experts in Tungurahua they get lost around thousand hectares of wastelands annually, which generates concern among authorities and environmental activists.
Crossing the agricultural frontier for the cattle raisinglos forest fires and pollution generated by people are part of the problems that cause these natural reserves non-renewable are lost in the province.
He environmental engineer Daniel Cepeda mentions that people must understand and raise awareness that the moors are essential strategic ecosystems, because fresh water that is used for human consumption is born in them.
Its conservation helps to cope with the global warming, since it supports the control of carbon dioxide since it retains it in its subsoil.
“These are some of the reasons why so many public institutions how private companies must allocate resources for their conservation“Cepeda added.
The environmentalist recalled that in article 50 of the Organic Law of Rural Lands and Ancestral Territories The change of use of rural lands destined for conservation is prohibited, as well as the advance of the agricultural frontier in the unintervened moors located on the 3,300 meters above sea level.
With this, he emphasized that it is established that agricultural activities that are within the National System of Protected Areas will comply with the regulations established by the Ministry of Environment.
“We cannot deny that the moorland areas have been intervened, not only among Tungurahua but in all Andesso controls must be reinforced because we understand that the extension is very large, so the plans for social investment They must be well focused on the high areas so that the community members do not see the exploitation of the moors as a way to survive,” Cepeda mentioned.
TOME NOTE The demand for drinking water in Tungurahua is about 1,930 million cubic meters per year, while the provincial sources only have the capacity of 1,156 million cubic meters per year during dry season.
Local reality
Gerardo Nicola Garcés, president of the Inkana Natural Foundation and former technical secretary of the Páramos Fund, pointed out that they carried out a study that showed that between 2012 and 2023 the moor patch in Tungurahua would have decreased by around 15 thousand hectares.
The same study explains that the road improvements generated in the high areas of the province were not only seen as an opportunity for move more easily by the community members, but with this it was also further easy to introduce livestock into areas increasingly closer to or crossing the border of protected areas.
Nicola commented that although the vision of paramo ecosystems has changed in the last 50 years, it is necessary to promote real conservation plans to avoid the loss of these ecosystems.
“This is a everyone’s workthose of us who live in the low areas must understand that if we do not help to care for the moors in one or two decades we are going to suffer from water deficit at chilling levels, as long as we do not understand that without moors there is no water, the situation will not change,” Nicola added.
Both the President of the Inkana Natural Foundation and the environmentalist Cepeda see in the afforestation a fundamental weapon for the recovery of these natural areas.
But they assure that it is not about sowing for the sake of sowing, but rather about populating endemic species each climatic floorthat is, for the Andean moors of Ecuador there are the frailejón, the chuquiragua, the pumamaqui, the paper trees, among other species.
THE DATA The Andes mountain range has more than 80% of the world’s paramos.
Protective actions
Carlos Tabares, director of Water Resources and Environmental Conservation of the Provincial Government, specified that this unit has a budget of around 2 million 300 thousand dollars for the 40 management projects that we stopped that they currently promote.
These involve more than 70 communities of the high areas of Tungurahua, of which only a 10% would default with respect for the agricultural strip.
Tabares added that the Provincial Government is also analyzing the project acquire wastelands from communities so that the same population is responsible for taking care of them.
“We keep active all our conservation plans , but people also have to understand that the strip of Tungurahua moors is very extensive and that is why we must all put in our efforts to take care of these Tungurahua ecosystems,” the official concluded. (NVP)
From the legal
The Organic Law of the Environment (LOA) of Ecuador contains several articles that protect the paramos and other fragile ecosystems.
Thus, article 68 establishes the protection of ecosystems fragile and vulnerableas well as their conservation and sustainable management.
In the same LOA and the Comprehensive Criminal Organic Code (COIP) sanctions are established according to the severity of the damage to the environment. The offenders They may face prison sentences.
Furthermore, the state is under the obligation to impose financial fines as part of the penalty for those who cause damage to the moors.
Those who generate these damages may be forced to financial and participate in restoration programs to rehabilitate damaged paramo areas.
While in serious cases, offenders may be disqualified from exercising certain activities related to the environment or natural resource management and as an additional measure, assets used to commit the crime may be confiscated.