Determinación del estado de conservación de los bofedales de la Reserva de Producción de Fauna Chimborazo

Abstract

The current research aims to determine the state of conservation of the wetlands (high Andean wetlands) of Chimborazo Reserve for the wildlife reserve; through the evaluation of 5 criteria proposed by the International Union for the Conservation of nature (IUCN) to form the Red List of Ecosystems. The importance of the wetlands lies in the fact that they are constituted as unique ecosystems and they have great ecological importance due to the contribution for the water regulation and carbon storage. To achieve the goal the research started with the charactezation of the biotic and abiotic features of this ecosystem, determining the levels of biodiversity of birds, mammals and the dominance of plants in the vegetative cover, it was also possible to make a description of key and threatening processes that allowed us to identify the main pressures that are deteriorating to this ecosystem product of human activities. An multitemporal analisis of the extension and total distribution of the ecosystem was performed, on which is projected the rate of absolute reduction that the wetlands ecosystems will have in 100 years, so that with baseline it was possible to evaluate the criteria or sub-criteria. Therefore the risk category assigned to the wetland ecosystem is: CRITICAL DANGER, in the context it is necessary to plan actions of management and sustainable usage of wetlands to advoid their collapse, that keeping the current conditios it would happen in approximately 95 years.

Keywords: conservation of the wetlands, water regulation, high Andean wetlands, biodiversity rates, environmental collapse.