Análisis de vacíos de conservación de la provincia de Chimborazo.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the conservation carelessness in the province of Chimborazo. The research aimed to identify and prioritize geographic areas of special relevance for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as social and environmental factors which had an impact on the territory. The study was divided into three stages: a) The current situation of biodiversity and ecosystem services was characterized through the collection of information associated with secondary sources and 16 social actors who were responsible for that information, the results demonstrated that there are 522 species registered in the territory, according to the ranges of distribution and points of occurrence; 10 fundamental ecosystem services for the human well-being of the inhabitants of the province were also identified from 39 supply units; finally, 5 natural threats were established with high and very high degrees of susceptibility in the province and anthropic threats caused mainly by the practice of unsustainable agricultural activities, deforestation, and mining. b) The omission and conservation priorities were determined based on available and updated information through spatial analysis with the help of the ArcGIS geographic information system. The focus was on future territorial management actions at the province level, using distribution ranges and points of occurrence of the species under study and ecosystem services with cartographic features. c) Guidelines for conservation and sustainable use of the identified priorities were formulated by executing the planning manual for the conservation of areas. It is recommended to generate predictive models of threatened species, which will later be analyzed with other geoprocessing in ArcGIs to determine more specific conservation areas.