'Biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and food scarcity, key issues to be discussed at COP16': Gonzalo Andrade, Director of ICN

If you have ever heard that Colombia is the third most biodiverse country in the world, first in the diversity of orchids, birds and butterflies, and second in plants, amphibians, freshwater fish, reptiles, palm trees and bats, behind these titles and numbers are numerous field and laboratory studies conducted by biologists to identify the species of flora and fauna that inhabit the country.

Many of them have been described from some of the 3.5 million specimens that today rest in the 13 collections of the Institute of Natural Sciences (ICN), located on the campus of the National University of Colombia in Bogota. This institution houses the largest and most complete collection of our country's biodiversity, according to its director, Professor Gonzalo Andrade.

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Its important scientific value was highlighted in the run-up to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16), which will be held in Cali from October 21 to November 1 of this year, an event that allowed the ICN to finally receive the funds (57,000 million pesos provided by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development) to allow the construction of a new building to safeguard the collections of the National Herbarium.

EL TIEMPO spoke with Professor Andrade about the expectations of the scientific community for COP16 and the contributions that the ICN experts are preparing for this international discussion scenario, where they hope that important decisions will be taken to face the crisis of biodiversity loss that the planet is facing.

The Institute is linked to the event as the National University of Colombia. The institution is processing an agreement with the Ministry of Environment from the Vice Rector's Office for Research, because what is intended is that the University as a whole acts in the interaction between what will be the COP16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Cali and that there participate all the people who have research topics in biodiversity. Within this great space that the University will have, there will be several things from the Institute of Natural Sciences, for example, since we have the largest and most complete collection of biodiversity in Colombia -with 35 million specimens-, undoubtedly one of the events proposed to be held at the COP is to highlight the issue of biological collections, How to use all the information of the 270 collections of Colombia for the problems that will be analyzed during the event and for the fulfillment of the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Framework for Biological Diversity, the result of the COP of 2022. There are 23 goals and specific activities within each of them.

For example, target two states that by 2030 at least 30 percent of degraded ecosystems must be effectively restored. The information stored in biological collections must contribute to knowing what we had in of biodiversity at a given point in time and how to restore it. In the third goal, which speaks of conserving 30 percent of land, inland and marine waters, the information in the collections also allows the process of declaring or expanding new protected areas in Colombian territory. Colombia has already achieved this goal, and today 36 percent of the marine territory and 31 percent of the continental territory have been declared protected areas.

Goal six talks about minimizing invasive alien species and mitigating impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This goal is in line with the information gathered in an agreement with the Ministry of the Environment, the Humboldt Institute and the Institute of Natural Sciences, which allowed us to study the status of the hippopotamus population in Colombia and to present the Ministry with five strategies for managing these populations, which undoubtedly included the issue of euthanasia. If we do nothing now, according to the analysis of our experts, by 2030 we will have a population of more than 600 hippos in the country, and we started with three females and one male that Pablo Escobar brought to the Nápoles ranch. Today we have 184 in the wild and they are already coming to the great marsh of Santa Marta.

There are some very complex points, but it does not depend only on Colombia, we are only one of 196 countries that will meet. Issues such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution and degradation of ecosystems, food shortages seem to me to be very strategic, along with peace with nature, the slogan that Colombia is putting forward. The advantage we have is that we are the host country, and Minister Susana Muhamad will preside over everything that will be discussed at COP16, which is a very important role. If we can get some clear and definitive points approved in the plenary, I think the effort and investment that the country has made will have been worthwhile. What we are negotiating here is the text of each of these issues, which are very complex, and the implications of what a word means and the binding nature of the Kunming Montreal Goals. There are countries that have not even made 1 percent progress, and that is where we are going to start measuring each and every one of them.

The Office of the Vice Rector for Research requested a space in the blue zone to have a space there as a university, and ICN will undoubtedly be there. We also requested a space in the green area to have a stand, where the idea is that all the researchers of the National University who want to show things that we are doing, can do it there. The ICN will present the research projects and everything that the 35 professors who are part of the Institute are doing; we plan to show results, progress and, without a doubt, our publications.

ALEJANDRA LÓPEZ PLAZAS

SCIENCE JOURNALIST

@TiempodeCiencia