Alejandra Betancourt Rial, Venezuela
Alejandra Betancourt Rial, 
Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences (ICAE)
2014 Conference Paper: ECOLOGICAL CORRIDORS AS STRATEGY FOR FOREST ECOSYSTEMS CONSERVATION OF THE CAPARO FOREST RESERVE, BARINAS STATE, VENEZUELA.
Alejandra Betancourt Rial y Eulogio Chacón-Moreno
ABSTRACT: "Deforestation is causing a transformation of the landscape leading an ecosystem degradation and fragmentation, with the consequent loss of biodiversity. The semi-deciduous forests in the country are critically endangered and threat due to its intervention, including plant and animal species that inhabit these forests. A conservation proposal for forest ecosystems is presented in this paper, mainly focused on the semi-deciduous forests of the Caparo Forest Reserve, establishing preliminary ecological corridors to rescue biodiversity flows, assuming that the negative consequences that may have improved connectivity in patches, are despicable for being a forest that was connected 60 years ago. For the development of these corridors, was used as spatial basis, the distribution of all natural ecosystems and human intervention systems (Ecosystems Map). By satellite imagery analyzing and processing and GIS use, defined six ecological systems or ecosystems and four human intervention systems. The spatial arrangement of forest fragments was determined and the corridors as a conservation strategies were defined. Using ecological criteria, 66 links between patches of the original forest was proposed. With this strategy we are one step further towards the restoration of the forest in the reserve, with more biodiversity, with a healthy composition and structure maintained over time, in harmony with its inhabitants for the people of today and tomorrow."
Key words: fragmentation, semi-deciduous forest, ecosystems map, geographical information system, connectivity.
2014 Scholar Profile:
*-Alejandra Betancourt Rial, Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences (ICAE), Venezuela
-Organization name: Project ECOMAP_CC (Ecoregions Landscapes and Ecosystems of Venezuela. Analysis of vegetation as a result of climate change). Affiliated to the Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences (ICAE) belonging to the University of Los Andes. Mérida, Venezuela.
-Organization full street address: Unisersity of Los Andes (RIF: G-200000-40-6), Faculty of Science, third floor, Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences (ICAE), Mérida Venezuela
-Organization full mailing address: Unisersity of Los Andes (RIF: G-200000-40-6), Faculty of Science, third floor, Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences (ICAE), Mérida Venezuela
-Country: Venezuela
-Work phone with country and area code: 0058 274 2401255
-Work Fax with country and area code: 0058 274 2401255
-Main email: eulogio@ula.ve
-Organization Web site URL if any: http://www.ciencias.ula.ve/icae/
-History: When I was younger who taught me the value of conserving nature and love was my family, my father was on a farm with cows and horses throughout childhood and my mother has always had a very kind heart and gentle with animals ( which explains why my house that is located in a fairly urban area are more pet and animals living than people). Growing up it's was time to be more serious about my future, and I take the example of my big sister that began studying biology and conservation, listening to her and seeing her doing internships and field studies convinced me to follow her footsteps. I had the grace to enter one of the top public universities in my country and begin my training as a biologist, ecologist and conservationist. Then I realized that the harsh reality of my country and the very difficult posibility to continue my passion. My sister had to leave the country in search of better opportunities and I had to fight hard to get a job inwhat makes me happy. When I got to the half of my career I met a few members of the institute ICAE whom were my teachers, after several practices and field training, I realized that I was in love with Ecology and it was not a reversible situation, and my life would be based on it for that moment on. Finally to finish my studies I had to do a special research job (tesis) for graduate in which my teacher Dr. Eulogio Chacón kindly offered to be my mentor and guide in this work and I began to learn about the GIS, in these programs I found a way to see the world from above, where many logistical problems in conservation could be solve, many economic problems of field surveys could be omitted. And although I did not tipically like computers, I got myself deep in the matter, until my elbows began to burn with the computer all day. At that time I had just discovered a tool that allowed me to do what I was passionate about.
-WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR WORK? One of the things that captivated me from the GIS is to appreciate all the things in a certain area you could never walk or have access to, wich is one of the reasons why I keep using the GIS. For my work as a consultant in the creation of the water fund, one of the benefits of using GIS constitutes the reason for my fascination with these programs. Watershed Mucujún River where I work, in a third of its area is occupied by areas without paths with breathtaking, spectacular, cold landscapes with a vegetation that seem from another planet, but thanks to these programs we can generate plans that can protect and preserve this areas, as each day we see how the anthropogenic border progresses leaving them more and more expose. One of the most serious problems in this project and one tat the GIS can not solve is the lack of information or the refusal of support from the state institutions, despite being an area that supplies water to 80 % the city of Mérida (Which has about 500,000 inhabitants) creating gaps in the results and idex of error. One problem that occurs very often, is that sometimes not knowing all the tools offered by GIS, the job becomes much denser and long
The research will be national and will be develop throughout the entire geography of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (terrestrial and marine areas). The coordination of the project will be at the ICAE institute in the University of Los Andes. In this project there will be also the involvement of independent consultants and other national institutions as the Ministry of Popular Power for the Environment (MPPA), The Nature Conservancy (TNC Venezuela), the Experimental University of Guayana (UNEG), Processing Center of Satellite Images (CPDI), Foundation Engineering Institute (FII), The University of Zulia (LUZ), the Simon Bolivar University (USB), the National Parks Institute (INPARQUES) and the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). The main objective of the project is mapping all the ecosystems of Venezuela, under an ecological approach to landscape, considering a nested hierarchy that allows subdividing the country in large ecoregions and landscapes, and analyzes the processes of ecosystem changes for effect of climate change during 2001 and 2011. It is a national project where communities, especially the rural and poor, participate as knowledgeable guides in the natural environment where they live, so that will be the contact point for the lifting of local information. In this sense they will be benefited to create a sense of environmental awareness. They are the key point for the transformation processes. The main benefit that will bring the fulfillment of the project objectives is the further use of the products obtained for conservation planning, land management, sustainable development plans, environmental impact assessment, analysis and modeling in climate change scenarios, monitoring and conservation.
-Role in the organization: In the project ECOMAP_CC I am a research associate whose function is to assess changes in coverage that have occurred in recent years in the Caparo Forest Reserve, which is a national timber reserve historically hit hard. I was hired on this project by Dr. Eulogio Chacón (head of this national program), to create a window for the mapping of ecosystems in the country taking this reserve as a sample site.
The institute where this project runs is a great family who have given me the opportunity to work when I needed it, since half of my career about 5 years ago I know them and was Dr.Eulogio Chacón who hires me to work in a place that we knew little, but was in a serious trouble and threat of disappearing, and regrettably Caparo Forest Reserve located in the Edo Barinas is continuing in that direction.
In very few opportunities in my life I have been fortunate to travel to courses and workshops, where I can learn about conservation and also have other visions of work. Economically life has never been easy for me or my family, but I am very proud of it, because every day they get up to work even when his salary is extremely low and I want they feel the same for me. This training SCGIS was a great opportunity for someone who has little in her life, is a chance to continue to learn from the way my mentors have taught me, whit the practice, cultural exchange of ideas, fun and all that make a memorable learning experience, this is the way I was introduce in conservation planning. Participating in this training benefits not only me but all my colleagues because it is crucial for me to share the lessons learned from a group like yours.
xForest xCorridor xEcosystem xProtected xEndangered xConnectivity x2014Scholar x2014Talk xTalk xScholar xLatinx xVenezuela xLatinAmerica
