BBOP webinar on Monday, October 20, 2014: WWF Colombia work on the Pasto-Mocoa road project

bbop-logoThis week the Busi­ness and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Pro­gramme has announced its next BBOP webi­nar as part of the BBOP com­mu­nity of prac­tice (all pre­vi­ous webi­nars are archived there if you want to lis­ten to them later).

This time the focus is on impact mit­i­ga­tion in the scope of a road project in Colum­bia. As I have men­tioned in Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Newsweek, Sep­tem­ber 22–28, 2014 bio­di­ver­sity off­sets are advanc­ing in Latin Amer­ica (see BIODIVERSITY OFFSETTING ADVANCES IN LATIN AMERICA AMIDST CONTROVERSY, Sep­tem­ber 23, 2014, by Emilio Godoy, see also here and here and here) and Colom­bia is at the fore­front of this. In this regard, the webi­nar will cer­tainly pro­vide inter­est­ing insights into this evolv­ing field.

When and how does the BBOP webi­nar take place?

Mon­day, Octo­ber 20, 2014 4 — 5 pm GMT
You can reg­is­ter via this link. Upon reg­is­tra­tion you will receive a con­fir­ma­tion email with the link to the webi­nar (that will become active shortly before the pre­sen­ta­tion stats. You will be con­nected to audio using your computer’s micro­phone and speak­ers (VoIP). A head­set is rec­om­mended. Or, you may select Use Tele­phone after join­ing the Webinar.

Some infor­ma­tion on the BBOP webinar

Here’s what the BBOP Sec­re­tariat says about the upcom­ing webinar:

The Pasto Mocoa Road project trans­verses the Andean Ama­zon Pied­mont of Colom­bia, an area of major bio­log­i­cal and cul­tural rich­ness. The road between Pasto and Mocoa is being upgraded, includ­ing expand­ing the Pasto-San Fran­cisco sec­tion and build­ing a new stretch between San Fran­cisco and Mocoa. The lat­ter sec­tion is being funded by the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank (IDB) and crosses the For­est Reserve of Mocoa River Upper Basin. Con­struc­tion of the San Francisco-Mocoa stretch began in Jan­u­ary 2012.

WWF is sup­port­ing the Pasto Mocoa project by pro­mot­ing the con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­sity and cul­ture, main­tain­ing the eco­log­i­cal integrity of nat­ural ecosys­tems and iden­ti­fy­ing alter­na­tives to improve the liv­ing con­di­tions of local peo­ple. By work­ing in alliance with pub­lic, pri­vate and com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions, WWF and part­ners are pro­mot­ing the inclu­sion of envi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions into the project design and the strate­gic regional analy­sis, as well as build­ing the capac­ity of local com­mu­ni­ties. Spe­cific activ­i­ties have included ensur­ing the tech­ni­cal qual­ity of envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies with a goal of man­ag­ing direct, indi­rect, cumu­la­tive and syn­er­getic impacts of the road con­struc­tion on the land­scape and region; and strength­en­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­larly the imple­men­ta­tion of the Inte­grated Envi­ron­men­tal and social man­age­ment Plan of the road (PMASIS in Spanish).

As a result, WWF believes that envi­ron­men­tal and social impact analy­ses are stronger, includ­ing a regional strate­gic envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment to look more broadly at regional and indi­rect impacts of the pro­posed road. A man­age­ment plan for the affected area of for­est reserve has been devel­oped and gains in terms of com­pen­sa­tion and mit­i­ga­tion plans have been sig­nif­i­cantly higher than usual for a PMASIS project. Gov­ern­ment capac­ity has also been expanded, as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry of Trans­port (INVIAS –National Insti­tute of Roads), Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment and Cor­poa­ma­zonía (regional envi­ron­men­tal Author­ity) worked together in the design of the project and col­lab­o­rated with the IDB to develop such infra­struc­ture projects jointly.

Sofía Rincón, Sec­tor Pol­icy Spe­cial­ist at WWF Colom­bia will present the project and specif­i­cally WWF-Colombia’s contribution.

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