This 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?
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.