We can call intense and prolific to the agenda that has as an objective to make improvements on the decentralized process of the implementation of the Regional Strategy of the Biological Diversity in the Amazon – REBDA - and its action plans, promoted by the project BIODAMAZ, actually in an own section and a permanent portal of SIAMAZONIA.
In our days are five the regions –Amazonas, Loreto, Madre de Dios, San Martin and Ucayali- in which, at different levels, there are working this theme, since the diffusion of the ERDBA in the divers indigenous communities in the Amazon, until the discussion with the most important responsible of the Regional Strategies in each region.
Understanding that the Project can not be divorced from the direct actors, in this case the inhabitants of the various Amazon communities and other regional actors - the Project has promoted workshops to capacitate with the communities, and has made a big impulse in the creation of technical groups of biological diversity in the regions by means of Regional Mandates.
Another great achievement to talk about is the directory of the national, regional and professional indigenous organizations from the Peruvian Amazon, which will facilitate the communication and the work between entities that, in more than one case, were unknown between them.
When we just started this year the First Technical Groups of Biological Diversity in the Regions of the Amazon and Loreto were implemented. Also, they continued working with the instruments of arrangement and a Plan for Work, giving the first step for the organization of the ONGs that work with the biodiversity in the region.

The work in this field has been very positive, especially for the improvement and to validate the offers from the service platform and the lines of the biotrade, we give thanks in particularly to the work done by the Management of Natural Resources and Environmental Arrangement and to the Regional Executive Secretary of CONAM. The answers of the organizations to the call in the regions of Loreto and Amazonas constitute a good precedent for the organization and the decentralization of the goals of the Project. In the rest of the Amazon there were reunions of the National Direction and Project Coordination with the respective Regional Groups to initiate the process of arrangement, which resulted in important contributions so we can go on with achieving the project goals.

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Among the goals proposed to strengthen the relationships between national institutions and the selected institutions from the Amazon countries with institutions and specialists that were involved in policy arrangement themes in biological diversity and its application in biotrade - the Project BIODAMAZ made important efforts for the exchanging of experience in the theme of regional policies of economic development.

As a first step of these goals, the Project organized a technical mission that visited Costa Rica during the days 22 and 27 of August of the past year to assist to the course “Successful practices for the competitiveness and the sustainable development of tropical forests”. The Peruvian group, integrated by specialists from the IIAP and from BIODAMAZ, was also integrated by the regional presidents of Amazonas, Loreto, San Martin and Ucayali.

This occasion, was not only for the improvement of the level of information of those who are responsible of making the decisions in the regional policies of economic development, it also was useful to explore methods, policies and strategies of sustainable development, in a special way in biodiversity resources.

Another example was the I Regional Symposium “Exchange of scientific advances in conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity”, that took place in Iquitos between the days 28 and 29 of past October. The international encounter congregated forty-six specialists in the theme of conservation and sustained use of the biodiversity in the Amazon, there were thirteen representatives of public institutions, private institutions, local governments, ONG and academic institutions from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and was useful for the exchanging of experience in three specific themes, that constitute the axle of the BIODAMAZ Project: Arrangement of the Biological Diversity, Ecological Economic Zoning (EEZ) and Information Systems about Biodiversity.

Between the conclusions that were achieved in this event was the reaffirmation of the mega biodiversity of the Andean Amazon as a base for the sustained development of the region.

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In the context of the Amazon-Andean integration, there has been reunions and experience exchanging with the representatives of Amazon countries in the technical missions of GBIF, making a draft of a possible regional project together with Ecuador, Bolivia ad Colombia.

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With the objective of improving the first version of the map of environmental macro unities and its application in the sustainable use of the biological diversity, in what is already in process of face two of the Project BIODAMAZ we have completed, not only, the maps of the Amazon limits, but also the geological and geomorphologic maps.
This effort, give as results the identification of two types of vegetation and twenty-three macro environmental unities, has as an objective to develop the biophysics and socioeconomics knowledge that will support, in a decisive way, the implementation of the Regional Strategy of Biological Diversity in the Amazon – ERDBA, the Ecologic and Economic Zoning – ZEE, and the sustainable use of the biological diversity.
At the environmental and socioeconomic metadata level –it is like saying, data about data-, its design and implementation was based in the organization and structure of a space data system. For that we started from a cartographic data system that goes from the general to the specific: space data of geographic information systems, of remote perception, of campus work, of literature, of socioeconomics and statistics, with digital covering ad satellite images, between other. The final idea, actually in development, is to construct an interface of users, versatile and dynamic, that permits its self to be offered, as a service in the web page of SIAMAZONIA.

The big challenge of the management of the biological diversity is not the conservation by a protected area system, but its profitable and sustainable use for the improvement of the quality of life of the population. Under that concept, the EEZ an instrument of territorial arrangement that determines the potential use of the biological diversity in relation with a space arrangement of homogenous unities - obtains a condition sine qua non.
In that context, the acquired knowledge permits the confident use of certain resources in spaces of defined intervention. It would be the first time in the Peruvian Amazon that they realize the ecosystem management of more than one renewable resource with profitable goals.
Until now there has been identified three productive lines: 1) the aquaculture –domestication of “paiche” and the promotion of the management of species like the “boquichico”; 2) the development of efficient methods for the management of the “caucho” (rubber tree); and 3) the silviculture and forest enrichment by the plantation, with species like the cedro, caoba, lupuna, capirona, cumala, quinilla, catahua, renaco, quillosisa and palo sangre, in between other species of wood with high economical potential.

The major effort of BIODAMAZ with the 22 communities that are settled in the Allpahuayo – Mishana National Reserve (AMNR) - and the El Huayo Botanic Garden Arboretum (EHBGA) - is oriented to the local people and support them in the implementation of a model of sustainable use based on community management, with the goal of improving the quality of life style with out loosing the harmony with the environment.
After the inventory and participative evaluation of the potential of the resources of biological diversity in the AMNR and the EHBGA, BIODAMAZ is actively supporting the community management, for that it was formulated – in a participative way – the adaptive management plans of the natural resources based on its importance.
For the present year the challenge is to formalize the management plans and the signing of contract of permission for some resources. We also want to develop the aquaculture -46 familiar modules in communities in the Nanay River - and the integral management of farms - 42 families - as production alternatives, and to promote the development of ecotourism as an alternative economic activity.
With regard to the added value that we can provide to products of the biological diversity, there have already been meetings and workshops with interested family groups in three communities, identifying their strength and weakness and exploring the potential of incursion in the market, working primarily with handcrafts made of fiber of chambira and medicine products made out of vegetables.

Nevertheless the difficulties for the access to the information –when this was possible- or by its own quality and reliability, the Project BIODAMAZ fulfilled, during the year 2004, its goals in the physics and biologic knowledge, -terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem- and a big part of the socioeconomics.
Like this, they developed the conceptual and methodological frame for the construction of socioeconomics and cultural macro unities, and, also, for the evaluation of Ecological Economical Unities using the scope of potentialities developed by the United Nations Program for Development. This conceptual and methodological frame has been made taking into account the specific characteristics of the studies of Ecologic Economic Zoning.
In the specific, the necessities of information and access possibilities were identified, for the generation of layers –in the geographic information system SIG- of populated centers and infrastructure, land properties and other natural resources, development projects implemented in the region, use of land and socio environmental conflicts, and the design, and implementation of the data base of socioeconomics, was also achieved.
These results are permitting the design of a technique-economic proposal for the management of the biological diversity, just like the analysis of pre feasibility for the development of Amazon products that will contribute to the quality of life of the inhabitants of the Amazon with out breaking the harmony with nature.

The AMNR has a great number of biological diversity, with a registry of 145 mammal species, 475 of birds, 83 of amphibians, 120 of reptiles, 155 species of fish and 1900 species of plants.
In here there exist important natural ecosystems for the people’s economy, like the varillales, swamp (tahuampa) forests, small lakes (cochas) and cricks (quebradas). We estimate that in the AMNR live around 200 families, with a population of 1100.
BIODAMAZ is supporting a preliminary plan of spreading the values of the Reserve, which will complement the work that the Reserve Administration realizes, in the six communities in the reserve.
Since last year, BIODAMAZ has been trying to involucrate the different social communication systems, tourism enterprises, artist’s enterprises and cultural centers in the diffusion of information about the AMNR. For this year we are planning on implementing an interpretation center of the AMNR in the IIAP’s Allpahuayo Research Center, and promote the modernization of the information system of the AMNR, ISAMNR.

The BIODAMAZ Project has the challenge to conceal the necessities of the human development with the long term goal of the biological diversity conservation. For that it is important the strengthening of organizations and institutions of the 22 communities in the AMNR and the EHBGA so they can be actively involved in the decision making and in the activities related with the protection of the biological diversity resources and the improvement of their life style. The project has worked with the resource management community organization and it is supporting the community to get their land titles.

To make changes in the conduct and behavior of those who live in the AMNR and in EHBGA, as in the urban areas, it has been developed a permanent program of information and capacitating, oriented specially to the leaders of the communities and teachers that work there. With the last group it has been identified types and education material that are needed for the environmental education, and it was elaborated proposals with themes of the Reserve, those are now being implemented in the education institutions.

Now the Project is spreading information about the protected area in 22 communities and education institutions through informative talks, activities of resources management – the management of taricaya (water turtle) is an example - capacitating workshops with teachers, and the production of material to divulgate.

We can qualify as intense and prolific to the diffusion work of results that the BIODAMAZ Project is achieving on the way to conservation and sustainable use of the biological diversity.
In this sense, to the long list of information and publications that is related to participative methods and community management used in the BIODAMAZ Project, the development and used geospatial metadata among others, the past January – Friday 21- it was realized the formal presentation of fourteen publications related with the sustainable use of the biological diversity.
The publications summarize the experience and the contribution of BIODAMAZ since 1999, and comprises themes that go from the Regional Strategy of Biological Diversity in the Amazon and the Information System of Biological Diversity and Amazon Environment, to the theoretical and methodological frames for the identification of environmental unities in the Peruvian low jungle, and the guides for the study of patterns of distribution of Amazon species, among others.
The formal presentation and cultural reunion, took place in the principal auditorium of the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute, an it was realized in the frame of the celebration of the XXV anniversary of the Finland – Peru cooperation works –that included the presentation of the Boston Promenade Orchestra of the University of Turku- the presentation also included the participation of experts, of both countries, in the environmental theme, And also the participation of important authorities form the region. It is very important to mention that, few hours later, the mayor of the Provincial Municipality of Maynas presided a solemn session for the public recognition of the contribution of Finland to the knowledge of the biodiversity in the Amazon.

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• Regional Strategy of the Biological Diversity in the Amazon (Estrategia Regional de la Diversidad Biológica Amazónica) – ERDBA
• Information System of the Biological Diversity and Environment of the Peruvian Amazon (Sistema de Información de la Diversidad Biológica y Ambiental de la Amazonía Peruana) – SIAMAZONIA
• Manual for the elaboration of Mosaics
  Action Plan of the Regional Strategy of the Biological Diversity in the Amazon (Estrategia Regional de la Diversidad Biológica Amazónica), ERDBA
• Theoretical and Method frame for the identification of Environmental Unities
• Guide for the study of distribution patterns of Amazon species
• Analysis about the Amazon reality
• Action Plan of Conservation in situ and ex situ
• Biophysics Bases and proposals of Zoning
• Development Plan for the El Huayo Botanical Garden and Arboretum
• Plan for the Development of Tourism on the Iquitos – Nauta Road
• Peruvian Amazon Vegetation Diversity
• Environmental Macro Unities of the Peruvian Amazon
• Contributions to the Knowledge and Management of the Peruvian Amazon Biological Diversity
• Folia Amazonica Vol 14, N° 1 (ten scientific articles)

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With the participation of representatives of twenty national and Finland institutions, the 18th of April in the city of Lima was realized the fourth reunion of the Directive Committee of the BIODAMAZ Project, with the purpose of exchanging contributions related to the achievements made in the year 2004 and define the plan of work for the year 2005.

Two documents were presented by the Peruvian and Finland specialists: The Annual Inform of Monitoring 2004 – AIM 2004 and the 2005 Operative Annual Plan – OAP 2005. With the contributions of the Directive Committee, the Supervising Counsel of the Project will approve the documents.

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