Determinación de servicios ecosistémicos en el humedal Gualí Tres Esquinas: consideraciones sobre su uso, tendencias y criterios para su conservación

Abstract

The Gualí Tres Esquinas wetland is a strategic ecosystem due to the multiple contributions that offer to the human welfare, therefore, it is important to provide conservation features for sustainable management of natural resources by reconnaissance of the main ecosystemic services. This wetland is home to important areas for endemic species, rainwater control, aesthetic and cultural values. With the purpose of determining these services, the Rapid Assessment of Wetland Ecosystem Services (RAWES) is used, a methodology that counts with Ramsar’s Convention requirements, this one qualitatively evaluates services define by Evaluation of the Ecosystems of the Millennium, giving them a value of positive or negative contribution on local, regional or world-wide scale. For this study, RAWES is calculated in three areas of the wetland, to assess the spatial variation of ecosystem services; 26 ecosystem services were identified, grouped into 4 main categories, with the help of the citizen participation instrument and the spreadsheet that transposes the scores of the importance of the RAWES evaluation into numerical values, and thus generate the Ecosystem Service Index (ESI) deriving to a single comparable value per zone. These results generated by the RAWES evaluation and the bibliographical revision that used the term “Ecosystemic Services in the Gualí Tres Esquinas wetland” for searching, it exposes that, depending of the wetland area, the ecosystemic services could be found while in another area of the same wetland they could not; the regulation services that the wetland offers are the most valued by the community. The analysis allowed for identifying negative and positive externality ecosystemic services where conservation strategies are required, restoration, recovery and compensation; for this case a methodology is offered, where a payment is done per environmental services, making easier volunteer actions aimed to the protection, conservation, preservation and use in a better way of Gualí Tres Esquinas wetland ecosystemic services.