Founding declaration

[translated from portuguese]

 Centro Integrado para a a Conservação da Biodiversidade da Mata Atlântica

Competence Centre for the Conservation of Biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil

On September 22nd, 2007 the CENTRO INTEGRADO PARA A CONSERVAÇÃO DA BIODIVERSIDADE DA MATA ATLÂNTICA [Competence Centre for the Conservation of Biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil] was founded in the city of Curitiba, Paraná Brazil. The following organizations participated: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe (SMNK), Zoological Department of the Federal University of Paraná, Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering of Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education (SPVS); and their representatives sign this letter.

Main objective of the Centre is...

to concentrate competences in order to improve and disseminate knowledge on biodiversity of the Mata Atlântica in a planned and coordinated way to be applied for its conservation.

The foundation of the Competence Centre was motivated and based on the following considerations:

  • The demand for scientific knowledge on biodiversity has been recognized by the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), however it is an extraordinary challenge for the megadiverse countries and those in development to know their own biodiversity;
  • The situation of Natural Heritage of the Mata Atlântica is critical, due to continuous anthropogenic interference and missing integration of the parties interested in the conservation of its biological diversity, as well as to the dissemination of existing knowledge designated to subsidize practices in conservation management;
  • The Southern Coastal region of São Paulo and the Northern Coastal Region of Paraná represent the major continuous remnant of Mata Atlântica and thus make it imperative to conciliate conservation of biological diversity with regional development in this area;
  • The positive results of the developed activities in partnership with members of the projects SOLOBIOMA – Soil biota and biogeochemistry in southern Atlantic Rainforests of Brazil and TAXonline – The Biological Collection Network of Paraná and the NGO SPVS – Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education show how cooperation rises the potential of individual activities and optimizes conservation efforts in the Mata Atlântica;
  • The founders of the 'Competence Centre for the Conservation of Biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil' together with their partners in the running projects are already well skilled in research on taxonomy, ecology and conservation of the biological diversity of the Mata Atlântica.



Specific objectives of the Centre:

1.

To produce, integrate and disseminate scientific knowledge for the development of models for a rational use of natural resources and for subsidizing public politics in conservation of biological diversity of the Mata Atlântica;

2.

To identify and consolidate ongoing initiatives on surveying biodiversity which might be used to define a National Base for Knowledge Administration on biological diversity of the Mata Atlântica;

3.

To develop programs in environmental education, scientific visits and improvement of graduate and post-graduate students, subsidized by scientific researches;

4.

To represent a permanent initiative of valorisation of regional conservation organisations, both public and private, on the base of scientific research, educational activities and the search for continuous progress in structure and human capacities needed in those protected areas;

5.

To standardize proceedings and methods by using specific protocols that allow future comparisons and integration of the results obtained by projects related to and/or coordinated by the Centre;

6.

To define politics and procedures for a management of the collected biological material, e.g. for a deposit in scientific collections and accessibility of the non-sensitive data;

7.

To decide about the possibility of integrating further representative regions in Paraná State giving priority to the Araucaria forests and the 'Campos Gerais' after an evaluation of the results obtained during the pilot phase of 2 years.

Based upon the implementation of the above listed activities the 'Competence Centre for the Conservation of Biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil' aims for turning itself a generator and a pool of knowledge, integration, qualification of human resources, subsidy for activities, scientific and educational dissemination and a reference centre for the conservation of biodiversity of Mata Atlântica.

Curitiba, September 22, 2007

Museu Estadual de História Natural Karlsruhe (SMNK)

Departamentos de Botânica, de Zoologia e de Solos e Engenharia Agrícola da Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR)

Sociedade de Pesquisa em Vida Selvagem e Educação Ambiental (SPVS)

Clóvis Borges, SPVS, coordinator

Rainer Fabry, SMNK, secretary

Luciane Marinoni, UFPR

Hubert Höfer, SMNK

Marcia Marques, UFPR

Renato Marques, UFPR