In Ecuador, the changes in vegetation coverage seem to be directly influenced by the deforestation rates, and by the change in use of soil with forestation capabilities to farming soils, causing the loss of native forests, as well as the goods and services they help provide to the local communities. The objective of this article is to get a preliminary diagnostic of the management of the Forest and Protecting Vegetation Areas (ABVP) in the towns of the province of Azuay, through the review of: Development and Territorial Management Plans (PDYOT) available in the city level governments; statistics of town areas as given by the Ecuadorian National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), Maps of ABVP's emitted by the Ministry of Environment, and the Department of National Forests, which are available at the National Department of Information (SNI). Getting to the conclusion that more than 60% of the ABVP in the entire province are centralized in the cities of Cuenca (42%) and Pucara (19%), and also existing in a town which has not reported the existence of ABVP called Guachalapa; The most frequent anthropogenic activity in the towns that pushes the ABVP's is the expansion of the farming areas (8 towns), followed by the cattle farming activities (6 towns); the reforestation is one of the most frequently proposed projects to achieve the recovery and conservation of the ABVPs, followed by updating activities for the ABVP Forest Management Plans.
44.1% to the east. In the mountains, the provinces of Pichincha, Loja and Azuay account for 13% of the total [6].
Poor land management, intensive crops, deforestation, and wildfires are some of the factors related to desertification. According to the Ministry of Environment, Ecuador has an annual deforestation rate of 95000 hectares, one of the highest in South America.
The interest in environmental conservation in Ecuador has increased in recent years, becoming embodied in the most recent Ecuadorian Constitution (2008), which through Article 405 incorporates the protected areas of local governments as one of the four subsystems that are part of the National System of Protected Areas (SNAP) to guarantee the conservation of biodiversity and the maintenance of ecological functions.
The Territorial Planning applied to the ABVP conservation categories, is an important planning instrument, which seeks the preservation of biological and cultural wealth, through clear rules of conservation and recovery of resources, being the obligation of each local government the preparation and approval of development plans and territorial planning, said competences are regulated by the Constitution and the Organic Code of Territorial Organization, Autonomy and Decentralization COOTAD [7].
The SNAP contemplates seven categories of protected areas: national parks, ecological reserves, wildlife refuges, biological reserves, national recreation areas, wildlife production reserves, and hunting and fishing areas. The Areas of Forests and Protective Vegetation (ABVP) constitute another category of conservation, the main diferences with the seven of the SNAP are that forests can be privately owned, in addition, certain survival activities are allowed. SNAP areas and forests are included in a general management plan, in addition to this each ABVP has a specific management plan. 1.1. General Data and Geographical Location of the Province of Azuay The province of Azuay is a diverse geographical space for its territory, climate, population, economic production and other elements that identify and distinguish it from the other regions of Ecuador.
According to Father Julio Maria Matovelle, the word ‘Azuay’ means liquor or “heaven’s rain;” it is a term of cañari origin formed by the word “azu”, which means “liquor,” and the sufix “ay” which means from the heavens.
It has approximately 8,492.76 km2 of surface, and a height that oscillates between 37 m above sea level in the coastal area of Camilo Ponce Enriquez and 4,482 m above sea levels in the national park El Cajas. The province of Azuay is concluding several limits definition processes, which once the corresponding procedures are completed will redefine the city areas and the total area of the province.
As of 2010, according to the Population and Housing Census, a population of 712,127 inhabitants is registered in Azuay, which represents 4.92% of the national population, of which 380,445 belong to the urban area and 331,682 to the rural area. According to the projection of the estimated population, with the data of the last inter-census period, by 2020 the population would increase to 881,394 inhabitants [8].
The Province of Azuay borders North with the province of Cañar, to the South with the Province of Loja, to the East with the Amazonian provinces of Morona Santiago and Zamora
1. Methodology The methodology applied is of mixed qualitative and quantitative type. The former begins with the elaboration of an institutional and legal framework based on the Kelsen Pyramid, through the bibliographic review of the regulations in force, in the Oficial Registry, applicable to the PDYOT of the cantons of the Province of Azuay.
The PDYOT is compiled from the 15 towns of the Province of Azuay (Table 1), taking as a source the websites of each local government and / or the National Information System, SNI (Table 2).
Cuenca Pucara Santa Isabel Sigsig Nabon Gualaceo Giron Sevilla de Oro Oña Paute Camilo Ponce Enriquez San Fernando El Pan Chordeleg Guachapala 84.800,00 77.141,00 67.453,00 66.820,00 37.000,00 35.010,00 31.100,00 28.976,00 26.990,00 26.700,00 14.051,00 13.278,87 10.470,00
REFERENCE SIGSIG
The town PDYOTs are reviewed under the structural reference of the Methodological Guide for the Development of Territorial Management Plans [24] and extract the information related to the biophysical component - subcomponent Fragile ecosystems and conservation priorities – ABVP
With each town’s information collected from ABVP and the anthropogenic activities that exert pressure on them belonging to the Diagnostic and Information Phase of Projects or Programs contained in the Proposal phase, a quantitative analysis is carried out [25].
Organización Territorial, Autonomía y Descentralización COOTAD
de la UNESCO, Convención RAMSAR, Convención spanishsobre el Comercio Internacional de Especies Amenazadas de Flora y Fauna Silvestres CITES, Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, Convención Marco sobre la Diversidad Biológica,Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica, Declaración de Río sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo,Protocolo de Kiotosobre Cambio Climático, Foro Intergubernamental de Bosques, Convenio Internacional de Lucha contra la desertificación.
Arts: 2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 12, 28, 29, 41, 54, 55, 64, 65,72,100, 114, 115, 136, 139, 274, 395, 431, 516 Arts: 1, 2, 34, 77, 79, 81, 96, 97, 98, 104, 115,178 Arts: 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25, 28, 30, 33, 34, 37, 42, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 65, 66, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79 Arts: 3, 4.
Arts: 1, 5, 13, 44, 48, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72,73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84,85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 106 Arts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 20, 33, 34,35, 39, 41, 43, 44, 46 Arts: 6, 10, 12 [29] [29]
Texto Unificado de Legislación Secundaria TULAS
38252,97
Cuenca del Río Paute Tourism Sun Sun Yanasacha Molleturo Mollepungo Mazán Quinoa Miguir Subcuenca del Río Dudahuaycu Totorillas Collay
del Río León y Microcuencas de los Ríos 18492,65 San Felipe de Oña y Shincata Subcuenca Alta del Río León y Microcuencas de los Ríos 15936,80 San Felipe de Oña y Shincata Pichahuaicu Rumicruz Collay EL PAN
4807,00 24131,00
Agricultural frontier extension
Mining activity Incinerate Temporary crops
Uzchurrumi, La Cadena, Penas Doradas, Brasil ABVP Molleturo Mollepongo n° 5/6/7 Cuenca del Río Paute Jeco Molleturo y Mollepungo No.4/5/6 Jeco Allcuquiro Collay Subcuenca Alta del Río León y Microcuencas de los Ríos San Felipe de Oña y Shincata
2638,59 16636,36 11785,00 25170,00
extension (Pasture)
The Province of Azuay has an area of 438776.85 hectares, with the city of Cuenca having the largest ABVP with 186219.78 ha, which represents 42.4% with respect to the Provincial ABVP, followed by Pucará with 84652.87 ha ( 19.3% of the provincial), while Chordeleg owns 2274 ha of ABVP (0.5% of the provincial). In the town of Guachapala it is reported that there are no ABVP.
The sum of the ABVP of five towns represents more than 80% of the Provincial ABVP, as follows: Cuenca with 186219.78 ha (42.4%), Pucará with 84652.87 ha (19.3%), Camilo Ponce Enríquez (8, 7%), Sigsig (5.7%) and Gualaceo (5.5%) as detailed in Figure 2.
Based on the information compiled in Table 4, it is visualized in Figure 3 that the anthropogenic activities that afect the ABVP more frequently in the cities of Azuay are: extension of the agricultural frontier present in 8 towns, agriculture in 6 towns, and in 4 towns overgrazing, burning and logging. 2.3. Management and Process indicators used by the City PDYOT projects and programs in the province of Azuay The territorial planning, shows the goals proposed for the local town’s PDYOT projects.
The projects should support the accomplishment of national strategic objectives, which for Ecuador should be the National Development Plan’s objectives [22]
All town PDYOT on Azuay based their projects and programs related to ABVP with the objective number 7 of the PNBV: “To guarantee the environment’s and nature’s rights, and to promote environmental, territorial, and global sustainability.
Figure 4 shows the classification of the and details the frequencies of the goals that have been identified in the PDYOTs to achieve the recovery or conservation of the ABVP, with the projects focused on reforestation being implemented in 7 cities (Camilo Ponce Enriquez, Oña, Paute, Pucará, San Fernando, Santa Isabel, Sevilla de Oro), while 3 will work on the ABVP Management Plan Update (Chordeleg, Gualaceo, Nabón) and Compliance with the ABVP Management Plan (Cuenca, Girón, Sigsig), and finally in a Canton will be implemented the Creation of Regulation Ordinances (Gualaceo) and another in the Generation of Real Data (El Pan).
Protective forests have the objective of conserving and protecting biodiversity and natural resources, but unfortunately it can be evidenced during the present document review that all of them are intervened (human activities), so that they cannot fulfill their function of Soil conservation and life. The application of current legislation has not been efective in preventing the degradation of these protected areas which have sufered deforestation.
Other contributing factors are:
The lack of accurate and real data on protective forests and the rate of deforestation and reforestation which hinders efective decision making.
A disarticulation between MAE and GAD regulators can be evidenced during the review of ABVP data, which difer from one institution to another.
Lack of knowledge on the efects of ABVP damage. [1] FAO, Los bosques y suelos forestales contribuyen de manera esencial a la producción agrícola y la seguridad alimentaria mundial, Retrieved July 25, 2019, from http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/news/news-detail/es/c/285875/ (2015). [2] K. Daza, J. Hernandez, H. Florez, Hardware and software system for hydric estimation and crop irrigation scheduling, in: International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications, Springer, 2019, pp. 150–165. [3] C. Balsa, C. V. Rodrigues, I. Lopes, J. Rufino, Using analog ensembles with alternative metrics for hindcasting with multistations, ParadigmPlus 1 (2020) 1–17. [4] A. Morante, M. del Pilar Villamil, H. Florez, Framework for supporting the creation of marketing strategies, International Information Institute (Tokyo). Information 20 (2017) 7371–7378. [5] Universidad, Politécnica de madrid. el bosque protector desertificación: un problema global, Retrieved from http://elbosqueprotector.es/New/wpcontent/uploads/2017/05/Desertificacion.pdf (2019). [6] C. Morales, Los costos de la inacción ante la desertificación y degradación de las tierras en escenarios alternativos de cambio climático. santiago de chile, Retrieved from https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/4009/1/S2012077-es.pdf (2012). [7] Asamblea, Nacional constituyente del ecuador. código orgánico de organización territorial, autonomía y descentralización, Registro Oficial No. 303 del 19 de octubre (2010). [8] INEC, Crecimiento población ecuador. quito, Retrieved from https://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/documentos/web-inec/Poblacion-y
Demografia/Proyecciones-Poblacionales/presentacion.pdf (2010). [9] GAD, Municipalidad de camilo ponce enríquez.plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial, Camilo Ponce Enríquez (2012). [10] GAD, Municipal de chordeleg. (2015). plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial de chordeleg, Actualización 205 (2015). [11] GAD, Municipalidad de cuenca. plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial del cantón cuenca, Diagnóstico. Cuenca (2015). [12] GAD, Municipal de el pan. (2012). plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial 2012 -2021,
Tomo I Diagnóstico (2012). [13] GAD, Municipal de girón. plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial del cantón girón 2014 - 2019, Girón (2019). [14] GAD, Municipal de guachapala. plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial del cantón guachapala 2014 - 2027, Retrieved from http://app.sni.gob.ec/visorseguimiento/DescargaGAD/data/sigadplusdiagnostico /1360000390001-DIAGNOSTICO DEL CANTON BOLIVAR 2014-2026-16-03-201515-39-33.pdf (2014). [15] GAD, Municipal de gualaceo. plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial del cantón gualaceo, Diagnóstico sectorial (2012). [16] GAD, Municipal de nabón. plan de ordenamiento territorial del cantón nabón, Nabón (2014). [17] GAD, Municipalidad de san felipe de oña. plan de ordenamiento territorial del cantón de san felipe de oña, San Felipe de Oña (2014). [18] GAD, Municipal de paute. plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial del cantón paute - propuesta y modelo de gestión actualización 2015, Paute (2015). [19] GAD, Gad municipalidad de pucará. plan de ordenamiento territorial del cantón pucará diagnóstico. pucará, Retrieved from http://app.sni.gob.ec/sni-link/sni/PORTAL-SNI/datasigad-plus/sigadplusdiagnostico/DIAGNÓSTICOGAD-14-11-2014.pdf (2014). [20] GAD, Municipal de san fernando. plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial del cantón san fernando, San Fernando (2014). [21] GAD, Municipalidad de santa isabel. plan de desarrollo local del cantón santa isabel 2014,
Santa Isabel (2014). [22] GAD, Municipalidad de sevilla de oro. plan de desarrollo local del cantón sevilla de oro 2014, Sevilla de Oro (2012). [23] GAD, Municipalidad de sigsig, . (2015). actualizacion del plan de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial del cantón sigsig. sigsig, Retrieved from http://app.sni.gob.ec/snilink/sni/PORTAL-SNI/data-sigad-plus/sigadplusdocumentofinal/0760000690001-PDyOT HUAQUILLAS FINAL-14-03-2015-12-42-18.pdf (2015). [24] Senplades, Guía metodológica para la elaboración de planes de desarrollo y ordenamiento territorial de los gobiernos autónomos descentralizados, 1–259 (2014). [25] H. Florez, M. Sánchez, J. Villalobos, Analysis of imprecise enterprise models, in: Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling, Springer, 2016, pp. 349–364. [26] Asamblea, Nacional constituyente del ecuador. constitución de la república del ecuador,
Registro Oficial No.449 del 20 de octubre (2008). [27] Congreso, Nacional del ecuador. ley forestal y de conservación de Áreas naturales y vida silvestre, Registro Oficial Suplemento No. 418 del 10 de septiembre (2004). [28] Congreso, Nacional del ecuador. ley de prevención y control de la contaminación ambiental, Registro Oficial Suplemento No. 418 del 10 de septiembre (2004). [29] Congreso, Ley de gestión ambiental, Registro Oficial Suplemento No. 418 del 10 de septiembre (2004). [30] Ministerio, del ambiente del ecuador. acuerdo ministerial no. 009 políticas y plan estratégico del sistema nacional de Áreas protegidas, Registro Oficial Suplemento No. 343 de 22 de mayo (2008).