Abstract
In order to adopt a strategic model which aims to mitigate the environmental pressures exerted by the process of unbridled urbanization, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international agreement that permeates its conservation, the sustainable use of its resources and the equitable sharing of its resources, approved in 2010 the creation of the City Biodiversity Index (CBI), a political-legal instrument that aims to assess its management and progress. Later in 2016, the “Sorocaba: the city of biodiversity” program was launched by Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (SEMA), consisting of six specific objectives and among them, the establishment of criteria for the evaluation of conservation measures through indicators adapted from CBI, in order to propagate the urban ecology and ecosystems importance. Given the above, this study aimed to prove the compatibility between urban centers and biodiversity and to evaluate the environmental management of the city of Sorocaba, located in the interior of the State of São Paulo, through the application of 23 CBI indicators and semi-structured interviews with environmental technicians of the municipality, in order to raise possible strategies in the conservation of biodiversity. The sum of the indicators resulted in a value of 57 points out of a total of 92 (61.9%), showing that, although Sorocaba has a relevant biodiversity, the low score of many indicators implies a need for greater mobilization of government spheres and the successive application of the CBI, in order to expand the conservation and environmental management of the city agenda over the years, strategy agreed among the technicians interviewed.
Highlights
About 50% of the world population occupies large urban centers and the perspective is that this percentage will increase exponentially by the year 2030 (United Nations Population Fund 2007)
Later in 2016, the “Sorocaba: the city of biodiversity” program was launched by Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (SEMA), consisting of six specific objectives and among them, the establishment of criteria for the evaluation of conservation measures through indicators adapted from City Biodiversity Index (CBI), in order to propagate the urban ecology and ecosystems importance
This study aimed to prove the compatibility between urban centers and biodiversity and to evaluate the environmental management of the city of Sorocaba, located in the interior of the State of São Paulo, through the application of 23 CBI indicators
Summary
About 50% of the world population occupies large urban centers and the perspective is that this percentage will increase exponentially by the year 2030 (United Nations Population Fund 2007). Despite all the pressure exerted on the processes of biological diversity, a considerable number of species have their habitat areas inserted in urban perimeters (especially squares, parks, and gardens) as potential refuges due to the availability of food resources, abundance of habitats, ecological niches and, for the most part, the absence of natural predators (Angold et al 2006). In 2002 during the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), leaders of CBD signatory countries pledged to meet a goal of reducing biodiversity loss by 2010. A recent assessment using a couple of indicators showed a failure to achieve the objective and that the rate of biodiversity loss is the fastest ever observed (Convention on Biological Diversity 2010; Smith et al 2018)
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