Biodivers Conserv (2008) 17:1799–1804 DOI 10.1007/s10531-007-9224-0 O R I G I NA L P AP E R

Implementing the biosphere reserve concept: the case of Parque Atlántico Mar Chiquito biosphere reserve from Argentina Juan Pablo Isacch

Received: 12 June 2007 / Accepted: 22 August 2007 / Published online: 16 January 2008 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB) proposes an interdisciplinary research agenda and capacity building aiming to improve the relationship of people with their environment globally. The aim of this note is to analyze the problems detected during the process of implementation of the biosphere reserve concept in a highly developed region in a developing country, taking as example the Parque Atlántico Mar Chiquito Biosphere Reserve from Argentina. Two big questions emerge from this analysis: who empowers the local stakeholders in a context of private properties with high prices of commodities?, and how can scientiWc results related with the environmental sustainable develop be put in a practical context without appropriate institutions? Keywords

Biosphere reserve · UNESCO · MAB · Sustainable development

Introduction The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB) proposes an interdisciplinary research agenda and capacity building eVort aiming to improve the relationship of people with their environment globally. Launched in the early 1970s, it targets the ecological, social and economic dimensions of biodiversity loss and advocates measures to reduce this loss. It uses its World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) as vehicles for knowledge sharing, research and monitoring, education and training, and participatory decision-making. The biosphere reserve concept was developed initially in 1974 and was substantially revised in 1995 with the adoption by the UNESCO General Conference of the Statutory

J. P. Isacch Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientíWcas y Técnicas, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Mar del Plata, Argentina J. P. Isacch (&) Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3250, CP 7600 Mar del Plata, Argentina e-mail: [email protected]

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Framework and the Seville Strategy for Biosphere Reserves (UNESCO 1996). Today, with more than 480 sites in over 100 countries, the WNBR provides context-speciWc opportunities to combine scientiWc knowledge and governance modalities to reduce biodiversity loss, improve livelihoods, enhance social, economic and cultural conditions for environmental sustainability; thus contributing to the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, in particular MDG 7 on environmental sustainability. Biosphere reserves can also serve as learning and demonstration sites in the framework of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (http://www.unesco.org/mab/mabProg.shtml). The aim of this note is to analyze the problems detected during the process of implementation of the biosphere reserve concept in a highly developed region in a developing country, taking as an example the Parque Atlántico Mar Chiquito Biosphere Reserve from Argentina.

Parque Atlántico Mar Chiquito Biosphere Reserve The Parque Atlántico Mar Chiquito Biosphere Reserve (PAMCBR) was created in 1996 with the objective to conserve a representative habitat of temperate grasslands and Atlantic coast from the southern part of South America (http://www2.medioambiente.gov.ar/mab/ reservas_biosfera/mar_chiquito/). This region presents a particularity with respect to other regions of South America, since it located in the midst of the large part of the human population and the agricultural and livestock production of the region (Soriano et al. 1991), and consequently it is one of the most threatened biomes of South America (Dinerstein et al. 1995). From the arrival of the Spaniards to America the grassland was used for the pasturing by domestic cattle, and from the beginning of the 20th century agriculture had markedly increased. This changes caused the replacement of native grasslands by agroecosystems in most of the region (Ghersa and León 2001). Large human settlements are also located along the Atlantic and Río de la Plata coasts (e.g., Buenos Aires, La Plata, Mar del Plata, Bahía Blanca), which support an important coastal Wshery and provide the main beach tourism center of the region (Gómez and Toresani 1999). These diverse uses concentrated in one region had discouraged the establishment of protected areas and/or the implementation of environmentally sustainable development plans. New agricultural production technologies (e.g., transgenic crops associated with glyphosate herbicide) and high corn prices displaced livestock production to marginal (i.e., even conserved) habitats (Bilenca and Miñarro 2004). The prevailing thought in most of the region is merely economic and short-term. PAMCBR is inserted into this complex system. My aim is to discuss, from long experience in this region and after participating during 3 years as a member of the management committee of this biosphere reserve, how the BR concept was adjusted to the particular reality of the Pampas region. I assume that the problematic of this region is a perspective common to many other sites, noting the actual loss rate of natural habitat worldwide. Programs like BR are subject to political and social changes, so periodic revisions about their concepts and applications should be adapted to diVerent geographical scales. The Sevilla Strategy revised the BR program including recommendations for the diVerent scales (i.e., international, national and local reserves; UNESCO 1996). Other scale-speciWc intents had been conducted on a continental scale (e.g., Latin America; Daniele et al. 1998) and on a country scale (e.g., Australia; Matysek et al. 2006). The application unit of the Biosphere Reserve Program is each reserve, assuming that the correct functioning of each of the reserves would support the success of this program. Discussing the biosphere reserve

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concept and its implementation in a highly developed region and in a developing country will provide a useful perspective to the global program.

Environmental and social context of PAMCBR PAMCBR is characterized as a place with a large diversity of habitats. The transition between the pampas grassland to the marine coast, and the transition along the lagoon from the seawater to freshwater, form a heterogeneous landscape on a relatively small surface (26,488 ha). Intermingled among these main habitats and landforms are an extensive barrier of dunes, small islands of native forests, marshes and interior lagoons, and a variety of new habitats generated by human activities (periurban areas, exotic woods, and pasture and agriculture lands). The principal uses inside the reserve are cattle grazing on native grasslands, agriculture (soy, wheat), sport Wshing, nautical sports (windsurf, jet-sky, kite-surf, kayak), beach tourism, military practices and scientiWc research. The reserve consists of governmental domain areas (national, provincial and municipal), and private domain areas (mainly Welds for agriculture and livestock production). The governmental domain area is a protected area managed by the Buenos Aires Province (Mar Chiquita Provincial Reserve, 8,600 ha, which includes sand beaches, dunes and the lagoon) and a federal area for military practices (CELPA-National Air Force; 1,555 ha). The village within the reserve (Mar Chiquita village) has »130 ha, and the private Welds cover 16,200 ha (61% of the BR).

ScientiWc research and environmental management Mar del Plata University (situated in Mar del Plata city, 30 km to the south of PAMCBR) has been conducting for approximately 25 years a large part of their scientiWc research in the Reserve or its surroundings. All this information was put together in a book (Iribarne 2001), which included geological, climatic, biological and ecological characteristics of PAMCBR. In addition, from the publication date of the book researchers of the university had continued active research in this area, where they develop diverse projects leading to doctoral and graduate theses. A search across the web-searcher Scopus (www.scopus.com), using as reference Mar Chiquita and contiguous localities, records 117 publications in scientiWc journals. It provides a body of information probably without precedent for any other protected area of Argentina, even larger and older than Mar Chiquita (e.g., Iguazú National Park 43 publications, Nahuel Huapi National Park 71, Ñacuñán Biosphera Reserve 25, Samborombon Reserve 52). However, despite Mar Chiquita being a protected area, more than 95% of the publications generated for the reserve did not address a management question. The Argentinean scientiWc system assumes as a criteria to assess applications (i.e., for a scholarship or to promote in a position) basically by means of scientiWc publications in journals preferably included in the Science Citation Index. In this sense, the relationship between the results of the investigations published in journals of high scientiWc level and the application of these results to solve management questions, stays in the hands of investigators’ willingness which fulWll a role for which they were not speciWcally prepared, and/or for which they are not recognized, since they are evaluated by scientiWc publications, but not by time dedicated to environmental management. Consequently, this mass of information about the environment, fauna, Xora, and biological interactions has not been translated into a signiWcantly improvement of the environmental quality of the BR, a problem that seems to be common to other countries of the

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region (Karez et al. 1999). Good science does not always result in good decisions (Reid and Mace 2003), so we must give up the self-serving belief that an increase in our scientiWc knowledge by itself will always move us toward more eVective conservation (Ehrenfeld 2000). This diVerence between the knowledge generated by scientists and environmental management problems are an important limitation for the development of eVective politics of sustainable development in our region. In Austral and Neotropical America (ANA; from México to Argentina, including the Caribbean) there is a clear gap between the conservation work to be done and the professionals available to do it (Rodríguez et al. 2006). To reach a level of technical conservation capacity in ANA comparable to that existing in the United States, the number of conservation biology departments in ANA universities must increase by four to eight times, at an estimated cost of US$8–20 million over a few years (Rodríguez et al. 2006).

Sustainability concept BRs are designed to confront two of the biggest challenges that face the world: how to preserve the diversity of plants, animals and microorganisms that enable our biosphere to support natural healthy ecosystems and at the same time, to satisfy the material needs and desires of an increasing number of human beings; and how to make compatible the conservation of the biological resources with their sustainable use? The basic idea of sustainability is quite straightforward: a sustainable system is one which survives or persists (Costanza and Patten 1995). But there are three additional complicating questions: (1) What system or subsystems or characteristics of systems persist? (2) For how long? (3) When do we assess whether the system or subsystem or characteristic has persisted? Added to the diYculty of implementating environmentally sustainable development is the complexity posed by the multiple facets of the concept. Private Welds within the PAMCBR in particular (»60% of the surface of the BR including the water body), and in the entire region in general, are dedicated mainly to livestock production and agriculture. These productive activities are the principal foreign exchange earners in Argentina (Viglizzo et al 2002). The agriculture production in Argentina, and probably in the world, has no alternative to sustainable use within the times that these systems are managed. The high price of the commodities and the tax pressure dissuade the possibility from changing to productive systems with minor impact on the environment. The alternatives commonly outlined of sustainable development for productive lands such as ecotourism, the use of low impact technologies (e.g., organic agriculture) and the compensation for ecosystem services, do not seem to be feasible proposals in the context of current and future development of agriculture. Besides, it might be remarked that usual agricultural practices imply the complete replacement of native vegetation for croplands, so sustainable use of soil and nutrient can be expected only in this new scenery; but this process involves the local extinction of native fauna and Xora, which undermines sustainability in a wide sense. Any type of productive system that does not generate incomes in the short term should be compensated in some form. It is considered tangentially in the legislation of Buenos Aires Province (Argentina), where PAMCBR is located. It outlines that “Owners who hold on the reserves regime inside his properties, will be compensated by means of an exemption of the payment of the tax or by a reduction of it, and it includes besides an economic contribution in order to contribute to the maintenance, conditioning, etc. of the place declared reserve” (Law 10,907, article 8; Buenos Aires Province Legislation). This speciWc

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article has never been applied in the province. Since the legislation does not take prices of commodities into account, then tax compensation cannot compensate owners when prices are high. Other types of uses within the reserve related to recreational activities (sport Wshing, beach tourism, nautical activities) are not too incompatible with the environment, since they develop on protected provincial and/or public areas, so their management can be realized by variables not directly related with an economic view.

Final considerations In a country where the strategy for the conservation of nature seems to be to declare a protected area (national parks, province reserves) removing the people from the area or keeping only people with subsistence economies (Argentina National Law 22,351 referred to National Parks; Buenos Aires Province Law 10,907 referred to Protected Areas), the MAB program is an extremely interesting concept that seeks to establish areas of sustainable development that serve as multiplier examples for the rest of the region where they are located. In this sense the MAB program should compensate for any shortcomings that are generated by a BR, by generating realistic and modern proposals. MAB calls on patience and imagination to solve problems (Reservas de la Biosfera: jurisdicción, propiedad y dominio del suelo; http://www.ambiente.gov.ar), and does not Wt easily in the current context of economic development, where the management variables are cost and beneWt in the short term and where scientiWc research and environmental management lack of institutional linkages. Since solid institutions are consolidated with active governance, two big questions are who empowers the local stakeholders in a context of private properties with high prices of commodities?, and how can scientiWc results related with the environmentally sustainable development be put in a practical context without appropriate institutions? A proposal for the MAB program and national committees is that they should use their inXuence to persuade international organisms to subsidize productive activities that are recognized by local committees for developing environmentally sustainable production and/or by stimulating eco-labeling for products from biosphere reserves with sustainable management (e.g., cattle grazing under natural grasslands). Besides, it is clear that generation of information by itself is not enough to improve the sustainability of the environment. Thus it is necessary to support a program of sustainable use in the context of a BR for the governmental organisms concerned or to implement grants for researchers which are directly related with sustainable developments. These programs must be conscious that their eVective implementation is based on the eVective administration of each of the reserves. Nevertheless, the reality is that, at least in Argentina, even reserves as seemingly well organized as the PAMCBR, have not yet achieved any realistic sustainable development. BRs are not isolated entities, since they are the result of the interaction with the context. As a result, the implementation process of BRs in Argentina is not excepted from the eVects of process and state of the institutionalization of the environmental issue in the region (Daniele et al 1998). The National MAB committee should take an active role improving the dialog among stakeholders and the ways to make use of government facilities (e.g., legal, funds, communication with international organisms). DiVerent levels of decisions in the MAB program hierarchy should be aware that local communities are not prepared to look for solutions when environmental problems have global or country contexts, requiring a participation of higher levels of authority than the BR Committee.

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Acknowledgements I thank to JeV McNeely whose comments have greatly improved the manuscript. Conversations with Oscar Iribarne and María S. Bó contributed to clarify ideas previously to write the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata and CONICET.

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