Proceedings of the Workshop - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Today the hacienda has a lease contract with Madeflex S.A. (a wood production
company) which dates January 2000 and has a legal bind of agreement of 13 years.
This gives the University a framework of 2 years for preparing new activities and
research projects that are going to take place in the hacienda (UdeA 2002).
The predominant ecosystem in this region is tropical dry forest (TDF) within an
area, which has a monomodal regime and an average precipitation of 1511 mm/year,
an average temperature of 28 °C, and an evaporation average of 1754 mm mm/year
(Marulanda, et al. 2003). There are many definitions of what constitutes a TDF, one of
the main characteristics of this ecosystem is water stress presented by a pronounced
dry season with little or no precipitation (Mendoza 1999), having plant formations which
are featured between 0 – 1000 m above sea level, presenting an average annual
temperature higher than 17 ° C, with annual precipitation levels between 600 and 1800
mm, and two dry periods per year, usually one of them long and the other one short
(Murphy & Lugo 1986).
When referring to deforestation in Latin America and the Caribbean, the focus is
usually in areas of tropical and subtropical rainforests, forgetting that the losses can be
of equal or greater magnitude in the TDF (Miles, et al. 2006). The dry forests have
received much less attention regarding scientific and conservation supervision
compared to rain forests (Prance, 2006), but indeed, many authors refer to this
ecosystem, as one of the most threatened in the Neotropics (Linares & Fandino 2009).
In Latin America, approximately 66% of TDFs have been destroyed (Quesada, et
al. 2009) and about 97% of the TDFs are threatened by destruction (Rangel, 2009).
Despite their high levels of endemism and diversity of species, TDFs are poorly
protected (Pennington, et al. 2006). It is estimated that area of dry sub-humid tropical
forests amounted to 80000 km 2 in 1950, and today only to 1200 km 2 , 1.5% of its
original extent, constituting the most heavily degraded biome in Colombia (Etter 1993;
Echeverry & Rodriguez 2006; Rangel 2009). Public academic institutions in countries
like Colombia do not have the possibility to invest in the development of projects for
human communities, such as this one. Within this framework, the restoration of a TDF
is a critical concern, and a very pertinent line of work and research.
The University is now interested in supporting projects that aim for biodiversity
conservation in its farms, with environmental and social impacts for communities
articulated with the land. In this context, the hacienda San Sebastian is a perfect
setting for the development of a restoration of this type in this TDF ecosystem. This is
the reason why this multipurpose-program intends to propose a protocol for forest
restoration, conservation, and sustainable use of the biodiversity of the TDF that can
be transferred and applied in other places in Colombia with similar environmental and
social conditions.
2. Material & Methods
2.1. Study area location
The project will be located in the municipalities of San Sebastián, San Zenon,
Santana and Pijiño del Carmen in south of the Department of Magdalena 74° 21´ W
and 9° 15´ N (figure 1), on the right bank of the Magdalena River, about thirty minutes
from the city of Mompóx and in total includes some 4,400 hectares. The land is
composed of three farms that were donated to the university in the mid-nineties and
are called: Los Álamos, Terranova y Nueva Esperanza that are subdivided into El
Porvenir, El Enredo, Villa Cata, La Infancia, El Paujil, Guineo Abajo, Sal si puedes, El
96 o Vuelta de los terneros.
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