Recomendaciones para la conservación de los estuarios y restauración de los manglares de Centroamérica y Sudamérica

The document argues that estuaries and mangroves in Central and South America are critical for biodiversity, climate regulation, and coastal protection, but face threats from climate change, pollution, and urbanization. It proposes a comprehensive framework for sustainable management, emphasizing the need for scientific diplomacy, inclusive governance, and community participation. The report highlights the role of 'blue carbon' in national climate strategies and provides case studies from the Gulf of Nicoya in Costa Rica and the Coiba Archipelago in Panama to illustrate successful sustainable management and the potential for pristine sites to serve as regional health benchmarks.

• Estuaries and mangroves are essential for climate mitigation as they capture 'blue carbon' (biological carbon captured from blue oceans), making their conservation and restoration a priority for national climate strategies.
• These ecosystems face significant threats from climate change, land-use changes, pollution (including microplastics, pesticides, and heavy metals), invasive species, habitat degradation, and industrial pressures.
• There is a lack of specific scientific data on estuaries in Central America and the Caribbean compared to temperate estuaries in Europe, North America, and parts of South America.
• The Gulf of Nicoya in Costa Rica is a highly productive tropical estuary and a primary fishing center, though some mangrove systems are degraded by shrimp farms, salt pans, and logging; restoration efforts there have successfully integrated a gender perspective through women's groups.
• The Coiba Archipelago in Panama contains some of the best-preserved mangroves in Central America, including the rare 'mangle piñuelo', and is proposed as a model site to establish health benchmarks and monitoring methodologies for other tropical estuaries in the region.
• Effective conservation requires 'scientific diplomacy', which involves collaboration between scientists, government officials, and private sectors to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and public policy implementation.
• Policy recommendations include implementing biodiversity monitoring, managing water flows (fresh and salt water balance), reducing land-based pollution, and utilizing marine spatial planning and economic valuation of ecosystem services.

APA

Díaz-Ferguson, E., Echeverria-King, L. F., Pantović, B., Segovia, J., Aranguren, Y., Brugnoli, E., Muniz, P., Weiler, A., de Gracia, E. F., Ramírez, Á. M., Lasso, E., Sánchez-Gallego, J., Urriola-Garcia, K., Ana, R. S., Zapata, S., da Cruz, A. C., Fábrega, A. V., Alarcón-López, C., & Ohira, M. (2024). Recomendaciones para la conservación de los estuarios y restauración de los manglares de Centroamérica y Sudamérica. Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. https://iai.int/administrador/assets/images/ckfinder/files/Estuarios_IAI_SP_2024.pdf

Chicago

Díaz-Ferguson, Edgardo, Luisa F. Echeverria-King, Branislav Pantović, Johanna Segovia, Yani Aranguren, Ernesto Brugnoli, Pablo Muniz, et al. Recomendaciones para la conservación de los estuarios y restauración de los manglares de Centroamérica y Sudamérica. Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, 2024. https://iai.int/administrador/assets/images/ckfinder/files/Estuarios_IAI_SP_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Díaz-Ferguson |first1=Edgardo |last2=Echeverria-King |first2=Luisa F. |last3=Pantović |first3=Branislav |last4=Segovia |first4=Johanna |last5=Aranguren |first5=Yani |last6=Brugnoli |first6=Ernesto |last7=Muniz |first7=Pablo |last8=Weiler |first8=Andrea |last9=de Gracia |first9=Eric Flores |display-authors=etal |title=Recomendaciones para la conservación de los estuarios y restauración de los manglares de Centroamérica y Sudamérica |publisher=Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research |date=2024 |url=https://iai.int/administrador/assets/images/ckfinder/files/Estuarios_IAI_SP_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dazferguson2024recomendaciones, author = {Díaz-Ferguson, Edgardo and Echeverria-King, Luisa F. and Pantović, Branislav and Segovia, Johanna and Aranguren, Yani and Brugnoli, Ernesto and Muniz, Pablo and Weiler, Andrea and de Gracia, Eric Flores and Ramírez, Álvaro Morales and Lasso, Eloisa and Sánchez-Gallego, Joel and Urriola-Garcia, Karly and Ana, Rodrigo Sant and Zapata, Sofía and da Cruz, Andrea Cancela and Fábrega, Anabella Vásquez and Alarcón-López, Claudia and Ohira, Marcella}, title = {{Recomendaciones para la conservación de los estuarios y restauración de los manglares de Centroamérica y Sudamérica}}, institution = {Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}, year = {2024}, url = {https://iai.int/administrador/assets/images/ckfinder/files/Estuarios_IAI_SP_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }