From the 25 to the 27 of September SARAS2 Institute hosted a meeting of the Project “Spatial Planning for Protected areas in Response to Climate change” (SPARC).

Pablo Marquet (from the renowned Catholic University of Chile) organized this activity, with the support of SARAS Institute, to unite specialists in subjects of biodiversity, protected areas and climate change from: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Spain, United States, Portugal, and Uruguay.

The SPARC project, was economically funded by the Global Environment Facility– GEF, of the United Nations Development Programme, and arose for the necessity to improve the systems of protected areas in tropical regions (Neotropics, Africa and Asia). The objective is to build scenarios in the three regions, to better understand the threats derived from climate change and the opportunities of adaptation in protected areas. At the same time, this project will try to maximize the work in networks of the experts, seeking to generate information on the movements of key species to conserve from a regional perspective.

The contributions of SPARC will allow to establish the bases for the elaboration of policies for the planning and management of protected areas, with the purpose of increasing the adaptive capacity and resilience of the ecosystems in the selected regions.