The data generated by MapBiomas Perú warns about the accelerated dynamics of the changes that occurred between 1985 and 2021 in the natural coverage of the Peruvian territory, which have generated a loss of 3.9% of its natural vegetation. This has affected the country's ecosystems, its biodiversity, its ecosystem services, its functionality and connectivity. With a loss of 49.9% of extension in 37 years, the alarming retreat of glaciers stands out due to the effect of climate change and the black carbon caused by burning in the Amazon. The glaciers feed the springs of the country's large rivers, supplying water to millions of people.
Otro ecosistema muy impactado por actividades antrópicas es el de los bosques estacionalmente secos del norte del país. “Esta cobertura ha cambiado drásticamente y lo que más nos preocupa es que la estamos perdiendo de forma irreversible”, señala Renzo Piana, director ejecutivo del IBC. “Las pérdidas han sido enormes, prácticamente irreversibles y sin perspectivas de que esta tendencia se revierta. Los datos encienden las alarmas y dan un sentido de urgencia a la necesidad de una acción decisiva y contundente para estas coberturas naturales del Perú”, destaca Piana, al tiempo que enfatiza el impacto sobre la seguridad alimentaria de las poblaciones locales.
MapBiomas Perú es una nueva iniciativa liderada por el Instituto del Bien Común – IBC en coordinación con la Red MapBiomas y la RAISG (Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada), con la colaboración técnica del Ministerio del Ambiente (MINAM) y la Sala de Observaciones de la Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM). Los resultados de este estudio serán presentados en Lima este 3 de marzo a las 9:00 horas durante el evento titulado Perú: 37 años de cambios en un país megadiverso Colección 1.0 de Mapas Anuales de Cobertura y Uso del Suelo de Perú (1985 – 2021), con participación de expertos nacionales e internacionales. El evento tendrá lugar en el Hotel Costa del Sol de esta ciudad y será transmitido en vivo por el canal de YouTube de IBC.
Piana underlines the pioneering and novel nature of MapBiomas Peru: "This initiative provides invaluable information to understand the dynamics of the use of natural resources in the country, since it contains very complete information and for a very broad period of analysis that covers the entire Peruvian territory. ”.
For Sandra Ríos, IBC researcher and coordinator of MapBiomas Peru, “This first collection fills a great information gap in regions outside the Amazon area of the country. New categories of analysis have been added to those that IBC had been handling for the mapping of natural covers in the Amazon basin. The initiative analyzes forest formations of all kinds, scrublands, mangroves, glaciers, agricultural areas, urban areas, and mining,” explains Ríos.
Tasso Azevedo, General Coordinator of MapBiomas Network, highlights the strategic value of this mapping and analysis tool: "MapBiomas Peru contributes to monitoring with a broad vision, helping to build and propose more precise conservation strategies according to the types of natural coverage and the anthropic activities that exist in each biome”. Azevedo explains that this is the first, after Brazil, of a series of initiatives that will contribute to mapping the change in land use throughout South America: "We aim to replicate this year the enormous work done in Peru in other countries Amazonian, with our local partners, in order to map South America and understand the dynamics of changes in all this period of time for the different biomes, countries, regions”.
Peru: 37 years of changes in a megadiverse country
According to the study, in 1985, 59% of the Peruvian territory was covered by forests, 3.1% corresponding to dry forests in the north of the country and inter-Andean areas, and 55.9% to Amazonian forests. In that same year, 7.2% (around 9.3 million hectares) had anthropic areas such as pastures, crops, mining or urban areas. The analysis of the change in natural coverage reveals that anthropic areas reached 10.4% of the territory in 2021 (close to 13.5 million hectares). However, the magnitude of human intervention varies according to the biomes studied, being 7.8% for the Amazon biome, 11.4% for the Coastal Desert, 14% for the Equatorial Dry Forest and 15.2% for the Biome Andes. The departments that by 2021 have the lowest proportion of anthropic area within their territory are Moquegua and Tacna (1.9% and 2.7% respectively).
They also highlight the expansion of mining and infrastructure in the study period. The first went from 3,000 hectares to more than 119,000 hectares (3,763% growth), while the second went from 99,000 hectares to nearly 257,000 hectares (160% growth).
Accelerated transformation of forests
Se advierte una transformación acelerada de los bosques secos del norte del Perú. Se trata de una cobertura poco estudiada y que presenta muchos vacíos de información. Según la investigadora del IBC, Kathrin Hopfgartner “La información generada por MapBiomas Perú pone en evidencia mediante datos técnico-científicos la importancia de biomas como el Bosque Seco Ecuatorial, que contribuyen significativamente a la biodiversidad local y nacional. Al mismo tiempo, los datos nos advierten sobre los cambios en la cobertura natural provocados por diversas actividades antrópicas realizadas entre 1985 y 2021”. Para la investigadora, estas actividades ponen en riesgo el equilibrio natural de los ecosistemas al hacerlos más vulnerables al cambio climático, además de atentar contra la seguridad alimentaria de la población.
Regarding the analysis of forest cover, Andrea Bravo, also a researcher at the IBC, highlights that the Amazon was the biome that presented the greatest changes in the last 37 years, with a total loss of 2.6 million hectares (3.6% ) from its natural vegetation. And although the Equatorial Dry Forest biome has a much smaller extension (4.6 million hectares), in relative terms it presents the greatest loss (8.4%) of its natural vegetation.
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ABOUT THE MAPBIOMAS PERU PLATFORM
The MapBiomas Peru platform (http://peru.mapbiomas.org) is a tool that allows anyone with Internet access to understand the changes in land use throughout the Peruvian territory and the pressures on its natural coverage and ecosystems. The information generated is compatible for all biomes in the country and allows to know the status of 16 categories of analysis, called "classes", which include areas covered by forests, natural grasslands, mangroves, agriculture and rivers. The information is free and available for download.
In turn, it allows exploring the collection of annual maps, covering the period between 1985 and 2021, and identifying the changes in land cover and use in a location (national, departmental and district) and a given period (year, five-year period, decades, etc.). The tool also shows statistics in dynamic tables and graphs, with the changes in use in the period that the user requires and allows understanding the dynamics of changes inside and outside of an Indigenous Territory or Protected Area. The platform also allows exploring data related to pressure vectors on natural covers such as mining concessions, oil lots, roads and hydroelectric plants.