Goals
Goal 1 - Digitalization and integration of herbarium collections of Santa Catarina; structure and build a data base of available information in the herbaria of Santa Catarina.
Justification
The Santa Catarina herbaria based on surveys since the 1950’s, are able to identify the species, number of collections, indications of endemism, anthropogenic pressure and area of occurrence of species in Santa Catarina, subsidizing the preparation of lists of endangered species, as well as those already extinct. Making a list of endangered species in Santa Catarina is taking over the bases for a conservation policy for the State and, at the same time, represents a major step in establishing measures for the rational use and sustainable development of forest resources.
Goal 2 - Inventory and analysis of species composition, horizontal and vertical structure of the forest remnants of Santa Catarina State in 520 sample plots, as well as collecting and identifying all forms of life of vascular plants of those remaining areas.
Responsible: Blumenau Regional University
Justification
The definition of the parameters of a forest ecosystem is possible by conducting the forest inventory, which seeks qualitative and quantitative information of existing forest resource in a defined area, at local and regional or even national. The Floristic and Forest Inventory of Santa Catarina does not follow a methodology of traditional forest inventories, since only part of the diversity of vascular plants of Santa Catarina is represented by tree species. The Floristic and Forest Inventory aims to survey the diversity of trees, shrubs, herbs and vascular epiphytes in forest remnants in the state, as a function of focusing on species of flora threat of extinction.
- Methodology
Goal 3 - Assessment of genetic diversity of populations of Araucaria angustifolia, Dicksonia sellowiana, Ocotea porosa and other endangered species.
Responsible: Federal University of Santa Catarina.
Justification
The biodiversity characterization can’t be only taxonomic and ecologic. For some species, the genetic characterization is fundamental to diagnose their ability to survive in the future, especially those that currently have been included in the categories of endangered species such as Araucaria angustifolia, for example. This characterization appears to be more appropriate to establish conservation and/or management strategies of natural populations in plants, since they allow more realistic projections of events in space and time. This way, the characterization of aspects of genetic diversity in natural populations of potentially endangered species, besides identifying with efficiency the situation of populations of these species, brings important foundation to define the strategies/actions towards the protection of these populations and reversal of the risk of extinction.
Goal 4 - Identification of the most important species in terms of socioeconomic and cultural perspective, their concurrent and potential uses; implementation of pilot interviews with the farmers who live near the plots sampled by field inventory.
Responsible: Department of Agriculture
Justification
The economic use of forest resources involves exploration and use of a large number of species, in most cases, for non-timber products. Beyond the five species of economic interest on the list of endangered species in Santa Catarina (Araucaria angustifolia, Dicksonia sellowiana, Ocotea catharinensis, Ocotea porosa and Ocotea odorifera), according to IBAMA 37-N, of 03/04/1992, a significant number of other native species and products are regularly exploited for commercial purposes, through the use of flowers, seeds, roots, leaves, bark or the stem itself.
From the point-of-view of economic agents and society as a whole, advances in scientific knowledge have turned even more compatible the utilization of renewable resources with conservation. On the other hand, under certain conditions and public policies of appropriate support, sustainably forest management, without resulting in genetic erosion of tree populations, is believed to be economically viable.
The knowledge of socioeconomic conditions of using a certain species, along with the environmental characteristics, can serve as a parameter to establish the main areas and species to receive investments on their recovery and restoration or for the improvement of management systems in question.
In other words, the type of intervention and the restoration priority of a forest system, with endangered species, certainly should be separate for areas with high interest and economic and social pressure on the species, when compared with areas where species may be endangered because they were taken almost to exhaustion by an indirect interest (for instance, the suppression to formation of crops or pasture).
Goal 5 - Elaboration and assembly of a Georeferenced Information System with a data base containing the necessary information for the analysis of coverage and land use in state of Santa Catarina, and the main information gathered and worked through the inventory, available online.
Access here SIGEO (Geographic Information System for Natural Resources)
Responsible: Epagri/CIRAM
