The Ecopetrol Group announced that it will allocate five new areas for Ecoreserves in the municipalities of Piedecuesta (Santander); Tauramena and Aguazul (Casanare); and Puerto Boyacá and Páez (Boyacá), adding a total of 498 hectares dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity in these regions where it is present.
With the inclusion of these new areas, the Ecopetrol Group now has 20 Ecoreserves in eight departments of the country, covering approximately 15,500 hectares. These areas have been voluntarily designated for the preservation of biodiversity and the strengthening of nature.
The Ecoreserves aim to study, protect and conserve strategic ecosystems in Colombia, in addition to providing shelter and food to more than 2,400 species of flora and fauna identified through knowledge expeditions carried out in collaboration with the Humboldt Institute.
These spaces can also become platforms for community participation, to promote knowledge about biodiversity in Colombia. The initiative takes on special relevance in the year in which Cali will host the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP 16) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the most important biodiversity summit in the world.
Since 2021, thanks to the joint work of Ecopetrol and the Humboldt Institute, 20 strategic ecosystems have been identified in the Ecoreserves, including the tropical dry forest, vulnerable to fires; 23 threatened species, such as the tapir from the Orinoquía highlands; and 121 species endemic to Colombia, such as the Zocay monkey, which lives at the junction of the plain and the Amazon.
