On Caatinga Day, IMA warns of the importance of preserving the biome

Caatinga Day, celebrated this Sunday (28), is the opportune moment to reinforce the importance of preserving this important biome. Despite the richness and biodiversity that characterize it, the Caatinga faces challenges arising from climate change, such as more intense drought and desertification processes. In this context, the Environmental Institute of the State of Alagoas (IMA/AL) highlights the urgency of protecting and preserving the different ecosystems of this biome, which is so essential to environmental sustainability and the well-being of local communities.

In line with this concern, the United Nations (UN) highlights, for Environment Day 2024, the need for “Land restoration, desertification and drought resilience”. This theme highlights the global relevance of preserving environments such as the Caatinga.

Resilience

When addressing resilience, one of the main challenges posed by climate change is the reduction in response time for environments to recover after disturbances. A worrying factor, given that the biodiversity of the Caatinga has several endemic species, that is, that only inhabit regions where the biome occurs. The shorter time to adjust to disturbances may reduce the range of suitability of these species, which may therefore be at risk of extinction.

Gabriela Cota, environmental climate advisor at IMA, explains that recovering ideal environmental conditions for the occurrence and development of species after extreme climate events can be a slow process, especially in areas that are already vulnerable, such as the Caatinga. This scenario of instability is exacerbated by the increasing frequency and intensity of these events, which make it difficult for species and other natural elements to adjust to the new environmental reality.

“Since this environment has a limited response time to test and perpetuate its strategies in the face of the new climate challenge imposed, resilience (the ability to recover in the face of environmental or human-caused disturbances) is also weakened. Thus, the chances of observing an increase in areas affected by desertification, for example, become higher, which favors the vulnerability that these environments will have to deal with disturbances, or extreme climatic events, that follow”, describes Cota.

Although the Caatinga is closely associated with the characteristics of a semi-arid climate, as it is a dry environment with low levels of precipitation, Gabriela reinforces that the extreme weather events that devastate the Caatinga in Alagoas are not just related to drought. An example of this was tornado in the municipality of Estrela de Alagoas, which is located in a portion of Caatinga, at the end of February 2024.

“Based on forecasts of above-average rainfall for the second half of 2024 in the Northeast, due to the arrival of La Niña, and projections by AdaptaBrasil (a platform promoted by the Ministry of Science and Technology) for risks of impact in geohydrological disasters involving floods, floods and floods for several municipalities covered by the Alagoas Caatinga, it is clear that what constitutes “climate change” is really the severity of climatic events, be they torrential rains, prolonged droughts or even rare tornadoes”, explains Cota.

IMA shares

The Environmental Institute has played a fundamental role in implementing conservation and preservation policies and actions, including the initiation of activities related to the State Program for Payment for Environmental Services (PROPSA). Furthermore, the creation of Conservation Units in the Caatinga has contributed both to reducing predatory human actions in these Alagoas ecosystems, and to the spread of information and environmental education about this very important part of Alagoas.

In this sense, since 2015, the state of Alagoas has advanced by 200% in the creation of Private Natural Heritage Reserves (RPPNs), Conservation Units whose perpetual nature requires continuous attention for their maintenance, thus being the object of the first financial incentive notice of Payment for Environmental Services (PSA) underway in the state, having gone through a Public Consultation process and will soon be open for registration.

Furthermore, Caatinga Week promoted by IMA, which took place in the municipalities of Delmiro Gouveia and Água Branca, featured several lectures focusing on the biome and its preservation, in addition to several awareness and knowledge actions about this unique and biodiverse biome.