Washington, D.C.—A unique, computerized atlas now available on CD-ROM is giving
policy makers in Latin America and the Caribbean a powerful new way to help reverse
alarming trends in the region's environmental management.The Spanish-language
"Atlas of Environmental and Sustainability Indicators for Latin America and the
Caribbean"—or "Atlas CD" for short—is the region's first
computerized atlas on this subject. It is designed for people who monitor the environment
and set related policies. Unlike conventional sources of environmental data, Atlas CD
allows them to select different combinations of indicators and view these on a single map.
"The power of this tool lies in its ability to reveal gaps in our understanding of
environmental problems and to point toward actions that could solve them," says
Manuel Winograd, architect of the computerized atlas and environmental scientist at the
Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
"It's common knowledge that deforestation is at the top of tropical America's
environmental agenda. But how many people realize that almost half of this deforestation
is happening in dry tropical forests?" asks Winograd. The rainforests receive far
more public attention, because they contain more plant species and because their
destruction may contribute more to global warming. But the dry forests provide habitats
for a larger number of mammal species. And being closer to food-producing areas, they are
under far greater human pressure.
Only 21 percent of tropical America's dry forest remains, compared to 88 percent of the
rainforest still in natural vegetation. Yet, a larger share of the rainforest has been set
aside in biodiversity reserves, notes Winograd. To save what little remains of the dry
forest, policy makers urgently need to rethink decisions about reserves, road building,
development projects, and other actions that will determine the fate of this resource.
Atlas CD will help them do that.
"A computerized atlas can't create the political will needed to reverse
environmental degradation," says Winograd. "But it can give decision makers the
best information available to help them understand current trends and predict the future
impact of new measures and projects. Ignorance will no longer be an excuse for inadequate
environmental policies in tropical America."
What’s innovative about Atlas CD, says Winograd, is not the nature of the
information it contains. Rather, it's the interface that allows users to easily pull
together and visually compare many kinds of data from a variety of reputable but separate
sources. These sources include CIAT itself, the European Space Agency, the U.S. National
Aeronautic and Space Agency (NASA), the Global Resource Information Database of the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the U.S. Geological Survey, the World Resources
Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, the World Bank, and the World Conservation Monitoring
Center.
Atlas CD contains more than 200 indicators on topics such as agriculture, biodiversity,
fresh water resources, and social development.
The atlas is useful to people working at any of various levels—international,
regional, national, or subnational. However, it is aimed mainly at national ministries of
the environment, agriculture, natural resources, and planning. State and provincial
governments, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), universities and private companies, as
well as organizations like the World Bank and regional development banks, will also find
it useful.
UNEP provided about 80% of the funding for the development of Atlas CD. In a second
phase, beginning this year, the World Bank and UNEP will provide CIAT with further funding
to design a version of the atlas focusing on Central America.
The government of Colombia, which created a separate national ministry of the
environment 4 years ago, has shown keen interest in Atlas CD. At its request, CIAT has
produced a Colombian version, also on CD-ROM.
"At the moment, Colombia’s environmental policy is very general," says
Ricardo Carrillo, head of the environmental policy unit within Colombia’s national
planning department. The new computerized atlas, he says, will help planners to model
specific environmental policies, and that will increase the beneficial impact of
government interventions.
The Atlas of Environmental and Sustainability Indicators for Latin America and the
Caribbean is available from CIAT for US$75, plus $5 for shipping. The language of the
on-screen user interface is Spanish; however, the hard-copy user guide is in both Spanish
and English.
CIAT is a nonprofit, nongovernment research organization dedicated to alleviating
hunger and poverty and to protecting natural resources in the tropics. It is one of 16
international centers sponsored by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR), an association of nations and international agencies that funds research
for development.
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