Zonas núcleo en la Reserva de Biósfera Yasuní: conectividad, efecto de borde e implicaciones sobre los pueblos no contactados.

Abstract

More than half a century, a new era for the Ecuadorian people began in its eastern region, the oil extractives’ era. This era despite being beneficial for the country denotes a high level of human disturbance on the ecosystem. Those places that are still free of disturbance are known as last of the wild. This study was carried out for the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve, the most biodiverse place in the world, home to uncontacted tribes and presents a large amount of proven oil reserves. Supported by the geographic information system software, ArcGIS. Through satellite remote sensing and information from freely accessible geoportals, using geoprocessing tools. Three categories of affectation were detected, corresponding to oil facilities and installations, roads and source of human disturbance. The edge effect was applied to detect the area of direct and indirect influence. Discarding all affected areas and using the navigability of the rivers in the Amazon region as a key factor. Focused, robust and reliable maps of the connected wild areas are generated. A total of 135 core zone patches are identified in the YBR, covering about 46% of the total area of the biosphere. Meanwhile, the impact represents 10% of the total area. The study also reflects the impact on uncontacted tribes, with a territorial impact of up to 26% in the worst case. However, all is not lost, as areas free of disturbance have been detected.