DSD inventory of maps

Since the mid-1950s, the Department of Sustainable Development (DSD) of the Organization of American States (OAS) has worked with member countries to address natural resource management, environmental protection and risk reduction in natural disasters.   As baseline information, geological, soil, land use, and vegetative cover surveys were prepared by DSD for the member States.  Today, the DSD is custodian to some 1,600 maps that provide invaluable historical information regarding hydrological characteristics, average rates of precipitation and river discharge rates, indigenous forest type and coverage, and other data which has various applications, including in helping countries model climate change impacts and climate adaptation plans, as well as reforestation and land-use planning.  (An inventory of maps held by the DSD can be accessed by clicking here.)

The UN Climate meeting in Bali highlights the importance of historical records so that developing countries could calculate, for example, their average forest cover loss over time, in order to work out potential benefits from avoided deforestation.  One action plan calls for compensation for reduced greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and protection of standing forests. More...

Payment for Ecological Services

To respond to trade-related capacity building development needs in the area of environmental management, the DSD is working towards improving market-based approaches to the conservation of biological diversity, through the support of Payment for Ecological Service Payments (PES).    More..