Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity

The Uruguayan coast has an area of 670 km and includes the eastern coast of the Río de la Plata, and the coast of the Atlantic Ocean [ ] 232 The grassland alliance in natural land management and conservation projects Founded by Birdlife International and its partners in Uruguay, Argenti- na, Brazil and Paraguay, the Alianza del Pastizal is a regional initiative that promotes the conservation of natural pastures and their biodiver- sity in the Southern Cone of South America. In Uruguay, the Alliance has an increasing number of rural es- tablishments and members commit- ted to the conservation and sustaina- ble management of high proportions of the natural land contained in their properties. There are several examples of Al- liance member establishments that, with the support of national organ- izations, have implemented sustain- able pasture management practices. There are also links with the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisher- ies (MGAP); the National Directorate of the Environment; and the National System of Protected Areas. Within the framework of a cooper- ation agreement between the Respon- sible Production Project of MGAP and Aves Uruguay — representative of the Pastizal Alliance in Uruguay — seven property projects of integrated management of natural resources were implemented between 2010 and 2011. A comprehensive strategy was proposed to promote production and conservation in all properties of the group that included components for: • Improving the management of natural pastures (systematizing grazing modules, defining opti- mum occupation and rest times and progressing over areas of natu- ral field that were not subdivided) • Providing habitat for birds that use medium and high grassland (strategy to guarantee the coexist- ence of different grass heights in each grazing module, instead of the predominance of short and thin carpets) • Improving water quality and distribution for animals (construc- tion and or repair of cut-offs, all of which were fenced and excluded from grazing, generating better quality water supplies for animals, and more developed pastures, which are specific habitats for cer- tain species of fauna) • Providing shade and shelter for the animals (important silvopastoral proposals, with different types of tree arrangements, but always thinking about livestock and opti- mizing the use of forage resources) • Promoting the knowledge of producers about biodiversity at the flora and fauna level. U ruguay is located in South America. It has its coasts on the Atlantic Ocean and the Río de la Plata and has a territorial surface of 176,215 km 2 and 120,684 km 2 of territorial sea. It borders the Federative Republic of Brazil to the north, north-east and east, and with the Argentine Republic to the west and north-west. Its climate is temperate, and the rains are usually abundant, with an average annual precipitation of 1,300mm, although there are usually prolonged periods of drought. There are a wide variety of soil types and landforms with an extensive hydrographic network, characterized by six main basins. The population is 3.29 million, concentrated mainly in the capital and metropolitan area. Villa Serrana, Lavalleja, Uruguay Nando.uy on flickr Uruguay