October 16, 2024
Meghan O’Toole
Camila Pizano honored among top 16 woman conservationists in Colombia
Assistant Professor of Biology Camila Pizano will be recognized for her biodiversity and conservation work at the COP16, the United Nations’ Biodiversity Conference, in Cali, Colombia on October 24.
COP16 environmental conference
COP16 refers to the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. With a theme of “Peace with Nature,” the COP16 will be held in Cali, Colombia, October 21 through November 1.
As part of the COP16, Unilever, the United Kingdom’s embassy in Colombia, and the Observatory for Women’s Equality of Universidad Icesi launched the initiative “16 women of the COP16.” The organizations pooled more than 50 women who work toward biodiversity conservation in Colombia and selected the 16 most-voted women for this international recognition. Pizano is one of the 16 women being honored for her conservation work.
Shining a light on tropical dry forests
Pizano's work as a conservationist centers on Colombia’s tropical dry forests. A tropical dry forest is a biome of closed canopy in tropical areas that have a long dry season followed by a season of heavy rainfall. Because of the varying seasons, Pizano explained, tropical dry forests tend to have more fertile soils and less pathogens and pests (like mosquitoes and diseases they transmit), making them more vulnerable to clear-cutting. Historically, humans have settled in the tropical dry forests at a more frequent rate than in the tropical rain forests.
“There is a historical relationship between humans and the tropical dry forest, and because of this, the dry forests have been heavily deforested,” Pizano explained. “In Colombia, more than 90 percent of the tropical dry forest has been destroyed. Of the 10 percent remaining, only 5 percent is under protection.”
Pizano worked on a book that compiled information and research about Colombia’s tropical dry forest, which has become one of the leading resources on this unique ecosystem. El Bosque Seco Tropical en Colombia, or The Tropical Dry Forest in Colombia, was published in 2014.
“One important thing we did with this book is help people see where the tropical dry forest is by mapping it out,” Pizano said. “Previously, if you have to build a road that would affects the forest, you couldn’t always see where the forest was on the government maps, which made conservation difficult. By mapping out the forest in this book, we brought awareness to where the forest was so people knew how to protect it. Now, because of this awareness, people have to compensate what they cut with reforestation of land equal to ten times the area they cleared.”
Educating through illustration
Pizano is also a scientific illustrator and designed the cover of the book. She is also working on a second book, Aves de Cali: Un Libro Ilustrado por los Estudiantes de la Universidad Icesi (Birds of Cali: A Book Illustrated by the students of Icesi University), that underscores the rich biodiversity of bird populations in Cali, Colombia. The book will be released on October 22, as part of the COP16.
Pizano taught scientific illustration at Universidad Icesi in Cali for seven years. As a scientific illustration instructor, Pizano taught students from a diverse array of majors about the importance of biodiversity.
“Part of the reason I got this prize is that my scientific illustration students were able to understand environmental issues and the importance of biodiversity by learning about the species around them in Cali,” Pizano said.
The new book includes the drawings of more than 60 students who illustrated birds in Pizano’s class.
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