Robert Hofstede is a lecturer in biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. He is an expert on paramos, the high-altitude grasslands that store and naturally regulate water supplies in the northern Andes. Last year, Hofstede helped initiate a five-year, US$15 million project to find ways to reverse deteriorating hydrological conditions in the paramos, lakes and wetlands of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Financed by the World Bank’s Global Environmental Facility and known as the Andean Paramo Project, the initiative unites governments, non-governmental groups and such international bodies as Ramsar and the UN in research, capacity building and public education. In a recent interview with EcoAméricas correspondent Steven Ambrus in Bogotá, Hofstede says urban wetlands could play an important role in Latin America’s efforts to improve water management. He describes urban wetlands as close to the people and valuable in the regulation of water resources. [Log in to read more]

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