1. DETERMINING CRITICAL MANAGEMENT AREAS IN NATURAL PARKS METHODOLOGY lj_garcia@yahoo.com gbravo@uniandes.edu.co Computer Science, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

2. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co2 ¿HOW TO HANDLE WITH PROBLEMS INTO A NATURAL PARK? This methodology helps you to gather data, alphanumeric and geographic, in order to identify critical management areas in your park. It helps you to know what and where problems are and to handle with them, giving you information to make better decisions

3. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co3 Methodology Flow

4. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co4 Environment Knowledge Identify management and preservation problems Identify and associate variables related with each problem Tips to identify variables: Think about kind of variables (General –roads, topography, etc.-, vegetation, natural disasters, social and economic situation and public order)

5. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co5 Problems Ranking and Variables Selection Recognize more relevant problems Select variables related with those problems Check selected variables are suitable for analysis Is there enough, current, historical and accurate information? Is there geographic information about problems and variables? Can it be represented as polygons?

6. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co6 Variables Ranking Detect variables determining problems Find variables acting as catalysts Distinguish variables giving general information

7. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co7 Variables Critical Level – Qualitative Model Define when level is high, medium or low for each determinant variable

8. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co8 Variables Overlapping Determine what happens when 2 or more variables are at same time and at same place Which variable gets the situation worse? Which one attenuate problems? What is the effect of catalyst variables?

9. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co9 2 Variables Overlay Model and Generalization Generalization: Overlaying 3 variables is the result between 1 variable and 2 variables overlaid; overlaying 4 variables is the result between 2 variables overlaid and other 2 variables overlaid and so.

10. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co10 Overview (1) Step 1: 2 Determinant variables

11. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co11 Overview (2) Step 2: Catalyst Step 3: Overlay

12. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co12 Conclusions This methodology is very helpful to handle problems related with management and preservation in natural parks. Problem, variable and overlaying tables represent park and environment knowledge and are very meaningful to make better decisions. It is also useful to share and delegate responsibilities. Methodology can be used as a simulation tool, changing variables roles. In that way, it is possible to find out what happens when catalyst, determinant and informative variables change. It is still necessary to develop a tool which implements this methodology and to handle issues such as compatibilities among coverages -point, line and polygons- and to support overlaying variable model.

13. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co13 Bibliography [Dia96] Díaz, Liliana; Lastra, Carolina. Siezcha, Sistema de Información Espacial para la Determinación de Zonas Críticas de Manejo en el Parque Nacional Natural Chingaza. Tesis, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. 1996 [Con97] Conesa Fernández, Vicente. Guía Metodológica para la evaluación del impacto ambiental. 3era edición, impresión del 2000. Ediciones Mundi – Prensa, Madrid, España. 1997

14. Determining Critical Management Area s in Natural Parks lj_garcia@yahoo.com, gbravo@uniandes.edu.co14 Acknowledgments Authors of this job want to acknowledge to Carolina Lastra and Liliana Díaz for their previous job in this area, Siezcha, and to Carlos Lora who helped with his knowledge as a Chingaza Natural National Park's Chief, he gave us valuable information to develop this methodology. Finally we want to thank to Adriana Forero and Ezana Habte, teachers of the Foreign Language Department at Universidad de la Sabana, who help in the translation of this paper.