Building a socio‐ecological monitoring platform for the comprehensive management of tropical dry forests

Thousands of permanent plots have been established across the tropics with the purpose of monitoring tree communities. Research outcomes from these platforms, however, have been mainly directed toward the academic community, and their contribution to society has been limited so far. Here, we show how generating robust data on biodiversity has supported decision making in Colombian tropical dry forests (TDF), where less than 8% of their original cover remains. As a first step to build a national dialogue around the critical status of this ecosystem, a national collaborative network on TDF research and monitoring was born in 2014, the Red de Investigacion y Monitoreo del Bosque Seco Tropical en Colombia (Red BST‐Col). Our main goal is to generate scientifically sound information that feeds into the comprehensive management of this ecosystem. To do so, a set of biodiversity monitoring platforms has been established across the country, which have already served to answer socio‐ecological questions related with deforestation drivers, citizen science, or the valuation of ecosystem services. Overall, this research agenda has nurtured the four lines that underpin the Program for the comprehensive management of dry forests in Colombia (knowledge management, preservation, restoration, and sustainable use), formulated by the Humboldt Institute, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Ministry of Environment in 2019. Many challenges are ahead, however, for a complex territory where multiple social actors and productive sectors coexist. The ultimate goal is to integrate all the dimensions of biodiversity to achieve a synthetic understanding of the functioning of the most endangered ecosystem in Colombia, and its relationship with local communities' wellbeing.