JOURNAL NEOTROPICAL BIODIVERSITY

Abstract

I am pleased to introduce the second number of Neotropical Biodiversity, a journal created with the aim to disseminate results on biological and environmental research conducted in the tropics of the Americas. Since its beginnings, we envisioned that this journal should not only be a simple compilation of scientific contributions, but also a mechanism to promote social transformation, task that we consider unavoidable. It is our desire to make science and technology a useful tool to solve the problems of our people and to integrate them to the scientific and technological process. We believe this is the only way to succeed in our mission to promote investigation and education.

Is for this reason that this journal, its researchers and in particular the UTCH, as the editorial house of Biodiversidad Neotropical, put at the service of the entire community this journal in a free access format. We guarantee the information contained in the following pages is liable, appropriate, understandable, and product of research of great quality. It is also our intention to promote a professional, rigorous scientific dialogue among investigators in the region, as well as that informing the community about technological and scientific advances. This interaction will make possible that the herein published scientific innovations ultimately result in the improvement and implementation of

actions that will contribute to wellbeing and better life quality for our societies.

This second number is also a contribution to the commemoration of 2011 as the international Year of the Forest, declared by the United Nations (UN), which pointed out on the importance of world forested areas to human sustainability, highlighting the need of better and more adequate forest management in order to stop deforestation and to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

At first place we present the paper «Análisis so- bre el marco jurídico que regula el aprovechamiento forestal en Colombia», a contribution which inform the general audience about the current legal regulation that should be applied in every process that involves environmental risk for forested areas.

The rest of the papers contained in this number present important results in the areas of agroforestry, limnology, zoology and bacteriology.

We hope to continue with our editorial mission for many generations, and that the content of this journal will contribute in an effective way in the decision making process, contributing in this way to the preservation of the biological diversity contained in the different ecosystems of the Neotropics.