The Colombian Caribbean, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, is facing great challenges in biodiversity conservation due to accelerated ecosystem transformations and the territorial planning required for peacemaking. We conducted a systematic review of 470 documents published between 1990 and 2015 to evaluate the progress of biodiversity and ecosystem services knowledge, identify biases, and define the priorities for research. Specifically, we describe the main characteristics of biodiversity studies, including the geographic distribution and the ecosystem services studied. We found limited participation by the social and interdisciplinary sciences. Researchers have focused mainly on taxonomic groups such as insects, birds, and mammals, ecosystems such as the tropical dry forest and regulating services. Some geographic areas have very few studies, corresponding to places affected by armed conflict. We propose that it is necessary to focus on plant and microorganism studies and those at the genetic and landscape level, as well as on less studied ecosystems such as urban and agro-ecosystems and places involved in armed conflict that have not been studied. We conclude by exposing insights to enhance some of the biases found and face the challenges: in the short term, the establishment of protected areas to guarantee the supply of ecosystem services for human well-being, in the middle term, an integrated territorial planning, and in the long term, the promotion of the social-ecological systems perspective. Ecosystem services concept reveals the link between biodiversity and human well-being and thus could have the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation and peace construction in the Caribbean.

Urban growth is one of the major sustainability challenges due to its regional and planetary impacts. In the Colombian Caribbean, one of the most biodiverse places in the world, the Barranquilla Metropolitan Area (BMA) is the main urban agglomeration that has driven landscape transformation. We performed a historical analysis of human–nature relationships in the BMA using a social–ecological approach and the adaptive cycle metaphor to identify the main drivers of change and to point out emergent lessons for sustainability transition. Based on the analysis of existing literature, time series data and ecosystem distribution changes through time, we found that the natural capital has been degraded, human–social capital has had periods of crisis and recovery, while physical–financial capital has increased. The BMA is currently in a highly vulnerable situation and faces great challenges to be sustainable. We discuss the system´s possible future paths: a new collapse due to natural capital depletion, stagnation in a very vulnerable state, or a reorganization. We argue that viewing and managing the BMA as a social–ecological system would contribute to move forward in a sustainable direction.

Rapid urbanization trends and urban lifestyles challenge urban populations to recognize ecosystems’ contributions to their well-being, and urban planners to integrate nature at the core of urban development. This study assesses the relationships between ecosystems and people in the rapidly expanding Barranquilla Metropolitan Area (BMA) and extracts lessons for its planning as a BiodiverCity. Using 22 interviews and 400 face-to-face surveys we evaluated: 1) the perception of positive and negative contributions of specific types of ecosystems to human well-being (HWB); 2) the importance and vulnerability of multiple ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (EdS); and 3) the relationships between ES, EdS and relational values (RV), and the influence of socioeconomic factors in providing HWB, using a Structural Equation Model (SEM). Open-ended answers in the survey showed that rural and certain natural ecosystems, such as wetlands, mangroves and tropical dry forest were the least valued ecosystems and included some EdS. In contrast, urban and peri-urban ecosystems, namely the river, beaches, crops, urban green, and backyards, were the most valued. Overall, regulating ES were perceived as critical, as well as important and vulnerable. The results of the SEM model indicate that HWB is not only explained by socioeconomic factors such as income and education, but also by ES. We argue that the necessary sustainable socio-economic development of the BMA should be coupled with an urban planning that integrates ES and their contributions to HWB.