Urban Planning instruments as biodiversity promoters in cities

Resumen

Urban Biodiversity subject was included in academic discussions of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) from 2006. This article highlights its conceptual evolution in international meetings, which bring together governmental, civil society and academia; and highlights the concept of environmental biodiversity services for cities functioning and initiatives to create urban biodiversity indexes (UBI), such as the state of the art on the subject. The article discusses how to articulate the traditional urban planning instruments for urban biodiversity promotion, and the contribution of ubi under the laws of urban master plans that shape spaces in different scales. As a result, it obtains a set of possible planning instruments, such as land use patterns and zoning as able to structure an agenda for biodiversity conservation in urban areas.