Biological diversity is one of sixteen sub-programmes that make up CYTED (Ciencia y Technologia para El Desarrollo), which groups key institutions from each one of twenty-one Latin American countries, in addition to Spain and Portugal. As such, it is a governmental and multinational programme whose geographical framework is provided by the cultural affinities of countries in which Spanish and Portuguese are spoken.

The Biological Diversity sub-programme has been in operation since 1992, with Gonzalo Halffter as International Co-ordinator. It includes seven thematic networks. Five are based on particular ecosystem types: coastal zones, forests, pastures and savannas, tropical mountain and Andean ecosystems, and mediterranean-climate ecosystems. A sixthnetwork concerns the diversity of tropical edaphic macrofauna and its relationship to soil fertility and sustainable production. A final network revolves around a strategy – biosphere reserves and efforts to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable development within the reserves and in their surrounding regions. Other activities include the preparation and diffusion of publications on the biological diversity in Iberoamerica.

Following two earlier volumes published in 1992 and 1998 respectively, a third volume compiled by Gonzalo Halffter comprises a scene-setting preface by Guillermo Sarmiento and fourteen chapters, dealing with biodiversity in three South American countries. Five contributions on Paraguay provide an overall vision of biodiversity in the country: wetland areas, mammals, native medicinal plants, and the natural reserve of Mbaracayu woodland as a concrete example of biodiversity conservation. Eight contributions on Peru present a synopis of the biological diversity of Peru and more focused contributions on the biodiversity of marine biota, the Gramineae family, molluscs, insects, inland water fish, mammals, and the fauna of Amazonian forests. Two final chapters describe the amphibia and rodents of the Venezuelan Andes.