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.

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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.