Réseau Amazonie Durable

Description

The Sustainable Amazon Network was first developed through the integration of objectives and resources across three previously independent research initiatives; the Brazilian Science Council (CNPq) National Centre for Science and Technology (INCT) for "Biodiversity and Land-use Change in the Brazilian Amazon", the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) project "Agroambiente" (focussing on ecosystem services in production landscapes) and a UK government Darwin Initiative project on "Linking research and environmental education to reduce Amazonian wildfires". Additional partners subsequently joined the initiative to develop a network of over 30 partner institutions, and nearly one hundred researchers and graduate students with responsibilities spread across different components of the project.

RAS aims to make important advances in understanding the sustainability challenges facing Amazonia with regards to four broad objectives.

1. To quantify and better understand the ecological consequences of forest clearance, forest degradation and exploitation, and agricultural change (including cattle farming and silviculture) at several spatial scales. We are particularly interested in assessing the relative importance of local and landscape scale variables, as well as the extent to which past human impacts can help explain observed patterns in current ecological condition. Our measures of ecological condition include terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, carbon stocks, soil chemical and physical condition and aquatic quality.

2. To examine the factors that determine patterns of land use, management choice, agricultural productivity and profits (and hence opportunity costs for conservation) and patterns of farmer well-being. Beyond input cost, geophysical (e.g. soil type, topography) and location (e.g. road and market access) factors, we recognise the potential importance of social-cultural factors in influencing land-use behaviours, including geographic origin, technical support, credit access, social capital, and the importance of supply chains.

3. To use our multidisciplinary assessment to evaluate the relationships between conservation and development objectives, and identify potential trade-offs and synergies. Here, we were interested in the relative ecological and socioeconomic costs and benefits of alternative land-use and management choices, and the potential for feedbacks, multiple-scale interactions and dependencies and unintended ('perverse') outcomes.

4. To enable future research initiatives to maximize their cost-effectiveness by examining the implications of choices made with respect to; variable selection, sampling design, prioritization of research questions and analyses, and approaches for engaging with local actors and institutions and disseminating results.