̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Amazon

A new way of thinking about the economy could help protect the Amazon, and help its people thrive

sc604 — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 09:00:33 +0000

A group of conservationists from Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, the US and the UK say that current conservation and development efforts will never sustain or scale without systemic changes in how economies are designed.

Despite extensive destruction of the Amazon in the name of economic development, Amazonian communities have seen little improvement in income, life expectancy, and education. ̽��ֱ��researchers have proposed a new model and associated policy changes that could create fair and sustainable futures for the Amazon and its people by improving infrastructure, supply chains, and social organisations.

Their results, reported in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, are focused on the Amazon, however the researchers say similar economic models could be implemented around the world if the political will exists.

̽��ֱ��Amazon basin is home to the world’s largest tropical rainforest, representing over half of the world’s remaining rainforest, and stores vast amounts of carbon. However, decades of large-scale deforestation, as well as the increased risk of fires and floods due to climate change, has put much of the Amazon rainforest under threat. In addition to what the loss of the Amazon would mean for global carbon emissions, the rainforest is also home to many indigenous peoples and thousands of species of plants and animals.

“We need a different vision for the Amazon if we’re going to protect it,” said lead author Professor Rachael Garrett from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Geography and the Conservation Research Institute. “Half a century of deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon has not resulted in widespread development, and now the economic value of deforested areas is threatened, not to mention the threats to the global climate and water security.”

Working with colleagues from the Amazonian region, Garrett has proposed building on the success of indigenous and traditional communities to develop new economies, which could protect much of the Amazon while also improving the livelihoods, health, and food security of the many people who live there. These economic models are known as socio-bioeconomies, or SBEs.

“Conventional economic models can result in short-term gains, but over the longer term, the people and resources of the Amazon basin have been exploited by powerful interests, while there has been an underinvestment in education, innovation, and sustainable infrastructure,” said Garrett. “ ̽��ֱ��conventional economic model is simply not sustainable.”

̽��ֱ��SBE model is focused on using and restoring Amazonian and other ecosystems sustainably, and supporting indigenous and rural communities. An SBE economy might include eco-friendly tourism, or the sustainable harvest and processing of plant products into valuable foods, beverages, clothing, and medicines.

“A limited range of interests are controlling the development agenda in most countries,” said Garrett. “ ̽��ֱ��only way we can change that is improving the rights and representation of the people who are not benefiting from the systems and are being harmed by ongoing environmental destruction. We believe it is possible to have win-wins for humanity and conservation, but not if we continue to consume products that have a massively negative impact. SBEs can help put these win-wins into policy and practice.”

Garrett cites the footwear brand Veja as an example of such a win-win. ̽��ֱ��French company buys the rubber for its trainers from small-scale Amazonian rubber farmers, and purchases 100% of the responsibly harvested native rubber in Brazil. As part of its sustainability efforts, the company focuses on building communities of small-scale farmers and has been financially successful without traditional advertising.

Garrett and her collaborators are calling for massive increases in social mobilisation, technology and infrastructure to support SBEs. Under an SBE model, governmental subsidies would be redirected away from agribusiness and toward smaller-scale sustainable development. ̽��ֱ��researchers also outline how to build connections between rural and urban policies in SBEs. An example is the establishment of public procurement programmes where healthy and sustainably produced foods are purchased directly from indigenous and small farming communities and served in school lunch programmes and hospitals, instead of supporting large-scale agribusiness engaged in degrading practices.

Other policy changes that could support an SBE model include redirecting finance to conservation and restoration activities, supporting community enterprises, and ensuring participatory processes to ensure inclusive, long-term benefits.

“It’s possible to have an economy that is strong and works for everyone when we dare to develop new models and visions that recognise the interconnectedness of people and nature,” said Garrett. “By popularising these ideas, investing in people and businesses who are making a difference, and supporting research into SBE innovation we can support a transformation in both conservation and development in the Amazon.

“ ̽��ֱ��SBE model could help protect the Amazon and its people while avoiding climate and biodiversity disasters, but there needs to be the political will to make it happen.”

Rachael Garrett is the incoming director of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute and a Fellow of Homerton College, Cambridge. She is a council member of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and serves on the UN Science Panel for the Amazon.

Reference:
Rachael Garrett et al. ‘Transformative changes are needed to support socio-bioeconomies for people and ecosystems in the Amazon.’ Nature Ecology and Evolution (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02467-9

To protect the Amazon and support the wellbeing of its people, its economy needs to shift from environmentally harmful production to a model built around the diversity of indigenous and rural communities, and standing forests.

luoman via Getty Images

Man extracts latex from a tree in the middle of the Amazon.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

̽��ֱ��cultural significance of carbon-storing peatlands to rural communities

sc604 — Tue, 21 May 2019 06:30:00 +0000

Tropical peatlands, found in Southeast Asia, Africa, Central and South America, play an important, and, until recently, underappreciated role for the global climate system, due to their capacity to process and store large amounts of carbon. Across the world, peat covers just three per cent of the land’s surface, but stores one third of the Earth’s soil carbon.

̽��ֱ��peatlands are sparsely populated but have been inhabited for centuries by indigenous and Spanish-descended populations. Even now, most communities are only accessible by boat.

Now, a group of researchers led by a ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge geographer have carried out the first detailed survey of how local communities view and interact with these important landscapes. Their results are reported in the journal Biological Conservation.

Working with colleagues from Peru, the UK researchers spent time with two rural Amazonian communities: a small indigenous community from the Urarina nation and a larger mestizo community of mixed cultural heritage. While other researchers have been engaging with these communities for decades, the study was the first to engage with their views on the uses, cultural significance, management and conservation of peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon.

“These communities are very remote, and very little is known about their relationship with the peatlands,” said Christopher Schulz from Cambridge’s Department of Geography, the paper’s first author. “People living in remote and rural communities are shaping ecosystem management in their surroundings, but their perspectives are rarely heard in wider debates.”

Members of both communities are primarily subsistence farmers, although the mestizo community does have some small shops and conducts some trade outside their community. Both communities, along with others based in the remote, largely-unknown peatlands, are mostly ignored by central government.

̽��ֱ��peatlands are home to various guardian spirits, such as the Baainu known among the Urarina people, who is said to trick people into losing their way. ̽��ֱ��area is also home to various ‘dead lakes’ which are culturally taboo among the mestizo community, who believe that guardian spirits can cause thunderstorms if the lakes are approached. ̽��ֱ��mestizo community also fear that approaching the dead lakes could lead to getting attacked by anacondas or caimans, or getting sucked into the soft ground.

Away from the lakes, the landscape is dominated by palm trees, which grow well despite the wet, poor peatland soils, and are an important food source for animals and for the Urarina and mestizo communities. ̽��ֱ��palm fruit and hearts are harvested by both communities for personal consumption and to sell to travelling traders. Both communities also make use of the wood and timber, although it is of lower quality than from trees from non-peatland areas. In the Urarina community, the palm fronds are also used as roofing, although these are increasingly being replaced by corrugated metal roofs.

In addition to their practical applications, palms also have a cultural and spiritual function. In the Urarina community, fibres from the aguaje palm are used for textile production. ̽��ֱ��Urarina creation myth contains an element in which a wise woman is identified by her ability to weave aguaje fibres into cloth.

Given the importance of the palm trees to both communities, it has led to issues of conservation. To harvest the aguaje fruits, the trees are currently felled. “Both communities recognise that they have an effect on palm tree populations, but they don’t have any specific conservation strategies as such,” said Schulz. “In the past, different groups have introduced equipment for climbing the palms instead of felling them, so that’s a simple conservation initiative that could be supported.”

“ ̽��ֱ��knowledge accumulated by the Urarina about these permanently wet ecosystems is the best guarantee for their conservation,” said co-author Manuel Martín Brañas from the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAP).

“Before the scientific community had discovered the importance of these ecosystems for the climatic balance of the planet, the Urarina were already using them in an efficient and sustainable way, they classified them, gave them names, and they had established social controls for not damaging them,” said co-author Cecilia Núñez Pérez, also from IIAP.

Further research will investigate the potential role that conservation NGOs and other relevant stakeholders or institutions could play in the safeguarding of peatland areas, and ecological surveys will be conducted to better understand the ecological composition of the peatland vegetation.

̽��ֱ��research was funded in part by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Reference:
Christopher Schulz et al. ‘Uses, cultural significance, and management of peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon: Implications for conservation.’ Biological Conservation (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2019.04.005

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

A group of UK and Peruvian researchers have carried out the first detailed study of how rural communities interact with peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon, a landscape that is one of the world’s largest stores of carbon.

People living in remote and rural communities are shaping ecosystem management in their surroundings, but their perspectives are rarely heard in wider debates

Christopher Schulz

Travelling to a peatland area with the Urarina.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

‘Keep it local’ approach to protecting the rainforest can be more effective than government schemes

sc604 — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 09:00:00 +0000

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the ̽��ֱ�� of East Anglia (UEA) and the Peruvian Ministry of Environment assessed the effectiveness of different approaches to conservation in the Peruvian Amazon between 2006 and 2011. They found that while all were effective at protecting the rainforest compared with non-protected areas of land, the areas protected by local and indigenous communities were on average more effective than those protected by the government.

However, the effectiveness of the conservation strategies also depended on what non-protected areas they were compared to, and the land use restrictions in place in the non-protected land. Future assessments of the impacts of different conservation strategies should therefore pay closer attention to land use restrictions in place in non-protected lands. ̽��ֱ��results are reported in the journal Scientific Reports.

Although the Amazon rainforest and its unique biodiversity are rapidly disappearing, little is still known about which protection mechanisms make a difference and how different conservation strategies compare.

̽��ֱ��study looked at areas protected by the national government, indigenous communities or civil society and the private sector are, compared to non-protected areas and land destined for timber and mineral extraction. ̽��ֱ��researchers assessed each approach for how well it was able to curtail deforestation, defined as total forest cover loss, and forest degradation, defined as other human-induced disturbances, such as selective logging, logging tracks and fire.

̽��ֱ��researchers combined remote sensing data with environmental and socio-economic datasets to assess each approach, and controlled for other factors that are expected to affect deforestation and forest degradation.

“Our results that these diverse types of protected areas were effective at reducing deforestation and forest degradation compared to non-protected areas are very encouraging,” said lead author Dr Judith Schleicher, from Cambridge’s Department of Geography. ̽��ֱ��larger reduction in deforestation and forest degradation in areas led by indigenous communities and grassroots groups suggests that local ownership and support for protecting the Peruvian Amazon can be a particularly effective approach.

“Policy makers must focus on a more diverse set of mechanisms for protecting the rapidly disappearing tropical forests,” said Schleicher. “Our analysis shows that local stewardship of the forest can be very effective at curtailing forest degradation and conversion in the Peruvian Amazon. Local conservation initiatives deserve more political, financial and legal support than they currently receive.”

“Our analysis shows that there is no single way of protecting tropical forests, and multiple approaches are required to stem the relentless tide of forest conversion and degradation,” said co-author Professor Carlos Peres from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences.

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Cambridge Political Economy Society, Cambridge Philosophical Society, St John’s College, and the Department of Geography.

Reference:
Judith Schleicher et al. ‘Conservation performance of different conservation governance regimes in the Peruvian Amazon.’ Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-10736-w

Conservation initiatives led by local and indigenous groups can be just as effective as schemes led by government, according to new research. In some cases in the Amazon rainforest, grassroots initiatives can be even more effective at protecting this vital ecosystem. This is particularly important due to widespread political resistance to hand over control over forests and other natural resources to local communities.

Policy makers must focus on a more diverse set of mechanisms for protecting the rapidly disappearing tropical forests.

Judith Schleicher

Anna & Michal

In Peruvian Amazon Rainforest

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Attribution

Man v fish in the Amazon rainforest

amb206 — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Hunting brings us close to our prey but the blood of a dying animal, spilling on to our hands, reminds us of our own mortality. Trapping, the use of technology to entice and capture, distances us from the act of killing. But, in their making and their function, traps connect our minds and bodies to the animals we pursue.

Each year, the Enawenê-nawê, an indigenous community in the Amazon, construct monumental fishing dams to harvest migrating fish vital to their diet. Social anthropologist Dr Chloe Nahum-Claudel carried out her PhD fieldwork with this community, learning a dialect spoken by fewer than 1,000 people. She spent six weeks living alongside a group of 12 men as they constructed a dam.

She says: “I’m interested in the relationship between people’s practical economic lives and how they see the universe. My research with the Enawenê-nawê suggests that their dams are much more than a means to obtain food. ̽��ֱ��process shapes their minds, bodies and relationships with one another, with their prey, and with spirits and ancestors. My research was timely because these technologies are threatened by the construction of hydroelectric dams in many of the Amazon’s tributaries.”

̽��ֱ��process of making traps became a particular focus for Nahum-Claudel when, as she explains, she realised that we touch on our own vulnerability every time we catch another living creature and subject it to our wishes. She recently convened a conference to consider trap-making and how these activities can be used to approach the relationship between humans and other species.

“To trap an animal you have to be very knowledgeable about its habits, its preferences and its weaknesses, and then you have to put all this knowledge into the making of an effective trap, and the placement and disguise of your equipment. That’s why traps offer an interesting way to approach practical encounters between ourselves and other species,” she says.

“I also realised that this was a neglected field of research. There’s been a lot written about hunting – and trapping is one method of catching prey. But unlike hunting, trapping doesn’t have to be fatal; ornithologists studying bird migrations have to trap birds and camera-traps are used to monitor tigers in India. I was interested in bringing people together to see if there were overlaps in the practice of trapping in such diverse contexts.”

Nahum-Claudel’s conference paper, which will form the first chapter of her forthcoming book, describes the Enawenê-nawê’s fishing technology and how it shapes them. ̽��ֱ��Enawenê-nawê are pescatarians who employ a variety of fishing techniques depending on the seasonal opportunities.

̽��ֱ��most impressive and unusual of these technologies are fishing dams built to coincide with the downstream migration of shoal-living fish, which spawn in the flooded forest during the rainy season. Each year teams of fishermen leave their large village while the fish are busy feasting and spawning and set to work building dams to trap the fish as they try to return downstream, once the river levels start to fall.

These dams are two-part technologies. In the first week or so, the men make a weir across the river using timber, bark and lianas from the surrounding forest. Men float the logs downriver and then dive into the fast flowing water to anchor them in the river bed. Frail, elder men later make nets to catch jumping fish. Ideally, the weir closes off the entire river so that not one fish can escape.

Once the weir is complete, the team turn their attention to making 100 or so man-sized traps which are crafted from cylinders of bark and basketry woven from the ribs of palm fronds. ̽��ֱ��special bark cylinders, which are said to resemble men’s thorax are prised off of tree trunks like waist coats, and must not snap. ̽��ֱ��completed trap is man-sized and phallic-looking.

In her paper, Nahum-Claudel explains that the activities of weir-building and trap-making demand different kinds of effort and imply contrasting kinds of sociability for the community. As the men construct the weir, moving vigorously between the forest and the water, they liken themselves to the creator deity who built the first dam as he made the world. Like him, they are masters of the boundary between land and water, which, as fisher people, is the crucial one in their universe.

She says: “What I mean by mastery is clear in the expression men use to describe the fish’s demise. They say that the fish ‘drown in the traps’. Men create the conditions in which the fish drown in their own watery dominion and, what’s more, the fish bring about their downfall by entering the traps out of their own curiosity and desire. When the men make traps, the seated handiwork makes them more contemplative. As anyone who does craftwork knows, the activity of making something with your hands encourages a mood of reflection and brings about identification with the object crafted.”

While weir-building is physically demanding and highly organised, tending the traps is more restful and is described by the Enawenê-nawê themselves as ‘lying down to rest’. Camped downstream of the dam, the men may be physically absent but their thoughts and actions are understood to have an impact on their traps’ ability to capture fish – precisely because the trap never loses its bond with the man who has crafted it.

“ ̽��ֱ��men live for the traps, devoting themselves to animating them so that they will catch plenty of fish,” says Nahum-Claudel. “They whisper to their traps and utter magical incantations. Sweet-smelling leaves are rubbed on the mouths of the traps to make them enticing to the fish. ̽��ֱ��team self-consciously strives to create a joyful atmosphere which the traps ‘desire’. There is much sexual banter – it’s locker-room talk all the time – and I was constantly reminded that I should not be grumpy, argumentative or stingy so as not to sour the mood.”

These practices seem to be about ensuring the traps’ efficacy and protecting the men themselves. Both of these aspects are thought of in terms of fertility. ̽��ֱ��traps are said to enter the weir ‘like a penis penetrating for the first time’ and the fish are seduced into entering their fragrant openings. As soon as they set the traps in place, the fishermen say that they become like virgins who have had sex for the first time.

“It is as if the traps were their own penises,” Nahum-Claudel says, “because their insertion thrusts men into the same state of vulnerability as teenage boys experience after they have had sex for their first time and their partner bleeds”. Through sex, men become open to the blood of women and they must exercise care in what they eat and in the activities they undertake when their wives menstruate or give birth. ̽��ֱ��first time this happens to a teenage boy, the restrictions to his activity and diet are strict – he lies down to rest and fast in his hammock for several days.

When the traps enter the weir the team of fishermen act in a very similar way, they fast and they say that they are now ‘lying down to rest’. This suggests that men are open to the blood of the fish caught in the traps – traps which are connected to their own bodies – just as they are open to the blood of women. Nahum-Claudel suggest that the dam fishing endeavour is about mitigating the risks involved in shedding blood while, at the same time, using the channel that exists between traps and men to promote the traps’ fertility. A theme that crops up repeatedly in Enawenê-nawê mythology is that the tables can easily turn and predator can become prey.

“Traps are all about hubris,” says Nahum-Claudel, “men build a deadly dam and drown fish in their own dominion. This activity is playing God, but everything about the men’s behaviour suggests that they are acutely aware of how risky this is, that it could – like a tragic play – end in their own downfall. What they stress as they trap the fish is not their Deity-like mastery but rather the subjection it implies. This feeling fits with the experiences of hunters and fishermen around the world. ̽��ֱ��proximity of life and death brings into focus human vulnerability so that hunting is rarely a question of unalloyed heroism. Enawenê-nawê dam fishing takes this to extremes because it is based on a monumental technology and entails intensive subjective and social involvement by the fishermen.”

Inset images from top: men harvest fish from their traps at Olowina River’s dam; the traps are ready to be inserted into the upriver face of a dam at Maxikywina River; a man dives down to pull up his trap from its position near the river bed. All photos: Chloe Nahum-Claudel, 2009. Nahum-Claudel's book is now available.

̽��ֱ��Enawenê-nawê people of the Amazon rainforest make beautifully engineered fishing dams. Living alongside this indigenous community, Dr Chloe Nahum-Claudel observed how the act of trapping fish shapes their minds, bodies and relationships. ̽��ֱ��proximity of life and death brings human vulnerability sharply into focus.

̽��ֱ��men live for the traps, devoting themselves to animating them so that they will catch plenty of fish.

Chloe Nahum-Claudel

Enawenê-nawê men check basket and bark traps for fish before reinserting them into the weir’s upriver face

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Amazon deforestation ‘threshold’ causes species loss to accelerate

fpjl2 — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 13:51:28 +0000

One of the first studies to map the impact of deforestation on biodiversity across entire regions of the Amazon has found a clear ‘threshold’ for forest cover below which species loss becomes more rapid and widespread.

By measuring the loss of a core tranche of dominant species of large and medium-sized mammals and birds, and using the results as a bellwether, the researchers found that for every 10% of forest loss, one to two major species are wiped out.

This is until the threshold of 43% of forest cover is reached, beyond which the rate of biodiversity loss jumps from between two to up to eight major species gone per 10% of disappeared forest.

While current Brazilian law requires individual landowners in the Amazon to retain 80% forest cover, this is rarely achieved or enforced. Researchers say that the focus should be shifted to maintaining 50% cover – just half the forest – but over entire landscapes rather than individual farms, in a bid to stop whole regions losing untold biodiversity by slipping below the 43% threshold at which species loss accelerates.

Unless urgent action is taken to stem deforestation in key areas that are heading towards or have just dipped below the forest cover ‘threshold’ – which, according to the research team’s models, amounts to a third of the Amazon – these areas will suffer the loss of between 31-44% of species by just 2030.

“These results support the need for a major shift in the scale at which environmental legislation is applied in Brazil and the tropics,” said Dr Jose Manuel Ochoa-Quintero, from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Zoology, who led the study, published recently in the journal Conservation Biology.

“We need to move from thinking in terms of compliance at a farm scale to compliance at a landscape scale if we are to save as many species as we can from extinction."

̽��ֱ��researchers worked across an area of the North West Amazon over three million hectares in size. They then divided the region into 1,223 squares of 10,000km, and selected 31 squares representative of the spectrum of forest cover across the region (12-90% cover). 27 squares consisted of private land; only four were protected areas (PAs). PAs were only areas in region with almost complete forest cover.

Within the 31 squares, researchers analysed the presence of 35 key species of mammals and birds for which these regions are natural habitats, such as pumas, giant anteaters and red howler monkeys. This was done through a combination of direct observation and recording evidence such as footprints and faeces, as well as in-depth interviews with landowners and residents, who were quizzed about species presence through photographs, animal noises and local knowledge.

̽��ֱ��researchers found a cut-off, conservatively given as 43% forest cover, below which the squares held “markedly fewer species”, with up to eight key species lost for every 10% of further deforestation beyond this threshold.

“This is not just a result of overall loss of habitat, but also reduced connectivity between remaining forest fragments, causing species to hunt and mate in ever-decreasing circles,” said Ochoa-Quintero. “This fragmentation may be the key element of the ‘threshold’ tipping point for biodiversity.”

Encroaching agriculture – from beef to soya production – to feed a growing and more affluent human population means that, at the current rates, the number of 10,000km2 landscapes in the Amazon that fall below the species loss threshold of 43% forest cover will almost double by just 2030. At current rates, by 2030 only a mere 22% of landscapes in the region will be able to sustain three quarters of the key species surveyed for the study.

̽��ֱ��expansion of agriculture in recent decades means that around 41% of the original forest in the study region – some two million hectares – has been lost over just the last 40 years.

Researchers say that while PAs can counter agricultural expansion – and many have increasingly called for PAs to expand across the planet amid dire evidence of rapid species decline – the limits on land that can be set aside for PAs means that biodiversity conservation success depends on protecting native vegetation on private lands.

̽��ֱ��highest priority landscapes, some 33% of land in the region, are those that either just dipped below the 43% threshold in 2010, or are expected to in the next 20 years.

“Avoiding deforestation and focusing reforestation in the areas that teeter on the species loss threshold will be the most direct and cost-effective way to prevent further species loss in the Amazon region,” added Ochoa-Quintero.

Inset image: Local farmer with a Scarlet Macaw (Credit: JM Ochoa-Quintero)

One of the largest area studies of forest loss impacting biodiversity shows that a third of the Amazon is headed toward or has just past a threshold of forest cover below which species loss is faster and more damaging. Researchers call for conservation policy to switch from targeting individual landowners to entire regions.

We need to move from thinking in terms of compliance at a farm scale to compliance at a landscape scale if we are to save as many species as we can from extinction

Jose Manuel Ochoa-Quintero

Corn plantation nearby remaining forest in the Amazon region

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Yes

Amazonia at a crossroads

sj387 — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 08:00:04 +0000

̽��ֱ��numbers associated with the Amazon are truly staggering. It encompasses nine countries; contains at least a tenth of the known species in the world; provides a home and resources to 31 million people; stores the equivalent amount of carbon to a decade of human-induced emissions for the entire planet; and discharges a fifth of the world’s fresh water.

However, rapid social and ecological change, borne on the back of deforestation, harvesting of natural resources and a changing climate, has left the future of the world’s largest remaining tropical forest uncertain – Amazonia, today, is “standing at a crossroads”, as Dr Toby Gardner describes.

He points to the existence of tough trade-offs that underpin the region’s challenges: “ ̽��ֱ��demand for land and natural resources is driven by the development needs of one of the world’s largest emerging economies, as well as by the insatiable global food and commodities market. Understanding what management practices can best achieve both economic development and environmental conservation is central to addressing this challenge and shepherding the creation of a more sustainable Amazon.”

Gardner leads a new research programme that is motivated by helping to solve this dilemma – the Sustainable Amazon Network – alongside colleagues at Lancaster ̽��ֱ��, the Goeldi Museum in Belém (Brazil) and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), with funding from the Brazilian and UK governments and ̽��ֱ��Nature Conservancy, among others.

̽��ֱ��Network’s 100-strong group of researchers and students from over 30 institutions are working with conservation organisations, farmers and government officials. Their approach is to assemble an evidence base on the sustainability challenges and ecological consequences associated with land uses and management strategies, and to use this to test the effectiveness and risks of alternative policy choices facing local people and regional governments.

At the heart of the research is an appreciation of the complex array of interactions and feedbacks that characterise the changing face of Amazonia. ̽��ֱ��project takes as its ‘laboratory’ two regions of the eastern Amazon: Paragominas, a region infamous for lawlessness, violence, land grabbing, illegal sawmills and rampant forest clearance until the 1990s; and Santarém-Belterra, once a centre of pre-Colombian civilisation, with a long history of farming and now home to smallholder farms and larger agricultural enterprises.

What makes the project distinct from many other research initiatives is the collection of matched data from the same network of landholdings on changes in both the ecological and the socio-economic characteristics of different land and forest use systems. ̽��ֱ��team’s survey design has enabled information to be collected across the full wealth spectrum, from the poorest to the richest farmers, while allowing comparisons at multiple spatial scales – between different farms, catchments and regions.

̽��ֱ��result is one of the most comprehensive field assessments ever undertaken in the tropics. Critical issues that are being addressed include the identification of potential threshold effects of deforestation on the degradation of ecological systems, and the identification of strategies at both farm and municipality scales that can effectively reconcile conservation and development goals.

“In addition, one of the longer term implications of any initiative like this is the fact that a large group of students and researchers, many of whom are Brazilian, have been exposed to new ideas and new ways of thinking about sustainability problems, and this, perhaps above anything else, will be the most valuable legacy of our project,” added Gardner.

Can the world’s largest tropical forest biome be transformed into a sustainable ecological system? “There is a short window of opportunity and there is potential for recovery,” said Gardner. “But we cannot afford to be complacent.”

̽��ֱ��Amazon rainforest faces an uncertain future – one that an international research network hopes to help steer towards sustainability.

There is a short window of opportunity and there is potential for recovery, but we cannot afford to be complacent

Toby Gardner

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Yes

Rainforest remedy could spell end of dental pain

sjr81 — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:40:18 +0000

̽��ֱ��remedy, made from an Amazonian plant species from varieties of Acmella Oleracea and turned into a gel for medical use, has proved hugely successful during the first two phases of clinical trials and may hasten the end of current reliance on local anaesthetics in dental use and Non-Steroid Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) in specific applications.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� anthropologist Dr Françoise Barbira Freedman, the first westerner to be invited to live with the Keshwa Lamas in Amazonian Peru, is leading efforts to bring this wholly natural painkiller to the global marketplace as an organic alternative to synthetic painkillers.

In doing so, the company she founded, Ampika Ltd (a spin-out from Cambridge Enterprise, the ̽��ֱ��’s commercialisation arm) will be run according to strict ethical guidelines, and will be able to channel a percentage of any future profits back to the Keshwa Lamas community who agreed to share their expertise with her.

With no known side-effects during the past five years of Phase I and II trials, Dr Freedman, who has continued to visit and live among the Keshwa Lamas over the past 30 years, is confident the stringent Phase III trials (multi-location trials across a diverse population mix) will be the final hurdle to clear. If successful, Ampika’s plan is to bring the product to market in 2014/15.

She said: “ ̽��ֱ��story began in 1975 when I first went to live among the indigenous people of Peru. We were trekking through the rainforest and I was having terrible trouble with my wisdom teeth. One of the men with me noticed and prepared a little wad of plants to bite onto. ̽��ֱ��pain went away. When it came back a few hours later, he had foreseen the need and kept plant material in his hunters’ bag for me.

“I forgot all about the wisdom teeth problem for many years until Cambridge-based neuroscientist Dr Mark Treherne asked me to bring some medicinal plant samples back in order to test them for neurological research. Almost as an afterthought I remembered to include the one I’d used on my teeth. It was added to the bottom of the list, but somehow the list got reversed and it was the first one tested back in the UK. It was immediately successful and we’ve never looked back.

“During the time I have spent with the Keshwa Lamas I’ve learnt all about the different plants and leaves they use for everyday illnesses and ailments. I first went to Peru as a young researcher hoping to learn more about what was a secretive community who were experts in shamanism. Along the way I’ve learnt a great deal about natural medicines and remedies; everything from toothache to childbirth.”

“This treatment for toothache means we could be looking at the end of some injections in the dentist’s surgery. We’ve had really clear result from the tests so far, particularly for peridodontological procedures such as root scaling and planing, and there are many other potential applications. ̽��ֱ��native forest people described to me exactly how the medicine could and should work and they were absolutely right. There are a range of mucous tissue applications it could benefit, and may even help bowel complaints such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).”

̽��ֱ��Keshwa Lamas remedy represents the first clinical trial of a natural product in Peru using the International Convention of Clinical Trials, of which Peru is a signatory, the gold-standard for clinical trials that is recognised across the Pacific and Atlantic regions.

Dr Freedman, who will visit the Peruvian community again in the coming weeks, has already been able to channel some early funding to the Keshwa Lama to help in the creation of a medicinal plant garden to conserve plants and plant knowledge related to women’s health and maternity care – with the express aim of preserving wisdom for future generations.

She added: “We think the remedy is better than current treatments because NSAID drugs are systemic and have long-term effects; the plant product is not systemic and does not have any known side-effects. We think people prefer to use natural products and this is particularly the case for baby teething – for which, to my knowledge, there is no clinically tested natural alternative.”

̽��ֱ��dentists who carried out the Phase 2 trial reported a high level of satisfaction among their patients who disliked injections and did not need to use painkillers after the periodontological procedures.

There was also a higher rate of patient return for further appointments than average for the group with which the plant gel was used. ̽��ֱ��gel works by blocking nerve endings (sodium channel pathways).

Ampika has a portfolio of plant-based drug development, particularly related to women’s health conditions and Type 2 diabetes, which it hopes to develop in the coming years.

An ancient Incan toothache remedy – for centuries handed down among an indigenous people in the rainforests of Peru – could be on the cusp of revolutionising worldwide dental practice.

During the time I have spent with the Keshwa Lamas I’ve learnt all about the different plants and leaves they use for everyday illnesses and ailments.

Dr Françoise Barbira Freedman

̽��ֱ��plant used in the rainforest remedy

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