TRI Fellows Research Projects, 2006

South America

 Erin Barnes

Calculating the Costs of the Madeira River Hydro Project To Fishermen in Rondonia, Brazil and Pando-Beni, Bolivia

Shel, a commercial fishermen, takes Erin fishing at Cachoeira Teotonio, Brazil.

This project measures the market and nonmarket value of the Madeira River fishery between Porto Velho, Rondonia, Brazil, and Trinidad, Bolivia in order to calculate the cost to fishermen of the Brazilian government's Madeira River Hydro Project. This dam project involves building two hydroelectric dams along the river. Scientific studies suggest that the projects will reduce fish populations. This information is still uncertain, but I rely on the best guesses of leading scientists in the field.

I have estimated the value of these lost fish using a survey instrument. I conducted the survey in the impacted region from May through August 2006 through face-to-face interviews. I chose sample populations from representative towns, villages, and cities throughout the region.

Commercial fishermen come to sell their fish at Guajara-Mirim, on the Brazilian-Bolivian border.

This year I am analyzing my data from these surveys. By estimating and summing the different costs and revenues of fishermen, I can calculate the net market value of the fishery. I can calculate the value of fish in villages without markets by analyzing the barter systems in place. In addition, I can estimate fishing communities' willingness to pay to stop the construction of the dams at Santo Antonio and Jirau and to continue with their way of life. This willingness to pay is a nonmarket value of the fishery.

 James Leslie

Local Institutions Engagement in Decision-Making through Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation: A Comparison of Conservation Projects in Mozambique and Peru

Calls for accountability of international conservation organizations have recently become increasingly louder, as resources made available for biodiversity conservation have declined and must now be used more efficiently. One response is to promote participatory monitoring and evaluation which serves as a more cost-effective means to assess impacts of interventions and, at the same time, empowers local users to assume ownership of management of natural resources. Local institutions, such as committees and groups organized to address communal natural resource management, can spearhead community-based monitoring and channel information flow as well as provide a platform for local engagement in decision-making regarding natural resource use. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of participatory monitoring and evaluation as a tool to engage local communities in management is still unproven.

James sits with friends on Bazaruto Island, Mozambique. The community has just finished cleaning the day's fish harvest on the beach. (Photo credit: Julia Urrunaga).

Interested in how local institutions employ participatory monitoring and evaluation tools to engage in the decision-making process of natural resource use, I conducted a comparative study of two projects - one in Peru and the other in Mozambique - where participatory monitoring and evaluation was proposed explicitly to improve conservation project effectiveness and involve local stakeholders in decision-making. Emphasis was placed on identifying lessons learned and drawing parallels between the two projects.

In Mozambique, the study site was Bazaruto Archipelago National Park, a cluster of five islands, three of which are home to seven indigenous communities. The communities' livelihoods depend predominantly on farming and fishing for subsistence and to a lesser extent, for commercialization. In Peru, my research focused on the buffer zone of the Alto Purus National Park, where eight indigenous groups utilize timber and non-timber forest products.

In both sites, the sustainable management of natural resources faces pressures from outsiders who are interested in short-term economic gain. In the case of Bazaruto, fishermen based on the mainland and foreign vessels pose threats to the fishing resource. In the case of Purus, there is significant pressure to extract the valuable timber for foreign markets.

Young girl in the community of Pankarentsy, Purus, Peru. (Photo credit: Julia Urrunaga).

The two sites differ with respect to the composition of the direct stakeholders in the protected areas' management. For example, one of the principal stakeholders in Bazaruto is the tourism sector. A portion of my research focused on the relationship between the tourism operators, the local communities and the park administration. I gathered perceptions of positive and negative impacts of the tourism on the local social and ecological environment.

Both structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample group from the communities and with representatives of organizations. I also facilitated focal group meetings with resource users. In both sites, I conducted participant observation in order to acquire a better understanding of the stakeholders' activities.

 Jennifer Lewis

Non-Timber Forest Products in Peri-Urban Amazônia: A Case Study of Açaí Management Strategies Belém, Pará, Brazil

An açaí seller at Porto da Pahla.

The peri-urban region of the Amazon lacks complete studies analyzing the current state of natural resource use with respect to the rural-urban divide and the potential for future development, agriculture production and environmental conservation efforts. This peri-urban area represents a space between rural and urban environments with complex and unique environmental, political, economic and cultural characteristics and specifically, plays an essential role in linking populations through market interactions and maintaining ecosystem services outside of cities.

Returning by boat from the community Boa Vista to Belem, illustrating the peri-urban environment and city across the river.

This research focused on non-timber forest product (NTFP) production in the peri-urban region of Belem, Brazil in relation to demographic change and tendency to migrate along the rural-urban trajectory. The central question explored was whether NTFP investment inhibits urban migration as economic benefit to producers' increases. Two NTFP's were chosen for this study: the açaí palm berry, a component of regional consumer diet and recently has undergone significant increases in national and international exportation, and andiroba oil, a local natural remedy for which little academic literature exists to supplement its incorporation in development projects. The study was carried out in two selected communities in the peri-urban zone and complemented ongoing research within the NGO Amazon Institute of People and the Environment, located in Belem, Brazil. Both NTFP's play a significant role in historical land use choices and currently affect landscape shifts as a result of resource investment. Environmental management strategies, family economic decisions, community development objectives and market analyses for the selected NTFP's were conducted in order to complement academic studies of peri-urban transition zones in the Amazon.

 Yves Paiz Merino

Aboveground carbon sequestration assessment as an environmental service provided by the Biological Park of "Sierra San Javier", Tucuman, Argentina

Picture taken in a typical Citrus grove next of the "Sierra San Javier" Park at San Miguel de Tucuman.

The "Laboratorio de Investigacion en Ecosistemas de Yungas" -LIEY- based at Tucuman, Argentina -is a research center that, among its duties, is designing with the Architecture School a management plan for the Biological Reserve of the San Javier Mountains, which abuts the city of San Miguel de Tucuman. This is at the southernmost limit of the Yungas' ecosystem. This ecosystem is a cloud forest located in the eastern slope of the Andes between Ecuador and Argentina. In this process, I was incorporated during the 2006 summer at the team who is calculating the forest's carbon sequestration as one of the components of the environmental services provided by the Reserve to the city. The main question that we were addressing was to assess the consequences of the recent land use dynamic has driven to an increase of the carbon sequestration rate. The project seeks also to design future scenarios based on the application of different policies. This is a way to use scientific information as an input for a decision process that would drive to management practices.

The Yungas ecosystem at the "Sierra San Javier" Park at San Miguel de Tucuman. The summer project goal was to calculate the carbon sequestration rate due to the increase of this kind of ecosystem.

The region of Tucuman has had for the last 50 years a process of rural abandonment and a consequent reforestation, partly because the population of the Province has migrated to urban centers and partly because there has been a shift in the agricultural activities reducing the importance of sugar cane plantation and expanding citrus groves. For research purposes, we used the land use dynamic and the carbon sequestration rate per type of use as the proxy to calculate the above ground carbon sequestration rate. In this respect, there is abundant literature about carbon sequestration estimation based on satellite imagery or field information and from a global to a local scale. As a result we decided to work with reports of land use dynamic from 1949 to 2001 provided by former analysis undertaken at the laboratory and to combine the type of land use with allometric equations that enabled us to calculate the carbon sequestrated. A model with two basic components (land use dynamic and carbon sequestration rate) is on the designing process. An advantage of this approach, for management purposes, is to be able to update the model incorporating different land uses or more accurate equations of carbon sequestration. Also we are identifying the factors that tailor the land use in order to be used as variables to define future scenarios.

 Colleen Sullivan

Conservation of the Galapagos Islands: Analysis of Strategic Alliances between the Charles Darwin Foundation and Local Institutions

The Galapagos Islands, an archipelago approximately 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, is an area of worldwide conservation priority due to the high levels of endemic flora and fauna dominant in this region. Currently, this region is experiencing high levels of pressure on the natural systems. These characteristics that make this area unique ecologically have contributed to a booming eco-tourism industry. Tourism and the consequential economic growth and job creation have been a driving force in attracting Ecuadorian migration from the mainland, resulting in dramatic population growth in recent years.

Colleen poses with a Galapagos giant tortoise (Geochelone nigrita) in Santa Cruz Highlands. These tortoises spend part of the year foraging on the lush vegetation dominant in the highlands.

As a result of tourism-driven growth in activities such as fishing and farming, issues including the spread of invasive species and the steady decline of marine species have become conservation priorities in the region. Worldwide awareness of these issues has triggered a recent influx of international NGO's along with the formation of local NGO's and Galapagos-specific government institutions. While there has been a recent surge in institutional activities, the oldest and most established organizations still dominate. These organizations include the Galapagos National Park (GNP) that dates back to 1934, which was given the first government decree to protect some species in the archipelago. Another earlier-established organization in the region is the operational arm of the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF), the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS), founded on Santa Cruz Island in 1959.

Baby marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) basking on the harbor in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz. The marine iguana is endemic to the Galapagos Islands and has spread to all islands in the archipelago. This iguana is unique in that it is the only modern lizard worldwide with the ability to live and forage in the sea.

The CDF has a unique role as the 'preeminent international research and advisory institution dedicated exclusively to Galapagos' (CDF 2006-2016 Strategic Plan.) Currently, the Foundation is undergoing large-scale changes that are outlined in their ten-year strategic plan. To aid in achieving goals of this plan, my research involved analyzing strategic alliances between the CDF and other institutions in the Galapagos. The goal of this project is to assist the CDF in identifying strengths and weaknesses in current partnerships and identify potential for future collaboration that currently does not exist. This data will help the organization determine strategies for improving partnerships overall. During the summer of 2006, I spent 2 months in the Galapagos Islands, first interviewing staff at CDRS to identify institutions they work most closely with and the type of projects in which they are engaged. I then interviewed people at institutions outside of CDRS regarding levels of collaboration between organizations and the strengths and weaknesses of these arrangements. Institutions interviewed included, but where not limited to: international NGO's, Galapagos National Park, government institutions, members of the tourism sector, and fishing cooperatives. This research yielded a wealth of information and my analysis will include insights into issues beyond conservation such as sustainable development, a recurring theme that surfaced throughout the course of my work.

 Brandon Whitney

The Political Ecology of Indigenous Discourse in the Ecuadorian Amazon

During the summer of 2006, I studied a transnational, US-Ecuadorian NGO working with several indigenous groups in the south-central Amazon of Ecuador on organizational strengthening, political advocacy, territorial management, conservation and alternative development projects. Defined as an "alliance" between indigenous and non-indigenous partners, the NGO-foundation began in 1997 as a partnership between a mix of US and Ecuadorian citizens and the Ecuadorian indigenous Nationality of the Achuar to defend the latter's social and environmental rights. What started as a process envisioned as the "accompaniment" of a single indigenous Nation by a group of metropolitan donors and advocates in the US and a professional team of Ecuadorians based in that nation's capital has grown into a complex set of partnerships between a US-based advocacy alliance, an Ecuadorian non-profit foundation and seven Amazonian indigenous Nationalities.

Marching for rights.

Through a variety of methods-primarily multi-sited institutional ethnography, participant observation and richly detailed interviews-my research seeks to understand the nature of their NGO-indigenous partnerships, the complexity of actors involved, and the role of discursive rhetoric about indigenous peoples and conservation in their transnational relationships. Though often overlooked, it is my contention that discursive rhetoric of ecology, the Amazon and indigenous peoples is itself a powerful force in the world of environmental conservation and "sustainable" development-particularly in the realm of indigenous/non-indigenous partnerships.

Indigenous leaders at a meeting.

In the Ecuadorian context, new state policies concerning indigenous land titling have opened the door for Amazonian nationalities to assert new levels of authority over their territory. However, many of these groups turn to partnerships with NGOs to help advance legal, political and cultural claims. Especially in the face of looming oil-related conflicts in "undisturbed" forests, the indigenous discourse deployed within these partnerships takes on a powerful life of its own that sometimes masks the agency of those involved. Ultimately, I consider how such elements of discourse are connected to questions of power, identity, representation and independence in the Ecuadorian indigenous context-and what influence these later questions have on conservation, development, and human rights conflicts within their Amazonian territories.

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