Browsing by Autor "Sabina Cerruto Ribeiro"

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Participatory Action Research for Conservation and Development: Experiences from the Amazon
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2021) Stephen G. Perz; Marliz Arteaga; Andrea Baudoin Farah; Foster Brown; Elsa Mendoza; Yara Araújo Pereira de Paula; Leonor Mercedes Perales Yabar; Alan dos Santos Pimentel; Sabina Cerruto Ribeiro; Guillermo Rioja-Ballivián
Research that features participation and action orientation, such as participatory action research (PAR), is especially valuable in contexts where there is rapid change, high social inequality, and great uncertainty about the future, which drives stakeholder demands for information to support their goals. The Amazon offers such a context, for it is a region where diverse stakeholders engage in contestation over environmental governance to address issues such as climate change to achieve conservation and sustainable development. Stakeholder mobilization has changed the terms by which research is conducted, from the definition of priority topics to the application of findings. Due to stakeholder mobilization, more and more research in the Amazon is now necessarily participatory, for stakeholders routinely issue demands about how the research will be conducted and for what purpose. In this paper, we provide an overview of several experiences of implementing methods such as PAR by different teams or networks, focusing on the complementary contributions of outside researchers and local stakeholders. The heart of the paper reports on three broad types of experiences focusing on conservation and development in the Amazon: (1) participatory data collection for co-production of knowledge for environmental governance, (2) inclusive environmental monitoring systems, and (3) innovative models of knowledge exchange to facilitate collective action. Within each type, we report multiple experiences with distinct approaches to participation and action in research. These experiences constitute models that can be replicated in other places for broader impact to support conservation and development.
Volume, Biomass, and Carbon Estimates for Commercial Tree Species in a Managed Forest: A Case Study in the Bolivian Amazon
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2024) Flora Magdaline Benítez Romero; José Ambrósio Ferreira Neto; Zenóbio Abel Gouvêa Perelli da Gama e Silva; Laércio Antônio Gonçalves Jacovine; Santiago Ivan Sagredo Velasquez; Richard Andres Benitez Romero; Sabina Cerruto Ribeiro; Guilherme Silvério Aquino de Souza; Crismeire Isbaex; Rosana Barbosa de Castro Lopes
Tropical forest management has a potential role in forest conservation if it is sustainable. This study of a forest under management in Bolivian Amazonia strongly suggests that the management project is not sustainable and that no potential changes in management would be likely to make it so. In a 216.41 ha harvested area, 278 commercial trees from 10 families, 15 genera, and 15 species were measured. The density of commercial species with diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 50 cm was 1.28 trees ha−1, and the harvestable commercial volume was 12.40 m3 ha−1. Due to market restrictions, the actual amounts harvested were much lower: 96 trees were harvested with commercial boles totaling 2.7 m3 ha−1. Of the total impact on biomass and carbon (above- and belowground), the logs removed from the area represented only 13.4%, while 86.6% was from losses in the forest as follows: 14.5% from the stumps, crowns, and roots of harvested trees (DBH ≥ 50 cm) plus 72.1% from the trees (DBH ≥ 10 cm) in the forest lost to roads, log landings, and skid tracks and the gap openings caused by felling the harvested trees. The estimated expenses exceeded the gross revenue of the management company (USD 519.15 ha−1), a fact confirmed by the company’s subsequent bankruptcy. The project’s low harvest intensity reduces the environmental impact per hectare but increases the impact per cubic meter of wood harvested because producing a given volume of wood requires disturbing a larger area and because more kilometers of access roads and skid tracks have to be installed to extract a given volume of wood. Because many costs are fixed regardless of harvest intensity, small harvest volume can render such projects financially unfeasible, increasing the likelihood that they will be abandoned and not provide long-term “sustainable” forest protection. However, this does not mean that higher harvest intensity results in sustainability, as other constraints apply to high-intensity projects. We conclude that conservation alternatives to maintain the forest would be more beneficial than management for timber.
Weather disasters and their underreported transboundary impacts on Amazonian communities
(IOP Publishing, 2025) Rayane Pacheco; Juan Pablo Iñamagua-Uyaguari; Galia Selaya Garvizu; Sabina Cerruto Ribeiro; Ane Alencar; Liliana M. Dávalos
Abstract In the Amazon, climate and land use change are expected to intensify risks from weather disasters, posing major challenges to people and ecosystems. Yet, how weather disasters already affect the peoples of Amazonia remains understudied. To quantify regional impacts, we compiled and analyzed reports on weather disaster category, frequency, human, and economic impacts from 2013 to 2023 across five Amazonian countries. We counted 12 541 disaster reports, affecting up to >3 million Amazonians and >100 000 pieces of public infrastructure in a single year. There were disproportionate concentrations of landslides in the Amazon-Andes of Ecuador, and fires associated with agricultural management and sometimes land grabbing in the Orinoco-Amazon ecotone of Colombia and along the southern Arc of Deforestation of Bolivia and Brazil. We argue that weather disaster impacts in the Amazon are underreported because: (1) data from four Amazonian countries could not be obtained, (2) cross-country reporting was not standardized and (3) it varied such that virtually all heatwave and most drought data came from Brazil, despite published evidence that both disaster types are present throughout the region. Disaster impacts are already significant, underscoring the need for transboundary policies on land use, local adaptation strategies for communities and infrastructure, and coordinated regional efforts to share and update weather disaster management plans. Developing consistent, accessible, and interoperable datasets across the region is fundamental to building a comprehensive understanding of weather-related disasters in the Amazon and to informing effective public policies that strengthen prevention, response, and adaptation efforts. These findings and recommendations provide a basis for discussing regional climate hazards at CoP30 in Belém do Pará, Brazil, in November.