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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ODYSSEA (OBSERVATORY OF THE DYNAMICS OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SOCIETIES AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE AMAZON)

Teaser

Summary

The Amazon is one of the most diverse terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the world and plays a major role in the regulation of global climate. Although the impact of land transformation on the local to regional climate are still in debate, changes in precipitation are already observed in the most deforested regions of the Amazon and could partly explain the rapid succession of extreme hydrological events (droughts and floods) in the last decade. These changes directly affect human populations, in particular the most vulnerable, which have limited resources for catastrophe prevention and post-disaster recovery. Moreover, although poverty alleviation strategies have been implemented by the Brazilian Government for several decades, most rural populations still have little access to public policies. In this context, there is a need to engage with stakeholders and decision makers to build methodologies and tools that can support the elaboration of management plans that integrate the social, environmental, politico-economic and human health dimensions. The ODYSSEA project responds to this need by building the scientific fundaments and tools of an innovative multi and interdisciplinary observatory to monitor and assess dynamic interactions between Amazon societies and environments as a basis for policy development. Building on past and on-going bilateral research projects, the ODYSSEA project brings together several networks of international and Brazilian researchers which all have long-term experience of environmental and social research in the Amazon, to acheive the following specific objectives: 1-To analyze retrospectively the interactions between environment and society and their evolution in the last two decades. In particular to characterize the feedbacks between environmental/climatic changes and social organization, practices of rural populations and to analyze the consequences of these changes on human health; 2-To assess and explore different adaptation strategies with local actors, with respect to their impacts on the environment, household vulnerability and health, building prospective scenarios and identifying how public policies could promote more sustainable adaptations to changing conditions; 3-To share and integrate knowledge among partners to achieve a collective representation of the socio-environmental dynamics and promote the development of integrative methods and participatory tools to support public policies design and evaluation; 4- To foster social learning through researcher interaction with society (including local populations, decision-makers in government and non-state agencies) in order to understand stakeholder expectations from research, to share and build knowledge with them, to properly formulate useful end-user products, and to make this knowledge public; 5-To promote new skills and enhance career prospective for Brazilians and Europeans through their involvement in an innovative research project and through the organization of workshops, summer/winter schools open to professionals and training.

Work performed

The observatory conception is inseparable from an approach that places learning at its center: the observatory is a tool that, by allowing debates, favors the learning process. To enable the scientists to find common interests and discuss them with social actors, a conceptual framework and methodology were built for cross comparing the different sites involved in the Odyssea project. This construction was gradual:
- At the scientific kick-off, in April 2016 in Pirenopolis, researchers were invited to map, across sites, the common features and specificities, resulting in a first mind-mapping of the main concepts that are dealt with within the Odyssea network.
- At the second common meeting, in November 2016 in Brasilia, we defined the first concepts for a common framework, addressing why to compare sites and how to compare them.
- In April 2017 in Brasilia, a WP2 workshop was held, to move forward with the framework and define a first action plan to compare sites.
- From August to Sep 2017, a methodology was built and tested at a local level and at a municipal level (in Santarem), as pilot experiences, contributing to the improve the framework and define the main elements that other sites could then follow.
- In September 2017 in BÃ©lem, we brought together in Belem representatives from several sites (in particular, Santarem and the Northeast of ParÃ¡, but also from Manaus), to discuss the terms of a partnership with them (and sign it) and start identifying the main themes that they would like to contemplate within an observatory of social-environmental changes.
The central concept orienting the framework is adaptation to changes, linked to that of adaptive capacity and agency. Our methodology aims to progressively build with the social actors the stakes of change, the forms of adaptation and the ways for them to be more pro-active in this. From the beginning, the aim was to involve different scales, from community to municipality to region, as our working hypothesis is that the levers and contexts to promote adaptation are specific to each scale. Actors need to become conscious of the levers at their own scale, but also of the ways to link to the actors at other scales to have access to other levers. Apart from this collective construction process, researchers have been engaged in their research activities with universities and local actors. These processes will enable to support future Odyssea activities, through the partnerships which are progressively strengthened and the trust which comes from them, and also through the ways to engage well with its population.

Final results

To organize the interaction between researchers and actors, the Odyssea project selected 5 sites, where activities will be concentrated: the Northeast of ParÃ¡ (around Belem), Santarem (middle Amazon), Manaus, the BR 163 (which crosses the Mato Grosso to Santarem, with a more precise area around Sinop) and the Amapa state (border with French Guiana). In each of these site, the activities will be articulated at two levels: at the community level, with the populations themselves, and then within a common pole, with the representatives of different communities. The idea is to discuss with the actors at each level what can be done at this level to adapt to changes and what should rather be done in connection with other levels, to organize a multi-scale perspective on problems that people face and ultimately succeed in thinking about multi-scale governance to address these problems. Although these five sites are a selection within a huge Amazonian region, they will nevertheless allow to grasp the main evolutions occurring and to choose with the actors engaged in the process of construction of the observatory what are themes that make sense for them. The ODYSSEA project has all the key-ingredients to enhance the potential of research and innovation. First the participatory approaches involving the local population, managers and policy-makers will foster intersectoral culture exchanges that are the roots of innovation. For part of the participants, in particular students, the strong commitment with managers and policy-makers can be a stimuli to orient their career towards supporting public policies. The interdisciplinary methodology to construct collaborative tools will promote skills exchanges which are also source of innovation.