PROJECT
Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use
 
DESCRIPTION

The Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use program started in 2004 to extend IPÊ's actions to riverside and native communities inhabiting ecosystems along the lower Rio Negro.

The ecosystems of the lower Rio Negro are ecologically important for conservation, because of their outstanding biological diversity. Biodiversity integrates complex social systems in riverside and native populations that historically have developed their knowledge and expertise in interaction with rivers, land, and elements of the forest, contributing to form an eco-social landscape mosaic.

Today, relevant impacts on biodiversity and social diversity take place in the region. As a result of inadequate management, we can observe an increase in selective deforestation, overexploitation of aquatic and terrestrial fauna, land impoverishment, social and environmental conflicts, loss of traditional knowledge and agro-biodiversity, and impoverishment of riverside populations.

Adopting sustainable forms of space appropriation - such as management of non-timber forest resources, permaculture development, and game and fish management - together with actions of territorial co-management can break this negative cycle of natural resources use.
 
OBJECTIVES
 

• To integrate ethno and scientific knowledge to develop research projects, monitoring, and sustainable management of fauna and flora;

• To support and to appreciate sustainable practices of access to forest and water resources, valuing and integrating the traditional culture associated to biodiversity;

• To develop permaculture activities that seek to conserve the environment and improve the quality of life of local population;

• To support the involvement of traditional populations in processes of territorial management.

The projects carried out have the following premises:

• The integration between ecological and social systems (focusing on landscape);

• Adaptive models, based on flexibility, considering the uncertainty and complexity of the social and the environmental scenarios;

• Focus on traditional populations, conservation, and sustainable use of biodiversity;

• Appreciation and inclusion of the traditional knowledge and practices of local populations in conservation projects as crucial components, together with scientific knowledge, to develop new forms of management and culturally adapted sustainable technologies;

• Participation, respect, and commitment as key elements to develop activities;

• Interchange and collaboration between the institutions involved and those directly interested in biodiversity conservation along the lower Rio Negro.

 
 

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