ODYSSEA — OBSERVATORY OF THE DYNAMICS OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SOCIETIES AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE AMAZON

Results in brief

OBSERVATORY OF THE DYNAMICS OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SOCIETIES AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE AMAZON

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 changes and social organization, practices of rural populations and to analyze the consequences of these changes on human health; 2-To assess 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 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; 4-To foster social learning through researcher interaction with society in order to understand stakeholder expectations from research, to 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 and training.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Achieving a sustainable development trajectory in Amazonia is one of the key challenges facing Brazil, and is also an important international concern. ODYSSEA assembles an internationally renowned European and Brazilian multidisciplinary and intersectoral team. We aim to produce fundamental science and tools in order to build an innovative multi-and interdisciplinary observatory to monitor and assess dynamic interactions between Amazon societies and their environments. This observatory will serve as a basis for policy development that integrates social, environmental, political-economic and human health dimensions. Our methodology puts the society at the heart of the observatory’s building process, engaging stakeholders and decision makers in the research to favour advancement of their objectives and commitment to sustainable development issues.Building on knowledge framed around ongoing bilateral projects, ODYSSEA brings together several independent networks of international and Brazilian researchers which all have long-term experiences in the Amazon of environmental and social research, each with their own expert skill-sets. We expect significant advances in our understanding of the different feedbacks and linkages between the panoply of pressures exerted on the environment, the factors determining the vulnerability of local populations to environmental shocks and in the evaluation of governance and institutional arrangements aiming at promoting adaptation. We aim to enhance the capacity of Brazilian institutions to assess and reduce the vulnerability of populations in Amazonia.ODYSSEA will help unify an increasing number of bilateral arrangements for research and innovation between individual European countries and Brazil. Whilst these connections are proving fruitful in their own right there is a largely untapped opportunity to upscale the intensity and diversity of connections between Europe and Brazil on all levels of education, research and development.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

INSTITUT DE RECHERCHE POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT · MarseilleCoordinatorFrance
CENTRE DE COOPERATION INTERNATIONALE EN RECHERCHE AGRONOMIQUE POUR LEDEVELOPPEMENT - C.I.R.A.D. EPIC · ParisFrance
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisFrance
EMPRESA BRASILEIRA DE PESQUISA AGROPECUARIA EMBRAPA · BRASILIABrazil
FOCO AMBIENTE SOCIAL E CULTURAL LTDA · SAQUAREMABrazil
FUNDACAO OSWALDO CRUZ · Rio De JaneiroBrazil
FUNDACAO UNIVERSIDADE DE BRASILIA · Brasilia DfBrazil
FUNDACAO UNIVERSIDADE DO AMAZONAS · ManausBrazil
GEOMATYS · ARLESFrance
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE PESQUISAS DA AMAZONIA · MANAUS AMAZONASBrazil
INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE AGRONOMIA · LISBOAPortugal
LISODE SARL · MONTPELLIERFrance
STIFTELSEN THE STOCKHOLM ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE · STOCKHOLMSweden
UNIVERSIDADE DE SAO PAULO · SAO PAULO SPBrazil
UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DO AMAZONAS FUNDACAO · MANAUSBrazil
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL · Porto AlegreBrazil
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL RURAL DA AMAZONIA · BELEMBrazil
UNIVERSITAET INNSBRUCK · InnsbruckAustria
UNIVERSITE DE GUYANE · CayenneFrance
UNIVERSITE DE MONTPELLIER · MontpellierFrance
UNIVERSITE PAUL SABATIER TOULOUSE III · Toulouse Cedex 9France
UNIVERSITE RENNES II · Rennes CedexFrance
UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER · LANCASTERUnited Kingdom
Universidade Federal do Pará · BelémBrazil
VIEIRA PAK MANUELAFrance

ODYSSEA · OBSERVATORY OF THE DYNAMICS OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SOCIETIES AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE AMAZON

Results in brief

OBSERVATORY OF THE DYNAMICS OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SOCIETIES AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE AMAZON

Project objective

Participants

Links