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Cycle 9 (2020 Deadline)
Multi-scale, interdisciplinary, integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem values of Peruvian Amazon peatlands
PI: Sandra Ríos Cáceres (srios.ibc@gmail.com), Instituto del Bien Común, with co-PIs Aoife Bennett (aoife.bennett@gmail.com), Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, and Jorge Solignac Ruíz and Jose David Urquiza Muñoz, Universidad Nacional de la Amazonia Peruana
U.S. Partners: Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz, Arizona State University; and Victor Gutiérrez-Vélez, Temple University
Project Dates: April 2022 - March 2024
Project Overview:
While the peatlands of Southeast Asia have long been recognized as threatened major stores of carbon, the tropical peatlands of Amazonia have only recently begun to be identified. Their distribution, depth, carbon content, and socioeconomic dynamics are not well known. Furthermore, existing knowledge is largely based on remote-sensing data with little field validation, and almost no engagement with local peoples. This project aims to carry out this research in the two focus areas of Loreto and Ucayali in the Peruvian Amazon. Loreto has an estimated area of 35,000 km2 of peatlands, but only 35 plots (each of 0.5-1 hectares) have been sampled, representing 0.00001% of verified peatlands. Ucayali is predicted to host thousands of km2 of peatlands, but has almost no field verification. Indigenous and smallholder communities live inside and close to known peatlands, and they will play a central role in managing and conserving them going forward. However, outside of a few sites in Loreto, there has been no rigorous assessment of how local people value and use these peatlands, and no explicit research into opportunities for collaborative conservation beyond the sustainable use of the over-harvested aguaje palm tree.
This project team aims to co-create new knowledge on the distribution of peatlands, their carbon storage, and how local people understand, use, and steward these ecosystems. The project uses interdisciplinary methods including ecosystem inventories, remote sensing, and qualitative and quantitative social science methods and will develop social-ecological maps of the regions that will be used by national, regional, and local government agencies, indigenous organizations and communities, and international actors pursuing conservation through carbon markets. This novel research will collect new information about peatlands that have never before been studied, not only examining peatlands from an ecological perspective but also centering human communities and empowering them to help shape future conservation initiatives. It is timely because this information is urgently needed to fill national and international data needs crucial for addressing climate change.
Summary of Recent Activities:
In their first annual report covering the year through April 2023, the PI and co-PIs on this project reported progress on several fronts despite the numerous challenges encountered. Their first key objective was to build ground-validated high resolution maps showing peatland location and extent in the understudied area of the Ucayali River encompassing southwards through the Ucayali region towards Madre de Dios. This will ensure that all stakeholders have access to basic information about these peatlands and will form the foundation of further initiatives and research to conserve peatlands while improving human well-being. As of May 2023, the team had produced a preliminary version of three peatland maps and one deforestation map. They have been used to inform the team’s field sampling processes. Their initial results provide a good general degree of accuracy (97%) from satellite data; however, they are exploring peatland classes in different areas and working to extend the sampling area over different peatland classes where an improvement of accuracy is required.
The second objective involves measuring carbon stocks in trees and soils in areas where peatlands are not yet quantified. This will clearly show the contribution of these peatlands to global climate change mitigation, which is essential for their inclusion in carbon markets and will build a scientific basis for their conservation. Three out of 14 peatlands programmed for this year were measured in the first year. This was due to internal administrative delays within on of the recipient universities related to the acquisition of equipment and materials, as well as difficulties presented by the seasonal emptying and rising of the rivers, which did not allow an early start of field measurements. However, efforts were made, and eight programmed sampling points located on the maps were verified, three of which had peat. Prior to the fieldwork, remote sensing work was carried out in order to create preliminary work maps that allowed the researchers to approximate the locations of peat. With these preliminary maps, 14 sampling points were located based on cartographic inputs and by reference from field visits. In addition, a rigorous training procedure was followed for the field staff, which consisted mainly of standardizing criteria for measurement procedures and collecting botanical and soil samples, which took place in August 2022 in a peat bog near the city of Iquitos. The displacement to the measurement sites took place in October, November, and part of December 2022. Three permanent plots were installed in the territories of the Nuevo Saposoa (two peat bogs) and Patria Nueva communities. Measurements of the existing tree community were taken, collecting botanical samples of all the species found in the plot. Soil samples were also collected at various depths every 50 cm, at different points of the peatland along a transect, for later processing. The other five verified points had characteristics of flooded palm forests; however, they contained mineral soil. During January, botanical samples were identified in the Amazon Herbarium of the UNAP, which, added to the data from the field measurements, will allow the team to know the amount of aerial carbon. In January, February, and March 2023, soil samples were processed in the soil research laboratory of the UNAP's Natural Resources Research Center to determine the carbon stock contained in the soil. In January, it was no longer possible to go out to the field because, at this time, the peatlands are completely flooded; this condition will remain until approximately July 2023. The data obtained in the field will allow the researchers to make adjustments in the remote sensing work that will enable them to locate areas with peat to a closer approximation and improve field efforts to make measurements. With the administrative problems overcome and with improved maps for the location of peatlands, in Year 2, new peatlands will be verified to quantify the carbon stored in them, making preliminary advance visits to the proposed sampling areas to increase the efficiency of the measurement equipment.
The third key objective relates to using participatory social science methods to co-develop a dynamic peatlands territorial-political map of local populations and their multi-scale socio-economic activities. This will ensure that local peoples’ values, knowledge, management strategies, and priorities are visible to conservation stakeholders and that local people have a stake in collaborative research and conservation activities in the peatlands of the Peruvian Amazon. The first social science field research campaign on the project was undertaken in August 2022. Prior to this, the researchers had many meetings in order to create a “methodology at the interface of indigenous and non-indigenous science.” These meetings were between indigenous people of the ethnicity of the area and the co-PI Dr. Aoife Bennett. The outing in August 2022 was to pilot this methodology in two communities, which was also supported thanks to co-funding from Sussex University. The work was very fruitful and an academic paper is near completion on the results and processes of these participatory mapping activities using the novel new methodology.
The fourth objective involves co-creating a repeatable social ecological nexus research framework that builds on existing action research with indigenous communities. This will ensure that further work in Peru’s peatlands updates information on how local communities relate to peatlands, and that ecological research is effectively integrated with socioeconomic work. First the researchers went through the process of designing the blueprint for the novel and innovative intercultural methodology they created, which interweaves indigenous participatory mapping methods and remote sensing mapping. This methodology was applied in indigenous communities to derive qualitative and quantitative results on themes of violence, nature, migration and ethnicity, deforestation, and the future the community wants. They have determined their methodology to be robust and repeatable, as long as it is methodologically adapted by an indigenous person from the area of study and the field-research is led by an indigenous person also from the area of study. This work is close to submission to peer review for a published paper. Additionally, another field trip to extend this pilot work is planned for July or August 2023. Also planned for Year 2 of the project are activities aimed at achieving the fifth and final objective, integrating geographical distribution, ecological information, and socioeconomic data into geographical information systems for public access of information from this study and literature.
Specific plans for the coming include socioeconomic field research to be undertaken in Ucayali in March and April 2023 by the science side of the project. Local indigenous researchers will receive training and go to the field to run the activities with co-PI Aoife Bennett. This is a collaborative interdisciplinary effort for both the social and natural sciences, as Aoife Benett will also be collecting GPS points of the peatlands from Imiria in Ucayali and passing them to the ecological team. Two other fieldwork outings have been programmed to verify existing peatlands at the sites located with the remote sensing work. With the verification it is intended to have three field trips to install permanent plots in these verified points; it is intended to install eight plots for each trip. It is planned that the advance team will enter the field in July and August 2023, and the field team will go out in August, September, October, and, if necessary, November. At least four students are receiving scholarships to support their research projects, and they are expected to begin fieldwork and other activities by June 2023 and complete their projects by December 2023. The researchers based at UNAP will offer an "R" programming course to optimize the data processing and analysis skills of the students involved. UNAP also plans a course on geographic information systems to ensure all relevant participants have the necessary skills to work on the peatland maps that will be produced as results are obtained. Another training will focus on how to read and write academic literate. Team members plan to submit a paper on the social methodology, and they hope to attract coverage of their findings in mainstream non-academic media to help build local interest in their work.
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