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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 PEER project carried out research in the two focus areas of Loreto and Ucayali in the Peruvian Amazon. 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, previously there had 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 aimed to co-create new knowledge on the distribution of peatlands, their carbon storage, and how local people understand, use, and steward these ecosystems.
Final Summary of Project Activities
The researchers created high-resolution remote sensing maps of various kinds, some of which were ground validated using a local field team and subsequently checked in workshops with indigenous communities; others were randomly validated (remote). These maps show some newly discovered areas of peatland and will be returned to the communities for their knowledge and political use.
In terms of statistical precision for maps, the overall accuracy in identifying ecosystems with the potential for peatland presence was 97%. However, there is a paucity of high-resolution images on the west side of the river, which has led to a certain degree of uncertainty, particularly in the case of the Pisqui river. The results obtained indicate that the peatlands within the study area contain an average of approximately 568 trees per hectare. A total of 201 species belonging to 45 families were collected. The researchers also found the carbon storage potential of peatlands were significantly influenced by species composition (wood density) and stem density (e.g. trees per hectare). Sampling of 125 distinct soil samples showed a remarkable diversity in the total soil carbon content.
The team also co-developed a dynamic territorial-political peatland map of local populations and their socioeconomic activities with indigenous community. This mapping process involved the drawing of landscapes by the communities, as well as working on large maps with the legal polygons brought to the communities, which were overlaid with plastic sheets for each topic of interest. The resultant map ended up highlighting the threats and opportunities to the peatlands in a new geopolitical context.
The researchers spent the entire two years of the project co-creating the socio-ecological nexus, mainly in the form of a novel methodology. However, in working with the indigenous people they changed the “nexus” to “research at the interface of Indigenous and Western science” because this group of inter-cultural (indigenous and non-indigenous) researchers believe indigenous research methodologies and methods are as rigorous and progressive as Western ones. Not approaching indigenous research in this way creates barriers to the generation of high-quality robust, resilient, ethical, and reciprocal research that could otherwise be useful to people and nature. The team interweaved indigenous methods, Western social and natural science methods and both participatory remote sensing mapping and applied the methodology in indigenous communities to derive qualitative and quantitative results on themes of Violence, Nature, Migration, Ethnicity, and Deforestation. Other topics included the future the community wants and opportunities for restoration and regeneration of degraded areas.
The PEER team was able to bring one of the co-creators from the Shipibo-Conibo tribe to Oxford University to promote their process to students, academics, and other interested parties, and the team received a grant of $14,000 from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery for their work. The PEER team and indigenous researchers are preparing two papers for academic journals on their findings and published an interactive map about processes of the ecological mapping (taking staples, traversing difficult terrains and consulting with communities to get the best soil samples in the area).
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