Integrating science, local knowledge, and advanced technologies is essential to protect biodiversity and address the impacts of human activities on the environment
By Paula Drummond
Evaluating and measuring the effectiveness of conservation strategies is a critical step in ensuring that actions to protect biodiversity and ecosystems achieve the expected results. These evaluations measure the impact of conservation initiatives in ecological, social and economic terms, and help identify practices that can be adapted or replicated in other contexts.
Networks of ecological interactions and new technologies in the field
The topic of ecological interactions was addressed by Mathias Pires of the State University of Campinas, who emphasized the importance of understanding how species interact to mitigate the effects of functional extinction. This phenomenon, characterized by the loss of species’ ecosystem functions, is exacerbated by uneven data collection across regions.
According to the researcher, functional extinction is a growing reality on different continents, as evidenced by declining population abundance indices. “To detect and mitigate the effects of functional extinction, it is essential to understand how species interact, and the diversity of interactions is being lost faster than the disappearance of the species themselves,” explains Pires. The loss of habitats, such as forests, drastically reduces the range of ecological interactions, as has been observed on the islands of the Balbina Hydroelectric Plant, located on the Uatumã River, in the northeastern part of the state of Amazonas, in the municipality of Presidente Figueiredo. Camera trap studies have revealed a high abundance of animals, but with limited interactions. Smaller islands, for example, are unable to sustain complex networks of interactions. “The decrease in interactions can occur because some species no longer exist in that location or there are few representatives left on the islands, reducing the chance that animals that could interact will meet,” Pires reinforces, and as a result there is a reduction in ecological interaction networks, affecting both biodiversity and ecosystem services.
According to Cristina Banks-Leite of Imperial College London (UK), artificial intelligence and other computational advances are opening up new possibilities in conservation. She highlighted innovative tools that assess how much habitat is needed to conserve biodiversity, combining criteria of biological relevance, practicality and certifiability. She also pointed to the potential of acoustic monitoring to identify species, assess animal health, and even explore ways to communicate with animals.
Community monitoring
The Independent Territorial Environmental Monitoring (MATI), a community experience that monitors the impact of Belo Monte’s operations in the Volta Grande do Xingu, is a collective of local scientists and academics in which they evaluate flooded forests, fishing dynamics and the piracema. “It is important for researchers to interact with and listen to local communities to avoid reproducing Eurocentric science,” says Camila Ritter of the Juruá Institute and the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA).
One example of co-creation is the monitoring of pirarucu, whose fish count is based on their breathing, a technique learned from the community and scientifically validated and adopted as an official methodology by Ibama.
The path to building a science that is responsive to the demands of other actors involved in biodiversity conservation, as proposed by Camila Ritter, requires dedication, time and, above all, a willingness to listen. “We need to interact to change our vision,” says Joice Ferreira of Embrapa Amazônia Oriental. The researcher is one of the leaders of the Sustainable Amazon Network (RAS), which has been conducting research in the Amazon for more than 20 years. “In the beginning, our research was very academic, but today we don’t do anything without interacting with local communities,” Ferreira explained.
The researcher emphasized the importance of remote landscape assessment and historical data in understanding the impact of deforestation on biodiversity in tropical forests. RAS has experience in assessing different dimensions of biodiversity, including biotic homogenization, plant dispersal, predation rates and acoustic characteristics. “In forests subjected to anthropogenic disturbances, the loss of conservation value is evident, indicating that degradation can double the negative impact on biodiversity, causing a ‘double degradation’ and profoundly affecting the animal and plant life of these regions,” explains the researcher.
Joice Ferreira also points out that to broaden the impact of science and break social bubbles, interaction between science and society is essential, especially in contact with farmers and local communities. Examples of this are the “living laboratories”, where socio-ecological experiments are carried out in specific areas for participatory planning, the integration of local indigenous knowledge and the recognition of agroforestry as a restoration alternative that balances conservation and community interests.
About the São Paulo School of Advanced Science “Co-designing Biodiversity Assessments”
Organized by Unicamp’s Graduate Program in Ecology, with support from Fapesp, the São Paulo School of Advanced Science “Co-creating Biodiversity Assessments” brought together 57 participants from 22 countries on four continents, including graduate students, early career researchers, environmental managers and technicians. The participants spent 14 days in São Pedro (SP) discussing ways to integrate academic and practical knowledge on biodiversity to support decision-making.