July 18, 2009
I've been in Brazil for over a month?!
Hello! Welcome to my first blog entry of the summer! I cannot believe that more than a month has already gone by since I first arrived in Brazil. Needless to say, I have plenty to write about!
I guess I will start with a short description of my internship to give you all some context for the 5-week summary to follow. The Paraná Biodiversity Project was developed by a number of state agencies in Paraná, Brazil to create biodiversity corridors that link conservation units throughout the state. The decentralized nature of the project allows for the implementation of community-based, income-generating, agroecological models that benefit small land-owners while restoring native vegetation to degraded lands. During the spring, I was invited by Gracie Abad Maximiano, a 2007 Watson Institute Scholar of the Environment to intern with her and the Paraná Biodiversity Project to evaluate some of the impacts of the project’s eucalyptus agroecological model.
The internship started off in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. Upon arriving in the city’s airport, one receives a smattering of images of the city’s biggest tourist attraction: the Botanical Garden. Incredibly, that is where I lived for the 10 days I spent in the city because my internship provided me with researcher status! During that time, I accompanied Gracie to meet a number of the different state-level government agencies affiliated with the Paraná Biodiversity Project. I visited the Secretary of State Planning (SEPL), the Environmental Institute of Paraná (IAP), and The Paraná Agency for Technical Assistance and Rural Expanse (EMATER). I spent the most time, of course, with Gracie and the State Secretary of the Environment and Water Resources (SEMA). The Paraná Biodiversity Project requires the coordination of each of these institutes and all of their regional bodies in order to achieve the restoration of native vegetation in the state in a manner that is also beneficial and feasible for those producers involved. During my second week in Curitibá, Gracie charged me with the task of presenting my internship and our proposed research plan to representatives of each of those agencies… luckily for me (and my language skills) the presentation was a much more informal discussion about who I am, and where I fit in the Paraná Biodiversity Project.
At 10pm on June 22, I found myself on the second story of a double decker bus departing from Curitiba for Paranavaí and the northwestern part of the state. Gracie had remained down below where the seats recline to be completely horizontal. The next morning and the following week we were off visiting the regional offices of those same institutions to see how they work on the ground.
Picture large expanses of pasturelands, sugar cane fields, cassava root fields, and red, sandy dirt roads – as well as the occasional small fragment of incredibly diverse native forest. Now you have a pretty good image of the northwest of Paraná. About 6-8 years ago, the state government pressured all landowners to fence off 30 meters of their properties at the margin of any river, so now-a-days there is also meandering strips of green that run throughout the landscape. During that same period, the government also began to enforce a Federal law passed in 1964 that stated that all properties must dedicate at least 20% of their land as a legal reserve (in the Amazonian region this fraction increases to 80% of any property). Of course, the loss of productive land to be converted into a reserve requires a huge sacrifice by any producer, and it is the goal of the agroecological models to create economic opportunities so that producers may still benefit from the ecological restoration of their properties.
Many landowners have begun to cultivate eucalyptus within their legal reserves as a form of income generation while still complying with the federal law. Eucalyptus, despite being an exotic species, has been recognized to create a favorable microclimate for the regeneration of native species. And it is at this point where my work with the Paraná Biodiversity Project really begins.
For the past two weeks and for the next three weeks to come, I will be carrying out field research to compare native regeneration under three scenarios: areas planted with natives, areas planted with eucalyptus, and areas that were simply left isolated. Under the supervision of Gracie here in Brazil and the academic advising of Dov Sax back at Brown, I hope to gain results that will inform the implementation of this agroecological model in the future.
Well anyway, I think this blog post has gone on long enough! In future blog posts, look forward to learning more about my research process and some of my opinions about the Paraná Biodiversity Project’s approach to sustainable production!
Alright Tchau for now… thanks for reading… and abraços!! Até Mais!
Posted by Megan Whelan at 11:06 AM | Comments (2)
