August 29, 2009
The End
Well, the internship has ended, and all in all, it has been a great experience. As I prepare to leave for the States, The Paraná Biodiversity Project (PBP) has begun to organize its closing ceremony: funding for the project has officially ended, yet hopefully the programs and agroecological models put in place by the PBR will continue to grow and sustain themselves throughout the state.
Overall, I was impressed with the level of collaboration between the different government agencies involved with the project. Environmental fiscalization agencies, traditionally in conflict with the interests of producers, worked together with EMATER, to provide the technical support required to restore the land in a manner viable and favorable for the producers. State-level agencies, such as SEMA, made frequent and personal visits to municipal organizations and directly to the producers themselves who joined the project. The personal contacts that the PBP has created have formed an interconnected web of familiar and dedicated faces between organizations and municipalities all with the same goal: to restore the biodiversity and natural vegetation of the state of Paraná in a socio-economically conscious manner.
Of course, the restoration of biodiversity corridors throughout the state and the reforestation of 20% of private properties are undoubtedly lofty goals that are met with great challenges, and many lessons may be taken away from the work of the PBP. Principally, I found that the greatest challenge to the project was the level of community participation. Given that I worked principally on a research project separate from the implemented agroecological models and that I was not present for the number of community meetings held among the small producers, I was not able to gain a true understanding of this level of community involvement. Nevertheless, in talking with several landowners and observing the different agencies over the course of the summer, I found the lack of community-based initiatives to be the fundamental challenge to this top-down approach for sustainable land-use change.
At least as an individual looking at the project from the outside, it was apparent that many producers joined the project because they felt they had to comply with the 20% Legal Reserve law and not because they were actually interested in the restoration of the native vegetation. Only a few producers stand out in my mind as those who truly believed in the PBP’s cause. This lack of community-based initiative – where the producers themselves recognize a problem and seek viable solutions – raises the concern that these agroecological models may not be sustained over time or that the project will only develop to the point that the government pushes it. In order to realize truly sustainable land-use change, action has to come from the producers themselves.
The Paraná Biodiversity Project is undoubtedly a top-down approach to land restoration, funded by the World Bank and organized principally at the state-level; thus fundamentally, community-based action is a challenge. However, the decentralized nature of the Paraná Biodiversity Project, with the involvement of many, on-the-ground, local agencies, does provide hope for greater local participation. A greater level of community leadership, organizing and education may certainly motivate more long-lasting effects of the Paraná Biodiversity Project.
Well, there is plenty more to discuss, but I think that about sums up what immediately jumps into my head when I think about my experience here in Paraná. Thanks so much for reading. It has been a pleasure filling you in on my experiences in the south of Brazil, and I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to comment and discuss as much as you like.
Até a próxima vez. Tchau!
Posted by Megan Whelan at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2009
The Internship Winds Down
Fifty plots, one hundred soil samples, and more than a thousand plant specimens, collected and pressed to a crisp, characterize the past five weeks of my internship here in Paraná, Brazil. It has been a busy month!!
Like I said in my last post, the objective of the research with the Paraná Biodiversity Project has been to compare native vegetation regeneration under three treatment types: areas planted with native trees, areas planted with eucalyptus, and areas that were simply fenced off and isolated. The results will hopefully indicate a preference for the restoration of natural vegetation in the region. In this post, I hope to provide a clear picture of the research methodology that was used this summer.
In total, 50 plots from about 30 different private properties in the municipality of Diamante do Norte were examined: 12 isolated; 20 planted with eucalyptus; 10 planted with natives; 8 planted with both natives and exotics. The plots range in age and distance from the nearby rivers (all are located within 250m of any river). Within a given treatment and distance from river, the specific locations of the plots were determined randomly by the roll of a die.
Six types of data were collected in each 5m x 50m plot. First, we recorded the diameter at breast-height (DBH) for every woody species with a DBH greater or equal to one centimeter found within the site. Second, we recorded the occurrence of every plant species found within the plot, collecting a sample specimen for any unknown or new species. Next, along a 50m transect tape that ran down the middle of the plot, we recorded which species were crossing the line for every ten centimeters. For every ten meters, we measured the depth of the O-Horizon of the soil. We then collected a sample from the O-Horizon and from the first 10cm of the A-Horizon at each of these 10m distances to be analyzed for pH and nutrient content. Finally, we determined the color of the A-Horizon using a soil-color chart book, and we considered the plot completed once the coordinates of the site were recorded.
Now, I’ve been using the pronoun “we,” demanding a description of the three incredibly important people who accompanied me in the field. First, there was my neighbor in the State Park of Caiuá, António Terto. He works directly for the state’s environmental agency (IAP) as the equivalent of a US’ forest park ranger. He provided transportation to the different properties and facilitated the research process, always encouraging the most efficient methodology possible in order to fit in as many plots as we could during the short time we had in the field. Next there was Seu João, who works with the organization COMAFEM. COMAFEM is an inter-municipality body that provides environmental technicians and support for a number of different projects and programs. As the individual who held the most experience working with forestry in Diamante do Norte and who could handle a machete with incredible ease, Seu João helped to both tame some of the most grizzly of plots (and by grizzly, I mean too dense or too spiny to pass) and to provide the common names of scores of plants, labeling anything from indistinct ground-cover to common trees. Finally, there was Valdir Leite da Silva. Valdir, who also works with COMAFEM, held the most experience working with other visiting researchers in the area. Consulting often with this native-born, Diamante do Norte resident, I depended greatly on Valdir’s local knowledge and his scientific-minded advice.
And so, accompanied by these three, Paraná Biodiversity Project collaborators, I finished up a busy, month-and-a-half of field research, and have since returned to the Botanical Garden of Curitiba to identify (to the scientific name) all of the plant specimens that were collected and pressed from the field. The herbarium in the Botanical Garden of Curitiba possesses the largest number of plant families and genera in Brazil, and the botanists there, principally Juarez Cordeiro, utilized this incredible resource to assist me in identifying the hundreds of samples that I brought back from the northwestern region of the state.
Of course, the identification process will never be fully complete. Many of the plants did not have flowers or seeds to properly distinguish them to the individual species level, yet the internship has to end at some point! Thus, this week is the last official week of the internship, and these days mostly consist of tying up loose ends and enjoying Brazil before leaving for the States. Juarez Cordeiro at the Botanical Garden has agreed to continue identifying plants until neither time nor material will allow for more identification, the list that he provides will contribute greatly to the quality of the data analysis that I will begin upon returning to Brown.
I think that is all for now!! I will post another blog tomorrow, reflecting on my experience with the Paraná Biodiversity Project. Thanks again for reading. Abraços e até mais!!
Posted by Megan Whelan at 06:57 PM | Comments (0)
