Skip to main content

PRISMA Amazonia

Poverty Reduction through Incentives for Sustainable ecosystem Management across Amazonia. PRISMA Amazonia is a project awaiting funding. The PRISMA Amazonia project proposal was submitted in January 2011 under the ESPA (Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation) call issued by the UK Government (DFID, NERC and ESRC). The proposal is currently under review by the Government and a decision is expected by June 2011.

PRISMA Amazonia is a consortium of 19 organisations in Latin America, United Kingdom and Africa. This proposal builds upon the key conclusions of workshops held during a capacity-building phase (Valuing rainforests as global eco-utilities), funded by an ESPA capacity-building grant in 2009 and 2010. These discussions involved community representatives, NGOs and regional policy-makers, establishing a strong core research team and network stakeholders.

Rationale: Latin America is a Biodiversity Superpower and Amazonia is possibly its greatest natural capital asset. PRISMA Amazonia, a basin-scale project, will help regional decision-makers to see development and poverty alleviation through a new prism: ecosystem services. We will deliver excellence with impact, by ensuring that decision-makers have the evidence they need to shift Amazonia from unsustainable Business as Usual (BAU) development to Sustainable Ecosystem Management (SEM) that both reduces poverty and the vulnerability caused by the loss of ecosystem services.

Team: The team is led by Carlos A.Llerena, Profesor Principal in the Faculty of Forest Sciences at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Lima, Peru. He brings expertise in forest ecology and hydrology as well as two decades of experience across all the fields touched on by this project. Carlos will lead a team of researchers and practitioners from leading Latin American, UK and US research institutes/universities, with expertise spanning the full pathway that ESPA seeks – public policy, anthropology, economics, development, climate science, ecology and knowledge transfer. In addition, we are teaming up with key intermediary organisations that will provide a credible pathway to development impact.

The consortium is comprised of 14 research organizations and 5 partners listed below:

Proponents:

  1. UNALM –Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Peru (Lead)
  2. GCP – Global Canopy Programme, UK
  3. IBC – Instituto del Bien Común, Peru
  4. INPE – Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brazil
  5. LSE – London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
  6. Met Office Hadley Centre, UK
    University of Edinburgh, UK
  7. UFRJ – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  8. UNAL – Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín
  9. University of Oxford, UK
  10. UNDP – United Nations Development Programme, LAC, Panamá
  11. UFZ/ TEEB - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany
  12. Universidad de Santo Tomás, Colombia
  13. University of Vermont, USA

Partners:

  1. CDKN – Climate and Development Knowledge Network, Ecuador (special collaboration)
  2. Green Belt Movement, Kenya
  3. Instituto AVINA, Brazil
  4. MINAM – Ministério del Ambiente, Peru
  5. Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela