When it comes to climate change, the Amazon is on the frontlines. The impacts of climate change in its most remote reaches—less predictable rainfall, warmer air temperatures, a change in humidity—profoundly affect the 1.5 million Indigenous Peoples who live within the biome boundary. Many of these marginalized and underrepresented communities will feel the shocks and stresses associated with climate change most acutely because their lives and livelihoods are at risk.
A more in-depth understanding of ecosystem services in the region is crucial to preserve the human and ecological well-being of the Amazon as well as to protect the world from the accelerating effects of climate change. Under the USAID and NASA–funded SERVIR-Amazonia activity, a team of scientists from the University of Richmond and Amazon Conservation worked for the last two years in the southwestern Amazon in the transboundary area shared between Peru (Ucayali and Madre de Dios) and Brazil (Acre). The increasing loss of forests in this region threatens many Indigenous communities, like the Ashéninka and Yaminahua.
The goal of this science team is to understand how deforestation, forest degradation, and road construction affect biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, as well as to develop data and tools to support residents in achieving sustainability in the region. “The Applied Science Program of NASA and SERVIR-Amazonia is the perfect opportunity to work at the intersection of science, technology and innovation, allowing us to translate data into useful tools for development,” said lead scientist Stephanie Spera at the launch of the project.
Using geospatial technology, the science team created maps to provide a baseline for future climate modeling analyses on the relationship between forest disturbance and regional climate change. Preliminary results show a general annual decrease in evapotranspiration rates due to forest disturbances (especially from deforestation) over the study period: less predictable precipitation and streamflow, drier soils, warmer air temperatures, and a less humid forest.
However, the science team did not rely on satellite imagery alone to evaluate the real-life impact of the ecosystem changes it observed. Instead, the team consulted with the forest and climate experts in this isolated region—the Indigenous communities who live there. The testimony of the inhabitants of the Amazon, the guardians of the forest, as they call themselves, is vital to understand the human dimension of the changes occurring in the ecosystem and how it alters the way they live.
In June 2022 SERVIR-Amazonia workshops brought together the science team and local partners with more than 120 Indigenous representatives from communities across the southwestern Amazon in Breu, Peru, to seek community input about the tools it is developing to monitor forest conditions in the region, but also to draw connections between the observations seen in satellite imagery and the lived experiences of people on the ground related to rainfall, seasonality, humidity, and forests.
“People here have lived experience,” says Spera. “They have better data, better networks. It’s in that collaboration that your science is stronger and more robust.”
"The rainy season, which used to be winter, is still summer,” says Maria Silva de Souza, a representative of Huni Kuin People of the Nahua Community in Brazil. “We see in the forest the decrease of medicinal plants and native plants that are drying up or are not produced.” A USAID/Peru video captures the voices of the scientists, government officials, and Indigenous representatives who participated in those workshops.
Their feedback informed the development of an open-access Geo-Dashboard that will better meet the needs of local communities. This tool will provide users with all of the data collated and generated over the span of the project and allow users to visualize tradeoffs between forest disturbances and environmental variables such as temperature, precipitation, and evapotranspiration.
USAID and its partners’ support for the dialogue between the Indigenous groups and the scientists ensures that conservation efforts take into account the reality on the ground, policymakers have the information they need to effectively address climate change challenges, and that marginalized communities have agency regarding their development—all goals aligned with USAID’s Amazon Vision.
SERVIR-Amazonia’s space-to-community work provides a foundation for future collaborations between Indigenous groups and scientists as they seek to understand how to support these communities to withstand shocks and stresses inevitably associated with a changing climate.
This blog is also available in Spanish.
Wendy Putnam
Wendy Putnam is a Senior Strategic Outreach and Communications Specialist at Environmental Incentives working in its Latin America and Caribbean portfolio and as an Activity Lead supporting AREP.
