Ecosystem Studies & Management
Conserving Biodiversity and Sustainably Managing the Lower Amazon Floodplain Regional Ecosystem through a Regional Co-Management System
The Amazon varzea, the core area of the Amazon floodplain, is one of the largest and most biodiverse tropical wetland systems in the world. It has also been a major focus of human settlement and economic activity for much of the human history of the basin. Its fertile soils and abundant plant and animal resources supported some of the densest and most politically complex societies in the Amazon basin. These societies were decimated early in the colonial conquest of the Amazon, and over the next five hundred years populations of the most abundant floodplain species have been systematically depleted. In the second half of the twentieth century, pressures on the Amazon floodplain intensified with the expansion and subsequent decline of commercial jute farming and associated clearing of varzea forests, the development of commercial fishing and logging and most recently the spread of extensive cattle ranching. These activities are transforming the varzea landscape, degrading varzea forests and grasslands and depleting fisheries. If this trend continues, the Amazon varzea may follow the development trajectory of other major floodplains of the world, with the landscape transformed into a mosaic of irrigated fields and ponds, disrupting ecological processes and diminishing the many ecosystem services floodplains provide.
This map highlights the varzea, or floodplain, of the Amazon River. The white dot near center of image is the town of Santarém, which located about 400 miles upstream from the mouth of the river.
Beginning in the 1970s, floodplain communities, like the Rubber Tapper and Forest People’s movements of the Amazon uplands, organized to protect local fisheries, grasslands and forests from commercial fishers, loggers and ranchers, and develop local agreements to regulate access to and use of their floodplain resources. Over the last fifteen years these collective agreements have become the basis of a formal, community based co-management system for floodplain lakes and grasslands in which varzea communities and government management agencies collaborate in the design and implementation of management regulations for varzea land and resource use. Considerable progress is also being made in the adaptive management of key floodplain species, including pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), caiman (various species) and river turtles (Podecnemis species). These initiatives provide the basis for development of participatory governance institutions for the sustainable management of major regions of the Amazon floodplain. By 2003 a regional co-management system had been implemented with regional fisheries council districts created for 7 major varzea lake systems, including roughly 150 communities and a total population of 35-40,000 people.
On the left, a house is protected by floodplain grasslands and by planting trees and grasslands. On the right, a home is not buffered by good management, leaving the community subject to the effects of climate change and resulting higher floods.
Building on this first phase in the development of a regional co-management system, INCRA the federal institution for colonization and agrarian reform has implemented a land tenure and settlement policy that transforms floodplain communities into Agro-Extractive Settlements Projects (PAEs). This new settlement policy offers a unique opportunity to correct deficiencies in existing floodplain co-management policies by strengthening PAE management institutions and integrating them into regional institutional arrangements for the co-management of floodplain resources and habitats.
The scientists and technical staff of the Woods Hole Research Center and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) are working with floodplain communities, grassroots organizations and key government agencies, to develop a multi-scale co-management system integrating floodplain settlements, grassroots organizations and municipal, state and federal land tenure and management agencies. WHRC & IPAM researchers are studying the development of PAE settlements and their management institutions to understand how different factors contribute to the effectiveness and long term sustainability of local community management organizations and the municipal and regional co-management systems of which they are a part.
The following are anticipated outcomes from this project:
- A GIS database and regional data collection system for sustainably managing floodplain resources, monitoring implementation of PAE systems, and investigating interactions between varzea land and resource use and varzea ecological processes developed and implemented.
- Utilization and settlement development plans have been completed for 15 PAE settlements in five lower Amazonian municipalities. These settlements are now in the process of obtaining their environmental licenses and work continues to strengthen their capacity to sustainably manage their resources and to monitor the status of key resources and habitats.
- Municipal co-management policies and institutional arrangements developed, PAEs integrated and co-management plans implemented for five lower Amazonian municipalities, creating a network of nested institutions working to sustainably manage floodplain resources and conserve biodiversity.
- Expanding network of formal varzea settlements that are sustainably managing floodplain resources and conserving habitat and biodiversity while improving smallholder livelihoods.
- The work is also leading to refinement of settlement and land tenure policies so as to facilitate and foster conditions for the sustainable, user-based management of floodplain resources.
This project is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and through IPAM, WWF, and INCRA.
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