Territorial management and sustainable development in the Eastern Amazon

Abstract

The project aims to complement and expand the existing collaboration between Cardiff University and Unicamp with a series of academic activities, preparation of field work, preparation of joint publications, postgraduate courses and submission of new research projects. Unicamp and Cardiff maintain a strategic collaboration agreement, signed in 2018, with very positive results, particularly between the Institute of Geosciences and the School of Geography and Planning. The collection of primary data in the Eastern Amazon, in the State of Maranhão, will benefit from an existing network between Cardiff-Unicamp-UEMA, together with Kansas University, Embrapa, UFMA, Unesp and SEMA-MA, financed via FAPEMA/FAPESP Nr. 14/2020 and CNPq Call 18/2021 (Universal). It will be a prospective work to evaluate socio-spatial trends under the impact of the advance of the agricultural frontier, mining and urbanization. Primary data will be analyzed, under the coordination of the visiting researcher and involving researchers from Unicamp, together with secondary data and georeferenced images already collected by the team. The fieldwork will involve data collection in three areas and will combine GIS-based assessment of land use changes (at local and regional levels) with interviews and meetings with different land use sectors (different agricultural, conservation and mining). Deforestation trends and economic expansion will be examined, including the tension between export-oriented development and socio-ecological impacts. It will address inequality and risk patterns in regional development from the perspective of spatial changes and the need to promote more inclusive and sustainable development strategies. Other activities of the visit will include a seminar on trends and challenges in contemporary Amazonia (related to recent books published by the visiting researcher), a course for postgraduate students (masters/doctorates) on theory and practice of Development and Environment (based on the postgraduate program in Environment and Devepment, coordinated by the visitor in Cardiff), and preparation of the Unicamp researchers mission in Cardiff in the second half of 2022 (via Capes PrInt Project). (AU)