Abstract
Current patterns of rural development across much of the tropics are not sustainable. Forests continue to be cleared, much of the remaining forests are severely degraded, and land cleared for agriculture is often poorly utilized and provides few benefits for human wellbeing. Science has a vital role to play in identifying the most pressing problems, and helping to assess and design specific land-use policies and management strategies. Yet research on sustainability and environmental change is invariably criticised for being piecemeal and poorly connected with end-users. This project will employ data and understanding from an existing large-scale social-ecological assessment by the Sustainable Amazon Network (Rede Amazônia Sustentável; RAS) of multiple-use landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon to (i) compare changes in key ecological and socioeconomic variables across gradients of land-use intensification at field and landscape scales, and (ii) in collaboration with local and regional stakeholders, assess the ecological and socioeconomic impact of specific policy interventions to increase agricultural productivity, and promote forest conservation and regeneration. Further, I will draw on the experience of the RAS network, together with a panel survey of other science projects on land-use sustainability globally, to help develop a place-based diagnostic framework for identifying ways to improve research effectiveness on sustainability.
Sweden