Peruvian Amazon Research Institute (IIAP) and U.K. University of Leeds School of Geography were awarded a US$1.5 million grant to study Amazon rainforest’s resilience and adaptation capacities to climate change.
Alliance to develop the program also includes the IIAP Probosques Program (main contributor), the Missouri–Oxapampa Botanical Garden, Wake Forest University, Worldlife Conservation Society WCS Peru and Peru's state-run National Service of Natural Protected Areas (Sernanp).
The project will also incorporate the study's data into the management of Peru's national network of protected areas, a natural laboratory to study climate change impact on tropical rainforests.
Decades of data collected in Rainfor's permanent forest plots across different protected natural areas will be used to study changes in forests' structure and composition due to drought, rising temperatures and flooding fluctuation.
This baseline study will show how economically-relevant species respond to climate change. Likewise, it will serve to identify potential and necessary locations to be included in the network of protected natural areas to preserve their biodiversity in the long term.
The 1.5-million-dollar project will also help design forest species management strategies and a network of protected areas that is resistant to climate change.
On the other hand, IIAP President Luis Campos Baca highlighted the role of these alliances among local and international scientific institutions to get access to foreign resources thanks to scientific strengths.
“These strengths serve to promote and create knowledge to enhance sustainability of natural protected areas in the climate change context,” he explained.
The study will be financed by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a U.S. private grantmaking organization and leading funder of environmental conservation projects worldwide.
(END) NDP/MAO/DHT/RMB
Published: 10/11/2016