BONDS “Balancing biOdiversity coNservation with Development in Amazonian wetlandS” from the Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivScen ERA-Net COFUND programme, brings together a consortium of 12 partners from 7 countries (France, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, USA, Colombia and Norway). It proposes to develop biodiversity scenarios for the Amazon floodplains by combining conservation and development issues. The overall objective is to work with stakeholders to find solutions to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services in the context of rapid socio-economic and climate changes. The work over 36 months will be organized around three main specific objectives:
- Improving methodologies for the spatial and temporal characterization of floodplain habitats to extrapolate knowledge on biodiversity and assess potential impacts such as climate, land use intensification, dam construction
- Improving knowledge on interactions between local populations and their environment and understanding how they can adapt to change, including socio-demographic and socio-economic changes
- Understanding how public policies and governance contribute to ecosystem conservation and biodiversity conservation. BONDS builds on historical research conducted by consortium members and proposes to extrapolate biodiversity data sets (fish, floodplain forest, phytoplankton) to the regional scale, to assess through modelling the potential impact of changes on species distribution and ecosystem services, and to engage stakeholders in a participatory process for scenario development.