BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: From regulatory policies to ecosystem services: political ecology in the Amazon

BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars
“From regulatory policies to ecosystem services: political ecology in the Amazon.“

Professor Xavier Arnauld de Sartre

CNRS (University of Pau)

Abstract

Even if the payment for ecosystem services (PES) is becoming a new way of framing sustainable policies, the assessment of such a notion remains difficult. It holds many questions relatives to the measurement of the environment for policy goals. As this question is highly contingent, we will analyze the case of a specific context, the frontiers areas of the Amazon Basin. We will firstly present the rationale of PES instruments in this context. We will then present the main results of a transdisciplinary research project whose objective was to evaluate the ecosystem services provided in two frontiers areas of the Amazon. This project showed three main points relative to the ecosystem services assessment: the high variability of this notion when we aim to measure the different types of ecosystem service and to synthesise them in a single indicator; the importance of the landscape scale regarding the other scales; and the importance of the ecoefficience of such landscapes. Analyzing the rationale, the dangers and the potential of a political notion who aims to frame the man/nature relationships, we will finally introduce the assistance to the political ecologist studies.