Amazon

Tropical forests are at the front line of sustainable development, where critical trade-offs need to be negotiated between climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, food production and economic development. SEI research work on tropical forests ranges from ecological research to groundbreaking data-driven transparency tools linking impacts of deforestation to global companies and consumer markets.

Fertilizer adoption by smallholders in the Brazilian Amazon: farm-level evidence

Journal article / Farm-level data from the eastern Brazilian Amazon shows that market proximity had a significant positive correlation with fertilizer adoption.

28 February 2018 / About Food and agriculture and Sustainable lifestyles

Current conservation strategies do not protect freshwater biodiversity in tropical forests

Feature / Thousands of fish and other freshwater fauna species living in small forest streams in tropical forest areas like the Amazon could be at risk.

1 December 2017

Is environmental legislation conserving tropical stream faunas? A large-scale assessment of local, riparian and catchment-scale influences on Amazonian fish

Journal article / This article presents evidence that current environmental legislation designed to protect streams and their biota in the Amazon is not fit for purpose

12 November 2017 / About Forests, Land use and Water resources

Landscape correlates of bushmeat consumption and hunting in a post-frontier Amazonian region

Journal article / Field evidence that overturns the assumption that rural–urban migration in the tropics will reduce hunting of bushmeat and endangered forest species

10 November 2017 / About Forests and Sustainable lifestyles

Scaling up deforestation-free production and trade with jurisdictions

Other publication / This book chapter suggests how producer jurisdictions can play a more effective role in making agricultural commodity more sustainable.

4 October 2017 / About Forests, Supply Chains and Sustainable lifestyles

Cattle in the Brazilian state of Pará. Despite low incomes cattle ranching remains a major driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

Explaining the persistence of low income and environmentally degrading land uses in the Brazilian Amazon

Journal article / The article suggests that non-monetary factors, as well as lack of infrastructure, explain the persistence of cattle-ranching and other unsustainable land uses.

30 September 2017 / About Forests and Supply Chains

One of the typical fish in the Amazon region near Manaus

Disentangling the pathways of land use impacts on the functional structure of fish assemblages in Amazon streams

Journal article / Multi-scale assessment of the biological condition of streams in the Amazon to date, examining functional responses of fish assemblages to land use

13 April 2017 / About Land use