Iracambi´s Research Program

The research at Iracambi focuses on the problems facing our community in the conservation and management of its natural resources.

Socio-economic Context of the Forest

Whatever changes or adaptations that are required to ensure the sustainability of the ecosystem must be made by the community that lives in it.

Research Objective:

To understand the social, political, cultural, and economic factors which influence decision-making within the community; to understand what changes need to take place and to identify appropriate  opportunities for Iracambi to assist in bringing such change about.

Forest Restoration

The natural balance of forests and productive land use needs to be restored, in such a way that the demands of productive farming and forest conservation no longer conflict.  We must devise ways that allow the forest to contribute to their sustainable livelihoods. We need to determine how agriculture can be linked with forest management by combining the use of natural forest trees with agricultural production.

Research Objective:

To devise alternative land management schemes which make conservation of the rain forest more economically attractive than its destruction.

Developing additional income sources will be a major factor in influencing farmer’s attitudes towards conserving forests.  If the forest could provide additional revenue, this could be the deciding factor as to whether a farmer will cut down or preserve.

Research Objective:

To create an alternative and viable method of income generation by identifying, researching and marketing medicinal plants native to the rainforest as well as adding value by creating a line of medicinal products.

Natural Resource Management

Iracambi has been working with local government and with local communities to plan how Environmental Protection Areas should be conserved and of what could or should be done to conserve the many other fragments outside the declared conservation areas. Iracambi is working with local farmers to identify existing land use and catalog the forest fragments with the object of supporting local government in the elaboration of a land use plan.

Research Objective:

To assist local communities and local governments in creating effectively functioning protected areas, to map the region according to land use, and to identify areas of environmental fragility and special biodiversity requiring special conservation measures. Information so collected will be used to create a land management scheme for rehabilitating degraded lands.

Biological Inventories

There has never been a complete biological inventory of the Serra do Brigadeiro and it makes it difficult to devise recipes for biodiversity conservation when the exact nature of the resources is unknown! Knowledge of the biological resources, its systems and symbioses is very important for a proper understanding of the ecosystem.

Research Objectives:

To identify the principle species of flora and fauna in the area, their interactions with other species and their population dynamics, and to identify appropriate biological indicators of ecosystem health.

Partner Organisation

If you are more interested in the purely biological aspects of Atlantic Rainforest ecology rather than the human dimension that Iracambi focuses on, you should visit the site of our Paraguayan partner: http://www.faunaparaguay.com/ecosarahome.html