Neotropical Ecology Lab: Science for Empowerment

Mission Statement:

The Neotropical Ecology Lab from McGill University carries out interdisciplinary research focused on carbon sequestration, land cover change and livelihoods. Our interest is to provide a sound science base to assist decision making regarding forests and biodiversity in Latin America. Our approach to science builds on the notion of empowerment of all actors – from local communities to indigenous peoples and national governments. We follow very closely both the negotiations and the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Research Areas:

• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning
• Livelihoods, Empowerment, and Biodiversity
• REDD+: Carbon and Co-benefits
• Science to inform Climate Change Policy
  

Lab News:

• Colloque Annuel du Centre d’Étude sur la Forêt, Rouyn-Noranda, April 23-25th 2012.
• Johanne receive the Award for the best oral presentation.
• Students turn around: Year 2012 will see some changes in the research group with Johanne Pelletier to defend her PhD thesis on 13th June, 9:00 and Guillaume Peterson St-Laurent who submitted his M.Sc. thesis in April. We also welcome Augusto Castro who joined the laboratory in January 2012 as a Ph.D. student.
• The journal Climate Policy awarded the 2011 Schlamadinger Prize to our paper "Financing REDD in developing countries: a supply and demand analysis" by Jordan Isenberg and Catherine Potvin, published in 2010.
• Guillaume Peterson St-Laurent is in Mexico City at the UNAM until the Summer of 2012. He will also be the teaching assistant for the class BIOL-533 given in Panama from January to February 2012.
• Ignacia Holmes has completed her Qualifying Exam so she has turn into a PhD Candidate. She will be in Montreal for the fall and winter term 2011/2012.
• Gerardo Vergara, after completing his Qualifying Exam is continuing his PhD fieldwork in Chile and Panama until December 2011.
• Paulina Lezama Nunez has finished her fieldwork in Mexico and is concluding her Master’s courses this Fall 2011. She will be writing her degree thesis during next Winter term 2012.
  
  
• Participation in the UNFCCC intersessional meeting. Between October 1 and 7 Panama was the host of an intercessional negotiation from the Un Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in preparation for the next Conference of Parties, in December in Durban, South Africa. Taking advantage of the presence in Panama of REDD+ negotiators Dr. Catherine Potvin and Chris Meyer, from Environmental Defense Fund organized a field trip for their peers to see firsthand REDD+ realities. REDD+ negotiators from the US, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, France, Norway, European Union, Italy, Peru, and Panama visited a REDD project in the Indigenous community of Ipeti-Embera and a private sector agroforestry project with small landowners on the deforestation frontier.
  
  
  
  The laboratory held a side-event on October 5th. The side-event focused on issues related to carbon, rights and governance. It featured a presentation by Dr. Potvin one by Dr Marc Pallemaerst (University of Amsterdam) and a video made by Javier Mateo, ELTI, with the help of Jorge Ventocilla entitled “El Camino Recorrido Juntos: Comprendiendo REDD+ en Panamá” (“The path travelled together”). The video was filmed to give a voice to the stakeholders that have received information through the joined effort of STRI-ELTI and McGill University.
  
  >> download video
  >> download presentation [PDF format]
  
  

  To end a week full of activities, 11 REDD+ negotiators (Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, European Union, Germany, Holland, Mexico, Sweden and UK) joined Drs Helene Muller-Landau, Catherine Potvin and Maria del Carmen Ruix-Jaen for a visit of Barro Colorado Island on Friday 7th October. The visit gave rise to opportunities of discussing the challenges of measuring carbon in the tropics. The discussion on methods was enriched by the fact that everyone could look at the trees and appreciate the diversity of form and the challenges that measuring trees entails.

  
  1. STRI's participation in the UNFCCC intersessional meeting
  2. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and EDF partner to show on-the-ground realities of reducing emissions from deforestation (REDD+) in Panama
  
  
• STRI communication associate Jorge Ventocilla and Catherine Potvin edited a 44-page book “Nuestra casa en el universe” (“Our home in the universe”), an educational tool on climate change and the REDD+ proposal for indigenous communities in the Latin American tropics.
   
  STRI book to understand climate change and REDD+
  
  
• A new report by researchers from STRI and McGill University identifies gaps in forest monitoring and ways to improve data collection, to produce reliable estimates of greenhouse gas emission reductions from activities to reduce deforestation. "We wanted to know if readily available in-country monitoring techniques would be enough to demonstrate that emissions could be reduced by the REDD+ plans that United Nations delegates have been discussing since 2005," said Johanne Pelletier, doctoral candidate at McGill University and first author of the study. "We made a model for Panama to simulate land-cover change from 2000-2030 based on two maps and the available carbon stock information, and found that better monitoring will be needed to show that emission reductions are really taking place."  "Monitoring is a preeminent preoccupation of developed countries vis-à-vis the REDD+ proposal," said Catherine Potvin, professor at McGill University...
  
  Panama REDD: Getting what you pay for
  
  
• A new book designed with a Kuna artist to discuss climate change with Panama's indigenous comunities
  
  >> Download "Nuestra Casa en el Universo" [PDF - 8MB]