Protected Areas' Impacts on Brazilian Amazon Deforestation: Examining Conservation-Development Interactions to Inform Planning.

Protected areas are the leading forest conservation policy for species and ecoservices goals and they may feature in climate policy if countries with tropical forest rely on familiar tools. For Brazil's Legal Amazon, we estimate the average impact of protection upon deforestation and show how protected areas' forest impacts vary significantly with development pressure. We use matching, i.e., comparisons that are apples-to-apples in observed land characteristics, to address the fact that protected areas (PAs) tend to be located on lands facing less pressure. Correcting for that location bias lowers our estimates of PAs' forest impacts by roughly half. Further, it reveals significant variation in PA impacts along development-related dimensions: for example, the PAs that are closer to roads and the PAs closer to cities have higher impact. Planners have multiple conservation and development goals, and are constrained by cost, yet still conservation planning should reflect what our results imply about future impacts of PAs.

(Table 1) Average sea surface temperature, average sea surface salinity, C37 concentration, palmitic acid concentration, Uk'37, C37/C38 ratio, dD of water, dD of C37 and dD of palmitic acid of water samples from a transect across the Amazon Plume

The stable hydrogen isotope composition of lipid biomarkers, such as alkenones, is a promising new tool for the improvement of palaeosalinity reconstructions. Laboratory studies confirmed the correlation between lipid biomarker dD composition (dDLipid), water dD composition (dDH2O) and salinity; yet there is limited insight into the applicability of this proxy in oceanic environments. To fill this gap, we test the use of the dD composition of alkenones (dDC37) and palmitic acid (dDPA) as salinity proxies using samples of surface suspended material along the distinct salinity gradient induced by the Amazon Plume. Our results indicate a positive correlation between salinity and dDH2O, while the relationship between dDH2O and dDLipid is more complex: dDPAM correlates strongly with dDH2O (r2 = 0.81) and shows a salinity-dependent isotopic fractionation factor. dDC37 only correlates with dDH2O in a small number (n = 8) of samples with alkenone concentrations > 10 ng L**-1, while there is no correlation if all samples are taken into account. These findings are mirrored by alkenone-based temperature reconstructions, which are inaccurate for samples with low alkenone concentrations. Deviations in dDC37 and temperature are likely to be caused by limited haptophyte algae growth due to low salinity and light limitation imposed by the Amazon Plume. Our study confirms the applicability of dDLipid as a salinity proxy in oceanic environments. But it raises a note of caution concerning regions where low alkenone production can be expected due to low salinity and light limitation, for instance, under strong riverine discharge.

Simulations of forest loss in North America, the Amazon, and combined using the Community Earth System Model

The netcdf files in this archive comprise climate model output from Community Earth System Model for experiments looking at forest loss over Western North America and the Amazon. For further description of the model and configuration for these experiments please see the accompanying manuscript: Synergistic ecoclimate teleconnections from forest loss in different regions structure global ecological responses Elizabeth S. Garcia, Abigail L. S. Swann, Juan C. Villegas, David D. Breshears, Darin J. Law, Scott R. Saleska, and Scott C. Stark published in PLOS ONE, 2016. Contact information in README.txt

Peru: intercultural bilingual education program for better performance in schools the case of the indigenous children of the Amazon

Este estudio describe el diseño y la evaluación ex-ante de un Programa de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe en la región amazónica de Perú. Los beneficiarios son los niños que no hablan español de tres comunidades étnicas amazónicas: awarunas, ashaninkas y shipibos-conibos, quienes son una pequeña minoría; los peruanos más pobres y con menor nivel de rendimiento en comprensión de lectura y matemáticas básicas, y el nivel más bajo de la matrícula, la escuela y las tasas de transición.