Amazonia’s Socioecological Complexity: A Microcosm of the Challenges and Opportunities in Reconciliating Development and Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

Amazonia harbors some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems and is home to over 30 million people in nine countries and diverse local conditions, urban and rural. A region of continental proportions, Amazonia is better characterized as a mosaic of sociocultural and environmental realities and interconnected local and global economies. As such, the Amazon is the stage where diverse worldviews, demands, initiatives, and narratives regarding conservation and development intersect, impacting socioecological systems from local to global scales.

Land use and cover changes and natural resource management have been salient aspects underlying the region’s transformations, past and present. The patterns of human settlement and resource management by pre-Columbian indigenous groups left footprints in the landscape and regional biodiversity that influence today’s local and regional economies, traditional livelihoods, and territorial claims and configurations. More recently, government programs and market incentives have driven infrastructure and telecommunication developments, population growth, urbanization, and the expansion of agricultural, mining, and forestry activities, resulting in unprecedented changes in the region. Shifting patterns of territorial occupation and livelihoods, accelerated rates of forest loss and degradation of common-pool resources, and disputes among multiple agents over the control and management of land and natural resources have resulted in new geopolitical configurations and emerging governance challenges for the Amazon.

As a microcosm of the complex and rapid changes of the Anthropocene, Amazonia offers a window of opportunity for understanding the challenges and potential pathways in tackling the critical socioenvironmental demands of our times. In this Special Issue, we aim to collect research studies that frame and analyze the rich, complex, and dynamic interactions unfolding in Amazonia’s socioecological systems from diverse angles and with theoretical and methodological research traditions.

From case studies to regional analysis, whether building upon first-hand data collection, secondary and geospatial datasets, or theoretical reviews, we invite studies examining the multi-scalar and temporal dynamics of the Amazon’s complex socioecological systems. More specifically, we invite studies and analyses addressing topics related to:

• The diverse ways in which local agents and communities perceive, adapt, and respond to climate change’s impacts upon local ecosystems, livelihoods, productive systems, and their socioecological realities.
• The role of traditional ecological knowledge and social technologies in shaping collective arrangements and triggering governance systems that empower local agents and communities in reconciling territorial protection, socioeconomic development, and the restoration and conservation of natural resources.
• The worldviews, practices, and perspectives embodied by diverse agents—rural and urban, young and elderly, men and women, peasants and farmers, business people and government officials—and their implications for land-use systems, natural resource management, and the restoration and conservation of natural resources.
• The ways in which local agents interact, cooperate, innovate, and struggle in mediating local and external demands regarding conservation, environmental justice, social inclusion, sustainable development, ecological restoration, and mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss.
• The lessons, challenges, and opportunities that emerge from the existing governance arrangements of overlapping and interconnected Amazonian territories and jurisdictions (rural and urban, watersheds, municipalities, provinces, states, mosaics of protected areas and indigenous lands, and countries).
• The social and environmental outcomes emerging from the homogeneous implementation and replication of international commitments, regional and national policies and agreements, and local initiatives across diverse realities in the Amazon.

Dr. Paulo Eduardo dos Santos Massoca
Dr. João Vítor Campos-Silva
Dr. Rita Mesquita
Guest Editors

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• socioecological systems
• governance arrangements
• nature conservation
• natural resource management
• common-pool resources
• telecoupling
• land-use and cover changes
• Anthropocene