Valuing Nature Today
Researcher(s): Laura Rival
Region(s): Latin America/Caribbean
Theme: Political Change
Project Status: Active
For the last few years, Dr Rival has been involved in a number of projects that aim to promote scientific research, interdisciplinary collaborations and training partnerships in order to achieve sustainable ecosystem management and well-being in developing countries. Information on the overall ESPA (Environmental Services for Poverty Alleviation ) project can be found at http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/espa/.
Dr Rival is currently part of a team that is building on the achievements of the Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere (LBA) to address the challenges of connecting scientific knowledge to regional sustainability efforts. She has developed with colleagues at Oxford and Edinburgh the proposal ‘PRISMA Amazonia. Poverty Reduction through Incentives for Sustainable Ecosystem Management across Amazonia.’ She has also collaborated with Ecuadorian researchers on an innovative government-led Payment for Environmental Services, the Yasuní-ITT Initiative. Ecuador’s proposal offers significant opportunities to preserve a globally unique biosphere reserve and protect indigenous peoples who live there, while making a vital contribution to the necessary debate about the role of developing countries in global climate protection.
