At the next CSRio Seminar, on 4th April, Thaís Kasecker, Superintendent of Climate Change at the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability of Rio de Janeiro (SEAS), will present “Ecosystems-based actions and the transition to sustainability”, addressing how the use of biodiversity and ecosystems can reduce people’s vulnerability to climate change. Thaís Kasecker is the Superintendent of Climate Change at the State Secretariat for Environment and Sustainability of Rio de Janeiro (SEAS), conducting adaptation and mitigation agendas in the State. She is a biologist, master and presently a doctoral student in Ecology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, with research project on Sustainable Development and Adaptation to Climate Change based on Ecosystems. She developed her career with activities related to Biodiversity Conservation (monitoring of biodiversity, implementation of Protected Areas, Priority Areas, promotion of training and research) and also with research in Landscape Ecology (conservation and land use planning), Climate Change, Sustainability and Conservation to subsidize the construction of public policies. She has worked in Conservation International-Brazil for more than 10 years, where she worked as a researcher on these themes, project manager and fundraiser. The event will take place from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and will be followed by a Happy Hour. Address: Auditorium Rio Data Center (RDC) PUC-Rio. R. Marquês de São Vicente, 225 – Gávea The meetings are open to the public, and the discussion followed by the presentation will be conducted in an open and participatory manner. A certificate will be issued to participants who request it. Confirme your attendance Questions and information: contato@csrio.usuarios.rdc.puc-rio.br

It is with great pleasure that we announce the return of the Seminars of the Center of Sciences of the Conservation and Sustainability of Rio (CSRio) in 2019! At the CSRio Seminars, we sought to discuss themes related to biodiversity conservation and sustainability, with keynote speakers. In this semester, the meetings will take place bi-weekly on Thursdays from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Auditorium Rio Data Center (RDC), PUC-Rio. The first seminar this year will be on March 21st. Conducted by Agnieszka Latawiec and Ingrid Pena, this meeting will present “Innovative pro-environmental approaches that transform landscapes on a large scale”, based on experiences and ideas that have created conditions, spaces and processes that have opened paths towards socio-environmental sustainability. The meetings are open to the public, and the discussion followed by the presentation will be conducted in an open and participatory way. A certificate will be sent to participants who request it. Questions and information: contato@csrio.usuarios.rdc.puc-rio.br Agnieszka Latawiec is a Professor of the Geography and Environment Department of PUC-Rio, coordinator of the Rio Conservation and Sustainability Science Center (CSRio), co-founder and Executive Director of the International Institute for Sustainability (IIS). She is a MSC in Environmental Protection with a specialization in soil and plant chemistry and a PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia (UK) where she investigated the incorporation of bioavailability in decision making on contaminated land. She is a “Cientista do Nosso Estado” (Faperj), Research Producer in Level 2 (CNPq) and was awarded the Newton Advanced Fellowship of the Royal Society with the project “Sustaining the earth from the bottom up: developing a conceptual model of valuation of ecosystem services for tropical soils “. In recent years, she has focused on broader aspects of land management, participating in and leading interdisciplinary projects and research mainly with: soil science, land use change and management, modeling, decision making, impact assessments, indicators and science of sustainability. Ingrid Pena is a researcher at the Rio Conservation and Sustainability Science Center (CSRio) and Research and Projects Assistant at the International Institute for Sustainability. MSC in Territorial Development and Public Policy (UFRRJ), specialist in Environmental Management, Bachelor in Tourism and Undergraduated student in Biological Sciences. She has experience in research and socio-environmental projects as consultant, researcher and tutor. She works from an interdisciplinary perspective in several themes, with emphasis on socio-environmental aspects and knowledge exchange, mainly with the following themes: socio-environmental aspects of land use, territorial development and Protected Areas, public use in Conservation Units, Social Memory, Heritage and Tourism.

A new study from CSRio reseachers published in Nature Ecology and Evolution presents a novel approach to identify optimal priority areas for restoration, considering multiple criteria such as biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and reduction of costs. In a context of multiple local, national and global targets for ecosystem restoration, the study presents a flexible tool capable of increasing restoration cost-effectiveness by up to eight times. “These restoration targets, if achieved, will bring multiple benefits for people and nature. But we show that using science to help deciding where to restore can multiply benefits and save billions of dollars in costs”, says Bernardo Strassburg, lead author of the study, coordinator of CSRio and director of International Institute for Sustainability (IIS) The study involved 25 researchers from several countries and was focused in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, a global Biodiversity Hotspot that has lost approximately 80% of its natural cover. Brazil´s National Plan for Native Vegetation Recovery aims to restore 12 million hectares of natural vegetation, approximately 5 million of which in the Atlantic Forest. The researchers engaged with the Brazilian Ministry for the Environment since the study design, and its results are now going to be used to help defining the priority areas for restoration in the Atlantic Forest biome. Studies of priority areas setting largely focus on the conservation of existing habitats, when the distribution of species and carbon stocks can be observed in the field. Applying this approach to restoration presented unique challenges, as the distribution of its potential benefits had to be modelled. The research group estimated the original (pre-human disturbance) distribution of 762 endemic species, the potential sequestration of carbon dioxide as the forest would regrow and the costs of restoration, all of it across 1.3 million pixels of one square kilometer each. If focused on biodiversity conservation, restoration of 4% of the biome could save 30% of its species from extinction; if focused on climate change mitigation, the regrowth of the forest would remove 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But these solutions that focus on only one of the goals are not very effective for the other goal and are very expensive. The solution that focus on climate change, for instance, would only deliver half of the avoided extinctions that the biodiversity focus solution could bring. This is where the multicriteria part of the algorithm developed comes in. By searching across 363 different scenarios, the study identifies some that perform very well for both objectives while keeping costs low. One such solution, labelled as the “Compromise” scenario, could deliver 94% of the maximum gains for biodiversity, 79% of those for climate change, while achieving 83% of the maximum reduction in costs possible. When compared with a baseline scenario where no spatial intelligence is applied and restoration is spread throughout the biome in small patches, this compromise solution increase benefits for biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and costs reduction by 257%, 105% and 57%, respectively. “Societies throughout the world have decided to go on this remarkable journey of recovering nature at a truly planetary scale. It is perhaps an unique opportunity, and by applying spatial intelligence to it we can have vast benefits while keeping costs at the low end. It is an approach that shows a practical way of reconciling the interests of nature conservation and agricultural production”, complements Strassburg. Read the full article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0765-2

CSRio coordinator Bernardo Strassburg presents at the Fourth Forum of Science and Policy at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (CBD-COP14) in Egypt from 19 to 27 November. He is the keynote speaker at the session “Unfolding the 2015 biodiversity vision”.  The objective of the session is to translate in tangible terms – in relation to science, politics and society at regional and global levels – the vision for biodiversity by 2050 “Living in harmony with nature – By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.” “Bernardo used as a basis for discussion the article on the mass extinction of species in the Cerrado published in Nature Ecology and Evolution: Moment of truth for the Closed hotspot. He also joined the panel discussion of the session “Current and predicted biodiversity status”. On the 27th – the “Forest Landscapes and Restoration of Ecosystems Day” – Bernardo Strassburg was one of the speakers at the session “Taking stock of global opportunities for the forest landscape and restoration of ecosystems”, presenting “Opportunities for implementation of Aichi Target 15 for Biodiversity.” Bernardo exposed the pioneer work developed by CSRio for Global Prioritizaties for Restoration and Associated Outcomes.

Everyone is invited to the next CSRio Seminar, next Wednesday, November 7, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of Rio Data Center (RDC), at PUC-Rio. In this edition we will have the presence of Professor Marcos Raposo (National Museum), curator of the Birds collection of the National Museum, who will present the lecture “Science and postmodernity. The fire that hit the headquarters of the National Museum in Quinta da Boa Vista on the night of September 2 of this year destroyed almost all of the historical and scientific heritage built over two hundred years. What has happened is an inestimable loss for the sciences directly related to the conservation of nature and also to other fields of knowledge. In this event, we will have the opportunity to better understand what this loss represents, as well as the new perspectives, challenges and possibilities for a movement to raise awareness and support for science through museum bias. Marcos Raposo is an associate professor at UFRJ, specializing in philosophy of zoological classifications, anatomy and taxonomy of Neornithes birds, and in 2017 he did his PhD in Philosophy of Science at the Sorbonne, Paris, with an emphasis on the philosophy of animal classification. In 2010, he was awarded the FAPERJ Young Scientist edict of the State of Rio de Janeiro and is currently researching in several projects, in particular a Taxonomic Catalog of Brazilian Bird Species and Philosophy of Sciences, a discipline that postgraduate students (Zoology). He is the coordinator of the important project of scientific diffusion that aims at the revitalization of the exhibitions of Vertebrates of the National Museum. The event is free and open, and a certificate will be issued to participants who request it. We count on the presence of all and all!