Last week happened the 3rd workshop “Back to the roots: the value that comes from the earth: developing a conceptual model for valuing ecosystem services for tropical soils”, wich is part of the project “Sustaining the land from the ground up.” It aims to improve the valuation model of ecosystem services of tropical soils through knowledge exchange with producers in Brazil.
The objective of the workshops is to advance on the activities of the project considering the stages: 1. Systematic review of soil ecosystem services in tropical areas and Brazil; 2. Evaluation of soil ecosystem services, modeling and valuation of experiments with different methods of forage management and forest restoration in Brazil and 3. Collection, exchange and dissemination of knowledge in the science-practice-public policy interface.

At this 3rd workshop, the group of researchers and collaborators worked on building strategies for collecting information on local knowledge about soil ecosystem services, updating public policy tools related to soil ecosystem services, and disseminating it to policy makers. decision. In addition to students and teachers from PUC-Rio, collaborators with the project are researchers from Embrapa Solos, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), from the State Environmental Institute (INEA), members of the research groups “Integrated Landscape Management” and “Interinstitutional Study Group on Ecosystem Services”, among others.

The project is coordinated by PUC-Rio’s Department of Geography and Environment professor and CSRio coordinator, Agnieszka Latawiec, and has financial support from the Newton Fund through the Royal Society, Rio de Janeiro State Research Support Foundation ( FAPERJ), the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and PUC-Rio.