Joint ACCESS/GeoQuest seminar

Talk 1 - Leandra Gonçalves - Ecosystem services in coastal regions: a view from the global south

Coastal zones are key important areas in providing ecosystem services for human well-being including food and other resources, water treatment and purification, a source of recreation and education, and other social and cultural needs. However, coasts are particularly at risk from human impact and environmental change because they often occur at the confluence of the historical focus for settlement, renewed contemporary urban expansion and densification, and now rapid environmental change due climate change and sea level rise. The current literature suggests that both the historical dynamism of coastal environments and future anticipated changes are not well understood, and are also often not clearly anticipated within contemporary policy meaning that there is a knowledge gap between science and policy, and as a consequence, reduced capacity for social and environmental adaptation to change in coastal environments. This talk will portray Brazil as a case study, especially Santos (São Paulo State), as a city that is growing exponentially, but also its drivers and pressures are increasing. How to build governance to guarantee the contributions of nature? How to value nature contributions and use it just and equitable? This is the reflection the talk will bring, using a perspective from the global south.

About Leandra Gonçalves

Leandra Gonçalves is an assistant professor in the Institute of Marine Sciences at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP). She is a biologist, has a PhD from the Institute of International Relations and a postdoctoral degree from the Oceanographic Institute of USP. She has been researching the different dimensions of coastal and marine management and governance for over 10 years, in particular the interface between science and policy and gender issues in the ocean. She is part of the group of researchers of the Brazilian Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and a co-lead of the Ocean governance taskforce of the Earth System Governance project.. She is one of the founders of the Women’s League for the Ocean. And she has worked in different environmental non-governmental organizations such as Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica and Greenpeace. She was Lead Author for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on Global Environment Outlook 6. In 2021 she had her first book published by Springer on Regional Organizations for Fisheries Management. Its academic curriculum includes more than 30 scientific articles and other works organized in partnerships with collaborating researchers.

Talk 2 - Paulo Sinisgalli - A Brazilian case study from Araça Bay

There is a consensus in several scientific circles about the importance of the ecosystem services economic values to support environmental management. However, not all the ecosystem services' importance can be represented with monetary values, other values must be estimated such as socio-cultural. Identifying and evaluating the ecosystem services provided by the Araçá Bay through economic and socio-cultural perspectives it was an opportunity to discuss how to include ecosystem services values to management. There are thirteen ecosystem services provided by the Araçá Bay. For the socio-cultural valuation, the services were ranked based on the importance attributed to them by the local community. The sum of the estimated (annual) economic value of the ecosystem services in 2014 was US$ 340,610.29 and the most valued service was the effluent depuration. In turn, the food supply service was the most important in the socio-cultural valuation. Although economic and socio-cultural values can reveal certain contributions of Bay of Araçá to the human well-being, they cannot represent all of them, as the Bay’s contribution to the subsistence of local families. This talk will share the reflection on this empirical experience from Brazil to provide insights on how to advance on the blue carbon social dimensions.

About Paulo Sinisgalli

Dr. Paulo de Almeida Sinisgalli is Assistant Professor at the University of São Paulo, teaching at Environmental Management Course and at Environmental Science and Modeling of Complex Systems graduate programs. Graduated in Sanitary Engineering, Master in Environmental Science and PhD in Applied Economics. He develops research in the areas of Ecosystem Services, Ecological Economics and Water Resources Management.