Tapajós river basin, Pará State, Brazil © Camila Jericó-Daminello After an inventory of potential dams in the Tapajós river basin was released in 2008, the area has been hailed as the new frontier of energy development in Brazil. Due to the typically extensive environmental and social impacts of dam construction, governments and communities in the Amazon region have been engaged in discussions over the past few years on how to mitigate impacts on people and nature. Some dam projects are already underway with many more on the drawing board.

Amazonas native. © Fernanda Preto

Transport specialists and workshop participants, Asuncion, Paraguay Ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) sustain hundreds of millions of people, but are threatened by a series of interlocking challenges. Rapid development and population growth have placed increasing pressure on natural resources. Pollution, deforestation, infrastructure, large-scale tourism development, invasive species, and over-fishing all threaten these highly bio-diverse ecosystems, as do the effects of climate change.

CSF economists Susan Seehusen, Aaron Bruner and John Reid joined the German technical support agency, GiZ, and the Mexican Protected Areas Commission, CONANP, to support two big efforts to leverage the economic value of protected areas. Over weekend of October 18-19, Aaron and Susan joined GiZ and parks officials from a handful of Latin American countries to provide technical guidance for the newly launched ValuES program. Yes, that's an upper-case ES for Ecosystem Services; the program focuses on highlighting the values protected ecosystems deliver to human communities in focus countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Vietnam and India, among others.

CSF has gathered a group of emerging conservation economists in the tropical Andes to help them design research that will contribute to sustaining ecosystems in the region. The program is part of the Initiative for Conservation in the Andean Amazon (ICAA) of the United States Agency for International Development. Today in Coroico, Bolivia, the CSF technical team is evaluating 20 research proposals - finalists from 100 submissions - in order to select up to 10 awardees, who will receive research grants and a year of mentoring from CSF.

On March 29th and 30th, 2011, CSF Brazil Technical Manager Leonardo Fleck led a conservation economics workshop at an event organized by the TEEB initiative (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) from the United Nations Environment Program. The event was held in Corrientes, Argentina, and was co-sponsored by the Avina Foundation. The workshop aimed to promote the use of economics in environmental conservation with a focus on climate change. The workshop was attended by 80 participants from various governmental and non-governmental organizations, including representatives from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. Leonardo taught principles of microeconomics, environmental valuation and cost-benefit analysis.