Assessing the influence of land-cover change and conflicting land-use authorizations on ecosystem conversion on the forest frontier of Madre de Dios, Peru

Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation

“…Identifying the main drivers of deforestation within Brazil nut-rich forests in local and/or subnational contexts is also necessary to inform decision-makers on sound policy and practical alternatives. For example, in Brazil nut-rich forests of Pando, Bolivia, cattle-ranching is currently the main driver of deforestation (Müller et al 2013), while in Madre de Dios, Peru, illegal yet highly profitable gold mining is steadily encroaching into Brazil nut concessions (Scullion et al 2014). To the extent that forest and agricultural policies are harmonized, integrated production systems are promoted, and cross sectorial land use planning is effectively implemented, deforestation pressures can be minimized.…”

A Crystal Ball for Forests?: Analyzing the Social-Ecological Impacts of Forest Conservation and Management over the Long Term

“…Nevertheless, in the context of new donor strategies and emphasis on interlinkages among the SDGs, there is increasing demand for studies examining both social and ecological impacts. A growing number of studies suggest this demand is beginning to be met (e.g., Alix-Garcia et al 2012;Ferraro et al 2011;Miranda et al 2016;Pfaff et al 2014;Scullion et al 2014). IE approaches have evolved to cover more countries and have generally increased over time, but they have also evolved substantively.…”

Vulnerability of tropical forest ecosystems and forest dependent communities to droughts

“…To fully understand these interconnected systems different approaches and methodologies are needed to address our diverging research objectives (Liu et al 2007). A lack of knowledge of an ecosystem's pre-novel context (Seastedt et al 2008) or the interconnectivities of complex social drivers of change (Scullion et al 2014) means that resilience represents the ability of a system to recover after a disturbance. However does it indicate whether ecological and social systems have recovered within their historical range of conditions?…”

“…In fact identifying the safe operating space for both the social as well as the ecological systems would probably be even more challenging with the multitude and complexity of connections that exist between them. To help decrease some of those challenges of quantifying the sensitive parameters that reflect movement within and between regimes (Scheffer and Carpenter 2003), we try to quantify the parameters remotely rather than locally and also at different spatial and temporal scales to minimize unexplained unique results (Vogt et al 2002;Gmur et al 2013;Scullion et al 2014). Further, one cannot focus on a single part of the coupled socio-ecological system (Maxwell 2014;Silva 2014) and expect to understand the mechanistic links between them.…”

“…Further, one cannot focus on a single part of the coupled socio-ecological system (Maxwell 2014;Silva 2014) and expect to understand the mechanistic links between them. Even when research has effectively linked the complexity of socio-economic interactions with resources, they have been less able to validate what variables should be managed to reduce the impacts on both people and the environment (e.g., Downing et al 2014;Görg et al 2014; but see Scullion et al 2014). …”