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American Earth
Post Carbon Fellow Joshua Farley's work on Brazilian ecosystems is referenced in this article at the University of Vermont website.
From the article:
Following a two-week, UVM travel study course "The Politics of Land Use in Ecuador" with UVM lecturer Pete Shear earlier this year, Arisman took three months "off" from his time at UVM to stay in Intag, work in a farming cooperative, study Spanish and conduct research for the thesis that would fulfill his work as an Honors College student when he returned to campus.
His work is based on research his adviser Professor Joshua Farley has been conducting in Brazil -- specifically, how payment for ecosystems services, coupled with agroecology, can mitigate damage to the environment. This idea is rooted in a concept first set forth in 1997 by Robert Costanza, founding director of UVM's Gund Institute for Ecological Economics -- that clean air and clean water and other hallmarks of a healthy environment have financial value. Payments for ecosystems services means putting that theory to work to finance land uses that create a healthy environment while also meeting farmer's needs. For Farley's research, that means implementation of agroecology, a method of farming that attempts to sync agriculture with the surrounding ecosystem in a sustainable way...
"My work in Brazil is trying to figure out the big picture," Farley explains. "If we fail to restore our ecosystems, we face catastrophe, and if we fail to increase our food production for the growing population, we face catastrophe." Financing the adoption of agroecological practices in the hopes of restoring ecosystems could help deal with both problems at once. When Arisman approached Farley to advise his thesis, Farley suggested researching this possibility in another locale.
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