Aim: Foster a Net Zero path for People, Nature and Climate through: (1) Ecosystem Restoration on high deforestation, forest degradation and mangrove pressure areas, both on green and blue carbon territories; (2) Carbon Farming on tropical food production areas, leverage existing activities promoting “low-carbon agriculture and livestock production” in Brazil and introduce new technologies for carbon sequestration in farming; and (3) Sustainable Territories to address the union of the territorial approach with the principles of sustainability and the need for integrative application of political, social, environmental, economic and territorial issues lowering impact on climate change due to logistics emission from food production.

Where: A network of five pilot projects will be developed in the three main Brazilian biomes – Amazon, Cerrado and Mata Atlântica (Figure 1).

• Two pilots will be related to Ecosystem Restoration on natural resources in highly degraded areas, to address forest degradation and deforestation (i.e., “green carbon”) and mangrove degradation (i.e., “blue carbon”):
  • Pilot 1: A “green carbon initiative” for Amazon ecosystem restoration pilot will be implemented in the state of Acre, located in westernmost part of Brazil, in the Amazonia Legal, at a two-hour time difference from Brasília. It is bordered clockwise by the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Rondônia to the north and east, the Bolivian department of Pando to the southeast, and the Peruvian regions of Madre de Dios, Ucayali and Loreto to the south and west. The Acre’s REDD+ Reference Area, in the pilot, covers 212.213 hectares with a total deforestation area of 31.500 (an average deforestation annual rate of about two thousand hectares since 2005).
  • Pilot 2: A “blue carbon initiative” for mangrove protection pilot will be focused in two of the most important subtropical estuarine environments in Southern Brazil, respectively Bay of Paranaguá, in the state of Paraná, and Babitonga Bay in Santa Catarina. The pilot implementation area covers an area of 150.000 hectares.
  
  
• Three pilots will be related to Carbon Farming addressing the fact that that Brazil is the world largest producer of several commodities, including animal and vegetal proteins, with a potential for the recuperation of degraded “green areas” (i.e., “Pastos”) of about 48 million hectares. These tree pilots will cover the main tropical production crops – Perennial, Annual and Livestock at an area of 50.000 hectares, each:
  • Pilot 3: A carbon farming project for livestock production and livestock/forest integration in the state of Goiás. It is a central state of Brazil in the middle of the Cerrado biome and is one of the Brazilian biggest livestock production areas.
  • Pilot 4: A carbon farming project for perennial crop production focused on coffee production in the state of Minas Gerais. Minas Gerais is a transition state between Mata Atlântica and Cerrado biomes and has one of the biggest coffee production areas in Brazil, producing almost 40% of all arabica coffee consumed in the world.
  • Pilot 5: A carbon farming project for annual crop production focused on soy and corn production in the state of Paraná. It is based on the Mata Atlântica biome in the south of Brazil and has the highest productivity farming areas in Brazil, being, one of the main producers of vegetal and animal protein.
  
  

  All the pilot projects will be managed in a central collaborative laboratory – “CoLAB on Sustainable Territories for Low Carbon Agriculture and Livestock Production”, integrating carbon mapping and monitorization technologies that configures an important ground for international common effort on research and innovation, coordinated by Araucaria Foundation (Brazil) in partnerships with Institut Mines Telecom (France) and CEiiA (Portugal). It is a socio-technical answer for a balanced development concerning local developments with global impact. Measuring the impact of carbon sequestration projects (i.e., “carbon stock” increase) or carbon stock protection is critical for demonstrating the success of these project. Being accepted as having an impact, is critical to implement an observatory for monitoring, reporting and verification, of:

  • additionality of the process compared to business-as-usual;
  • guarantee of carbon sequestered or protected in the long term;
  • effectiveness and actual quantification of carbon sequestered or protected;
  • no double accounting;
  • co-benefits evidence and the guarantee that it does not cause additional negative impacts;

How: The CoLab on Sustainable Territories for Low Carbon Agriculture and Livestock Production will leverage activities developed by Conexión Bioceanica, EMBRAPA and CEiiA/Elio Technology over the last few years, including the use of digital sensors installed in unmanned autonomous space platforms specially built for high resolution ortho-photogrammetry. The Pilots will leverage working activities already established on the ground, especially:

• Pilot 1 – It will leverage activities developed by Canopée and CEiiA/Elio Technology over the last few years, including the use of digital sensors installed in unmanned autonomous space platforms specially built for high resolution ortho-photogrammetry. Recent projects have included the analysis of 15.000 hectares, including the detection of deforestation and, especially, forest degradation rates. This pilot project aims to stop and revert deforestation and forest degradation rate, recovering at least ten thousand hectares of deforested or degraded land in 4 years through a well establish ecosystem restauration plan, including the following steps:
  • Observation: Monitoring of biodiversity, ecosystem health and integrity, and human well-being responses to restoration will be established to determine whether objectives and goals are being met. The engagement of stakeholders in monitoring will be prioritized to promote social learning, capacity development and communication among stakeholder groups and communities of practice.
  • Open Access library: Establish a base for ecosystem regeneration species in Western Amazon Region, making use of an open access library of basic characteristics and forms of economic exploitation of bioproducts, including existing knowledge bases, as well as through new research. It considers relationships with consumer markets for bioproducts.
  • Research & innovation: Promote new research and innovation activities oriented towards forest-based housing, clean water access and sanitation.
  • Capacity Building and Training: Establish a professional and specialized training program for plant production and ecosystem regeneration.
  • Community engagement: Engaging local communities and establish sustainable forest management teams.
  • Outreach: Promote cooperation with other degraded and deforested areas in the "Amazon Arch", reaching a total deforested area of about 83 million hectares, as well as to other Amazon countries, like Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname e as Guianas.
  
  
• Pilot 2 – It will leverage ongoing activities developed in the South of Brazil by the Portuguese CoLAB +Atlantic, Brazilian governmental institutions (Chico Mendes Institute - ICMBIO; Brazil National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPQ), industry and NGO's (APPIX - Innovation and Technology, or Babitonga Group - GPB, respectively), together with local universities (Federal University of Santa Catarina, UFSC; University of the Vale de Itajaí, UNIVALI). They have considered, over the last few years: i) the development of web-tool Coastal Analyst System from satellite imagery; ii) the development of several projects focused on coastal risks, coastal communities and sea level rise; and iii) adaptation measures using nature based solutions (mangrove restoration) to improve coastal resilience (e.g., Baysqueeze project, RiskPorts project). The project will contribute to several ongoing activities at local, regional, and national scale, including:
• Local Economy: foster regional bioeconomies in Southern Brazil based on adaptation measures for mangrove restoration and coastal resilience; Foster, develop and implement blue carbon market at local, regional, and national scale.
• Innovation: promote the use of advanced digital systems integrated with in-situ techniques for the analysis, quantification, and valorization of the variation in mangrove carbon stocks.
• Outreach: Ocean literacy (e.g., private and public schools) regarding the importance of mangrove ecosystem and all the services provided to society and impacts due to climate changes and coastal management. Engage with local population, NGO's and companies to support preservation and restoration activities.
• Public policy: Contribute to National, Federal, and local public sector actions regarding key coastal managements activities such as PROCOSTA and ORLA project; Contribute to several actions stated in the National Action Plan for Mangroves (PAN Manguezal) coordinated by ICMBio.


• Pilots 3, 4 e 5 – They will leverage activities developed by Conexión Bioceanica, EMBRAPA and CEiiA/Elio Tecnology over the last few years, including the use of digital sensors installed in unmanned autonomous space platforms specially built for high resolution ortho-photogrammetry. In particular, the experience of Embrapa´s “ILPF - Innovation, with Integration of Agriculture, Livestock and Forest” (i.e., “ILPF - Inovação, com Integração de Lavoura, Pecuária e Floresta”) will be leveraged under the following context:
• Innovation: The valorization of agricultural resources is one of the biggest challenges for production in Brasil and Latin America. The pilot project consider the integration of sustainable territories in food logistics to support low-carbon agriculture and livestock production, developing optimization routes, low-carbon energy transportation, bioceanic integration for logistics optimization;
• Local Economy: The recovery technology that allows the production of high added-value products will have a huge impact on production and additional income for producers, with relatively low levels of investment. It may also allow for the production of biochar which will reduce the ecological footprint of crops, if properly used together with regenerative agriculture techniques.

• Full operational observatory of land use and carbon, in a first phase associated with the monitoring of pilots, but which in a second phase, can be expanded to the whole territory and biomes and then at national and international level.
• Full operational Occitanic foresight laboratory for territorial sustainable development and a new R&D arrangement on territorial sustainable development, a collaborative network for learning, science and technology developments.
• Prevent and revert deforestation and forest degradation rate (includes “green carbon” and mangrove degradation and restoration – “blue carbon”), recovering at least 20.000 hectares of deforested or degraded land and mangroves in 5 years through a well establish ecosystem restauration plan.
• Implementation at least 15.000 hectares of “Net Negative carbon production” in 5 years, contribute as a carbon sequestration to Net Zero targets, contributing to:
• Poverty alleviation and local job creation and employment;
• Increase of carbon stocks in the recovered areas, promoting new levels of carbon sequestration, with maintenance of carbon stocks in existing forests areas in food production farms (APP´s Permanente Preservation areas, and RL - Legal Forest reservation);
• Increase in soil carbon stocks through the incorporation of biochar;
• Reduction of waste odors with reduced acute lower respiratory infections, together with improved quality of life for farmers;
• Establishing "ecosystem corridors" for wildlife;
• Promote "sustainable territories" of food production integrating low-carbon agriculture with log-carbon food logistics along the food value chain (i.e., between food production areas and consumers, including the exporting infrastructure).

Implementation principles have been designed and assessed to include the following:

• Contribute to achieve the climate and land-degradation neutrality goals of the Rio Conventions – CBD, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Decade On Ecosystem Restoration.
• Address the direct and indirect causes of ecosystem degradation and fragmentation.
• Guarantee that ecosystem restoration activities result in a net gain for biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, together with human well-being and sustainable production of goods and services.
• Enhance (and not replace) nature conservation and food production. Particular attention is to be considered in Indigenous territories and traditional communities.
• Guarantee knowledge integration to foster inclusive decision-making, while enabling full participation of local stakeholders and engaging under- represented groups (e.g., local communities, Indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities).
• Adequately address threats from the larger landscape, exchanges of energy and organisms across ecosystem boundaries, ecological and hydrological connectivity, and transboundary effects.
• Integrate sustainable territories in food logistics to support low-carbon agriculture and livestock production, developing optimization routes, low-carbon energy transportation, bioceanic integration for logistics optimization.
• The recovery technology that allows the production of high added-value products will have a huge impact on production and additional income for producers, with relatively low levels of investment. It may also allow for the production of biochar which will reduce the ecological footprint of crops, if properly used together with regenerative agriculture techniques.

Project partners:

• Brazil:
• Fundação Araucária, Paraná;
• Fundação de Tecnologia do Estado do Acre – FUNTAC;
• Federação de Amparo a Pesquisa dos Estados do Acre, Goiás e Minas Gerais;
• Canopée;
• Cooperativa de Produção de café do sul de minas – Minasul;
• Cooperativa Agroindustrial do Paraná – LAR;
• Beauvallet do Brasil;
• Funchal Investimentos;
• Negrini Arquitetura;
• Serviços Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial – SENAI;
• Serviço Brasileiro de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas – Sebrae;
• Sociedade de Investigações Florestais – SIF;
• Universidade Federal de Viçosa;
• Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina;
• Universidade Federal do Acre;
• Federação da Industrias do Estado do Acre;
• Núcleo de Medicina Tropical do Instituto de Ciências da Saúde;
• Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Rural;
• Confederação de Agricultura do Estado do Paraná.
• Europe:
• CEiiA (Portugal);
• CoLab +Atlantic (Portugal);
• Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (Portugal);
• Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, IN+, IST (ULisboa; Portugal);
• MIT Mines Alès (França);
• Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Spain).

The Acre Ecosystem Restauration Collaboratory for People, Nature and Climate (ACRE CoLAB) aims to foster sustainable forest management making use of pilot projects of ecosystem restauration as a tool to revert deforestation vectors on an critically relevant REDD+ Reference Region (i.e., “Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” in developing countries, integrated on the United Nations Ecosystem Restauration Decade 2020-2030, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC. The pilot projects will use data derived from Earth Observation systems in combination with other advanced data acquisition and processing systems, to enable innovative policies and practices driven by new research dealing with ecosystem restauration and community engagement.

The Brazilian Acre state is located in the westernmost part of Brazil, in the Amazonia Legal, at a two-hour time difference from Brasília. It is bordered clockwise by the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Rondônia to the north and east, the Bolivian department of Pando to the southeast, and the Peruvian regions of Madre de Dios, Ucayali and Loreto to the south and west.

The Acre’s REDD+ Reference Area covers 212.213 hectares with a total deforestation area of 31.500 (an average deforestation annual rate of about two thousand hectares since 2005) and an equivalent area of degraded forest areas, where 4 deforestation and forest degradation vectors have been identified, as follows:

1. Expansion of Sena Madureira City;
2. River local population;
3. Settlements in REDD+ project vicinity;
4. Trans-acreana road constriction.

The rationale for the project relies on recent assessments on the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being and, in particular, on “ecosystem services”, following the framework provided by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [1] .

ACRE CoLAB will leverage activities developed by Canopée and CEiiA/Elio Tecnology over the last few years, including the use of digital sensors installed in unmanned autonomous space platforms specially built for high resolution ortho-photogrammetry. Recent projects have included the analysis of 15.000 hectares, including the detection of deforestation and, especially, forest degradation rates.

ACRE CoLAB aims to stop and revert deforestation and forest degradation rate, recovering at least ten thousand hectares of deforested or degraded land in 4 years through a well establish ecosystem restauration plan, including the following steps:

• Observation: Monitoring of biodiversity, ecosystem health and integrity, and human well-being responses to restoration will be established to determine whether objectives and goals are being met. The engagement of stakeholders in monitoring will be prioritized to promote social learning, capacity development and communication among stakeholder groups and communities of practice.
• Open Access library: Establish a base for ecosystem regeneration species in Western Amazon Region, making use of an open access library of basic characteristics and forms of economic exploitation of bioproducts, including existing knowledge bases, as well as through new research. It considers relationships with consumer markets for bioproducts;
• Research & innovation: Promote new research and innovation activities oriented towards forest-based housing, clean water access and sanitation;
• Capacity Building and Training: Establish a professional and specialized training program for plant production and ecosystem regeneration;
• Community engagement: Engaging local communities and establish sustainable forest management teams;
• Outreach: Promote cooperation with other degraded and deforested areas in the “Amazon Arch”, reaching a total deforested area of about 83 million hectares, as well as to other Amazon countries, like Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname e as Guianas.

The CoLAB Impact will be documented and shared both locally and globally. Knowledge about effective practices and innovative approaches will be systematically captured and shared to develop, adapt and replicate successful experiences, and to avoid repeating mistakes.

This will also allow for the identification of knowledge gaps and strategic research and capacity-development priorities. To facilitate the exchange of knowledge and information, platforms and networks for documenting, integrating and sharing that knowledge and information will be developed and made widely available through regularly updated, easily accessible, understandable and culturally appropriate communication and dissemination channels (taking into account languages and literacy levels).

Main implementation principles have been designed and assessed to include the following:

• Guarantee that ecosystem restoration activities result in a net gain for biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, together with human well-being, sustainable production of goods and services. They must consider activities to replace forest degradation and assist recovering activities, accounting for environmental change;
• Enhance (and not replace) nature conservation, especially in areas with high ecological integrity and high value of ecological connectivity. Particular attention is to be considered in Indigenous territories and traditional communities. This is because management practices intended to be restorative should support and assist natural recovery processes and not cause further degradation. For example, the use of genetically appropriate germplasm of native species should be favored, whereas non-native species potentially or already proven to be invasive should be avoided;
• Address the direct and indirect causes of ecosystem degradation and fragmentation, as well as losses of biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services. If the causes are not properly addressed, restorative activities may fail over the long term. During the planning phase of restoration projects, the degree and causes of degradation should be identified, and actions should be developed to reduce and mitigate their impacts at the appropriate scale. These actions should include eliminating incentives that directly or indirectly promote ecosystem degradation;
• Guarantee knowledge integration to foster inclusive and consensual decision-making throughout the process, while enabling full participation of local stakeholders and right-holders. Likewise, capacity-development efforts should be focused on promoting mutual learning, as well as knowledge-sharing among stakeholders and communities of practice at local, national and global levels;
• Adequately address land-level factors, including threats from the larger landscape, exchanges of energy and organisms across ecosystem boundaries, ecological and hydrological connectivity, and transboundary effects;
• Contribute to achieve the climate and land-degradation neutrality goals of the Rio Conventions – CBD, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC);
• Engage diversified stakeholders, including under-represented groups (e.g., local communities, Indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities).

Main challenges to guarantee maximizing long-term net gain from restorative activities require:

• coordinating actions among institutions, sectors and stakeholders, through a well-functioning governance system;
• fostering local, national and international political commitment and transboundary agreements;
• providing capacity-development opportunities to empower people, organizations, institutions and networks involved in restoration;
• mainstreaming effective practices to have broad influence and allow replication;
• identifying, mobilizing and maintaining adequate funding (from government, the private sector, international organizations, or other sources) to complete all phases of the process;
• developing income mechanisms (e.g., through sustainable production, ecotourism, payment for ecosystem services and other sustainable uses of natural resources) that do not compromise the integrity of the restoration process and support its financial viability; and
• protecting the security of stakeholders and right-holders, especially in areas of political conflict or conflict over natural resources. Likewise, promoting and replicating successful ecosystem restoration activities and approaches will facilitate and influence the design of laws, policies and measures – at local, national and global levels – to help prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation.

The project aims to leverage existing activities promoting Low-Carbon Agriculture and Livestock Production in Brazil, with a focus in the regions of the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes. The rational of the project derives from the fact that Brazil is the world largest producer of several commodities, including animal and vegetal proteins, with a potential for the recuperation of degraded “green areas” (i.e., “Pastos”) of about 48 million hectares. In addition, the production areas are far away from consumer and exporting regions, leading to a huge impact of food logistics and transportation on climate change.

The project relies on recent assessments on the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being and, in particular, on “ecosystem services”, following the framework provided by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment[2], as well as the UN´s Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM) [3]. In addition, it considers the “Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance – LEAP” partnership[4], as a multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to improve the environmental sustainability of the livestock sector through harmonized methods, metrics, and data. LEAP leads a coordinated global initiative to accelerate the sustainable development of livestock supply chain and to support coherent climate actions, while contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement.

The Sustainable Territories for Low Carbon Agriculture and Livestock Production Collaboratory will leverage activities developed by Conexión Bioceanica, EMBRAPA and CEiiA/Elio Tecnology over the last few years, including the use of digital sensors installed in unmanned autonomous space platforms specially built for high resolution ortho-photogrammetry. In particular, the experience of Embrapa´s “ILPF - Innovation, with Integration of Agriculture, Livestock and Forest” (i.e., “ILPF - Inovação, com Integração de Lavoura, Pecuária e Floresta”) will be leveraged under the following context:

• The valorisation of agricultural resources is one of the biggest challenges for production in Brasil and Latin America;
• Integrate sustainable territories in food logistics to support low-carbon agriculture and livestock production, developing optimization routes, low-carbon energy transportation, bioceanic integration for logistics optimization;
• The recovery technology that allows the production of high added-value products will have a huge impact on production and additional income for producers, with relatively low levels of investment. It may also allow for the production of biochar (i.e., “Biocarvão”) which will reduce the ecological footprint of crops, if properly used together with regenerative agriculture techniques.

Expected outcomes, include:

• Poverty alleviation and local job creation and employment;
• Increase of carbon stocks in the recovered areas, promoting new levels of carbon sequestration, with maintenance of carbon stocks in existing forests areas in food production farms (APP´s Permanente Preservation areas, and RL – Legal Forest reservation);
• Increase in soil carbon stocks through the incorporation of biochar;
• Reduction of waste odors with reduced acute lower respiratory infections, together with improved quality of life for farmers;
• Establishing “ecosystem corridors” for wildlife;
• Promote “sustainable territories” of food production integrating low-carbon agriculture with log-carbon food logistics along the food value chain (i.e., between food production areas and consumers, including the exporting infrastructure).

This initiative aims to foster regional bioeconomies in Southern Brazil based on adaptation measures for mangrove restoration and coastal resilience, together with the creation of new jobs in regional contexts strongly affected by climate change. It considers the development of a “collaborative laboratory" with local institutions to promote the use of advanced digital systems integrated with in-situ techniques for the analysis, quantification and valorisation of the variation in mangrove carbon stocks[5], as well their loss and recovery due to natural and(or) land-use changes. The ultimate goal is to foster Mangrove Ecosystem Management through the sustainable and natural growth/exploration of blue carbon in natural mangroves.

The project is focused in two of the most important subtropical estuarine environments in Southern Brazil, respectively Bay of Paranaguá, in the state of Paraná, and Babitonga Bay in Santa Catarina.

The rational of the project derives from the fact that Brazil has the third mangrove extension in the world[6], and mangrove forests are one of the most productive and efficient long-term natural carbon sinks and as such have been identified alongside seagrasses and saltmarshes as key ‘blue carbon’ ecosystems[7]. Typically, they store up to 15 times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial soils and sequester carbon 10–50 times faster than terrestrial forests[8].

The regional context is affected by high level of social and economic vulnerability, which can only be tackled through new forms of ecosystem management and social intervention through the economic valorisation of carbon stocks in the mangroves (i.e., “blue carbon). The project will introduce and leverage the use of new methodologies, making use of an “user-driven”, people-centred approach, for mangrove ecosystems exploration in Brazil[9].

This project will leverage ongoing activities developed in the South of Brazil by +Atlantic, governmental institutions (Chico Mendes Institute – ICMBIO; Brazil National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPQ), industry and NGO’s (APPIX – Innovation and Technology, or Pró-Babitonga Group – GPB, respectively), together with local universities (Federal University of Santa Catarina, UFSC; University of the Vale de Itajaí, UNIVALI). They have considered, over the last few years: i) the development of web-tool Coastal Analyst System from Space Imagery Engine (CASSIE[10]); ii) the development of several projects focused on coastal risks, coastal communities and sea level rise;, and iii) adaptation measures using nature based solutions (mangrove restoration) to improve coastal resilience (e.g., Baysqueeze project[11], RiskPorts project[12]).

The project will contribute to several ongoing activities at local, regional, and national scale, including:

• Local Economy: foster regional bioeconomies in Southern Brazil based on adaptation measures for mangrove restoration and coastal resilience; Foster, develop and implement blue carbon market at local, regional, and national scale.
• Innovation: promote the use of advanced digital systems integrated with in-situ techniques for the analysis, quantification and valorisation of the variation in mangrove carbon stocks.
• Outreach: Ocean literacy (e.g., private and public schools) regarding the importance of mangrove ecosystem and all the services provided to society and impacts due to climate changes and coastal management. Engage with local population, NGO’s and companies to support preservation and restoration activities.
• Public policy: Contribute to National, Federal, and local public sector actions regarding key coastal managements activities such as PROCOSTA and ORLA project; Contribute to several actions stated in the National Action Plan for Mangroves (PAN Manguezal) coordinated by ICMBio.

Sustainable Territorial Development (STD) arises from the union of the territorial approach with the principles of sustainability and highlights the need for effective proposals for application, taking into account the specificities of the place, such as political, social, environmental, economic and territorial issues (Flores, Shana Sabbado, 2011).

A critical challenge on STD is the identification of road maps for transformation of territories, urban and rural areas, involving spatial, institutional, political, among other contexts. When dealing with pre-existing territories the challenge is greater, and transition of one scenario to a more healthy scenario ascends in significance.

According to European Environment Agency:

• The environmental challenges ahead of us are global and systemic. Therefore, to achieve long-term sustainability goals, the core systems of our societies will have to change dramatically. That is especially true for the systems related to food, energy, mobility and construction.
• Achieving such transitions will require much more than incremental efficiency improvements. It will instead demand long-term, profound changes in dominant practices, policies and ways of thinking, which will in turn demand new knowledge. It will mean overcoming the short-termism currently dominating political and economic thinking, and instead embracing long-term, integrated, global perspectives.

Such a drive is also true for Latin American countries, mainly for Brazil.

The Araucaria Chair for STD, configures an important ground for international common effort on R&D, coordinated by Brazil (Araucaria Foundation) and France (Institut Mines Telecom). It is a sociotechnics answer for a balanced development concerning K4P. Two main axes will be considered:

1. Occitanic Foresight Laboratory for Territorial Sustainable Development – to subsidize decision making for the development of the regions comprising the Araucaria Chair. It involves “Data Ecologies” towards sober economies, promoting healthier societies, reducing inequalities and improving the interoperability among systems, in the Digital age. The Laboratory will be inspired and integrated with the Industry Observatory (Observatório da Indústria at Industry Federation of Paraná) located in Curitiba, an asset with more than 18 years of experience.


2. New R&D Arrangement on Territorial Sustainable Development, a collaborative network for Learning, Science and Technology developments. It is a network of researchers and partnerships with people, public and private institutions, national and international, for the implementation of the actions, both academic and project, and with municipalities and regional organizations. The Arrangement started with about 30 S&T Institutions, involving Brazil, Argentine, Paraguay and France.