PHD Project: Spatial Expansion of The: Oil Amazon Frontier and Environmental Conflicts in Ecuador

Università degli Studi di Padova
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Storiche

Indirizzo “Geografia Umana e Geografia Fisica
PhD project: Spatial Expansion of the

Oil Amazon Frontier and
Environmental Conflicts in Ecuador
PhD Student: Eugenio Pappalardo Supervisor: Dr. Massimo de Marchi

Dipartimento di Geografia “G. Morandini”
seminar structure
keywords
• theoretical and operative framework: SLoT and sustainibility
• the environmental issues
• biodiversity conservation and sustainable development
• introduction to the case study “Yasuni” in Ecuador
• geographical and territorial framework
• territorialization processes in Amazon context
didactic tools:
• rainstorming
• power point
• videos
• working group
Introduction
• LD not just a growth of a productive sector or aggregation of
enterprise
• LD as a process of territorial development
• based on sustainable use of the material and unmaterial resources
• It involves the social and cultural sphere and the capacity of self-
organization of subjects (Dematteis, Governa, 2005)
Territorialist perspective of Local Development:
globalization and post-fordism historic phase
between actors, social structures and territory mutual complex

relationships and ricursive processes:
- tendency towards hyper-connection between places (short/long
networks), (case study)
- process of fragmentation: economy, politics, society, natural
environment, territory (case study)
Introduction
• wider analysis on local territorial systems

• issue of the territorial and environmental sustainability
• relationships between local systems and ecosystems
Aim:
Integrating the perspective of the SLoT model on the local
complexity environment in its socio-economic components
using a complex vision to represent “natural environment”
as well.
use of the ecosystem reading key
use the territoriality as synthesis category assuming the
relationships between society, alterity and externality
both at local and at global scale
(Dematteis, Governa, 2005)

Introduction
Using this new category allows to combine the global

imperative with the local needs proposing a process of
territorialization of the sustainable development,
combining the interests to development and the priorities
of sustainability
sustainable territoriality means assuming the awareness

of the unmaterial and material relationships linking
• Society and Environment

• local to global scale
Internationalization of the environmental issue:

UNCED Earth Summit, CBD (Rio de Janeiro, 1992)
COP and SBSTTA
UNFCCC and IPCC (UN)
complex network of ecosystems
political-normative
ecosystems perspective
functionalist territorialist
perspective
approach
Integrated
components
trivial machine epistemologic
perspective
social-economical operative-analytic summary of complexity

environment perspective components environment
passive support local territory
mine and dump (Sacks, 1998)

green urban areas
(Dematteis, Governa, 2005) natural environment

The territorialist perspective on LD
• the territory as epicentre of sustainability concept

• territory is a set of material and unmaterial complex
relationships
• sustainability is not referred just to the economic-
functional space neither to a non-humanized environment
sustainability pass through a territory definetely

anthropized based on specific and contextualized
relationships of coevolution between local socienties
and natural environment

Local Territorial System (SLoT) and sustainability
- Natural environment the SLoT model refers to

the relationships between local network, milieu
and ecosystems
- sustainability as conservation of territorial capital
- ecosystems as a “black box”
(Dematteis, Governa 2005)
sustainability
A SLoT is able of sustainable self-reproduction if:
the collective territorial actor, interacting with other
local systems and sovra-local levels, produces value
without loosing the territorial capital both the local one
and the other territories involved in the process

territorial capital and ecosystems
Nature is not just an external “re-source” to be exploited as much

and as faster as possible for human production and consumption
(Pignatti 2002, Rifkin, 2004; Tiezzi 2000)
Nature is a complex system (ecosystem, biosphere):
- open system obeying to the thermodinamic principles

- self-organizing system
- actions, feedback loops (positive and negative)
- non-linear relationships between components
- non-predictable behaviour
(Bertalanffy, 1968)
ecosystems properties and territorial complexity
spatial configuration – global relationships

- every ecosystem exchange energy, matter and informations with
other ecosystems through a complex network of relationships from
local scale to the global one. Appropriate analysis of the environmetal
component has to consider local, middle and global scale
- at global scale emerging effects are not a merely sum of all the
ecosystems, but they results complex interactions and sinergic
relationships
i.e.: - atmosferic oxygen regulation

- gas emissions
- deforestation
In this theoretical framework the environmetal issue takes place

the environmental issue
Anthropogenic direct drivers

- Frammentazione
• cambiamento d’uso dei suoli
- Perdita e/o degradazione
(land use)
• sovrasfruttamento delle risorse
naturali
 habitat
degli
• introduzione di specie alloctone

invasive (alien species)
• diffusione di agenti patogeni e Tra il 12% ed il 52% dei taxa
contaminanti attualmente conosciuti sono al
• cambiamenti climatici globali momento minacciati di estinzione
(IUCN Red List, 2001)
(Primack, 2004)
ECOSYSTEMS – PRODUCTION SYSTEMS – ECONOMICAL SYSTEMS
natural resources goods and services
ECOSYSTEMS PRODUCTION ECONOMIC

SYSTEM SYSTEM
pollution capital
ecological crisis energetic crisis economic crisis

(Tiezzi, 2005)
Ecosystems
An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal,

and microorganism communities and the nonliving
environment, interacting as a functional unit.
Humans are an integral part of ecosystems.
ECOSYSTEM APPROCH
CBD (UNCED, Rio de Janeiro, 1992) COP, SBSTTA (Montreal, 2000)

The Ecosystem Approach: a bridge between the environment and human well-being
- a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and

living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use
in an equitable way.
- reach the 3 objectives of CBD:

conservation; sustainable use; and the fair and equitable sharing
of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.
- it is based on the application of appropriate scientific

methodologies focused on levels of biological organization,
which encompass the essential structure, processes, functions
and interactions among organisms and their environment.
It recognizes that humans, with their cultural diversity,

are an integral component of many ecosystems.
Ecosystems services
ecosystems are not just a passive support, they are active agents
that permanently play crucial roles in functions and services
Ecosystem Services:
the benefits people obtain from
ecosystems
Ecosystem services are the conditions and processes through

which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up,
sustain and fulfill human life. They maintain biodiversity and the
production of ecosystem goods, such as seafood, forage
timber, biomass fuels, natural fiber, and many pharmaceuticals,
industrial products, and their precursors (MA, 2005).
biodiversity
what is biodiversity?
• multiscalar concept of biological diversity

• genes, species, community, ecosystem, meta-ecosystems
• At every geographical scale: local, regional and global scale
Ecosystems services
E.S. include provisioning, regulating, and cultural services

that directly affect people and supporting services needed to
maintain the other services.
E.S. is a multiscale concept: from local scale to the global one
E.S. include both natural and human-modified ecosystems as

sources of ecosystem services (i.e. agrosystems).
E.S. encompass both the tangible and the intangible benefits

humans obtain from ecosystems, which are sometimes
separated into “goods” and “services” respectively.
(MA, 2005)
Ecosystems services
• Food
• Freshwater
provisioning services • Fuelwood
(products obtained from ecosystems) • Fibers
• Biochemicals
• Genetic resources
• climate regulation
• diseases regulation
• water regulation
regulating services
• water purification
(benefits obtained from regulation
of ecosystem processes) • pollination
• spiritual and religious
• recreational and ecoturism
cultural services • sense of place
(nonmaterial services)
• educational
• cultural heritage
Ecosystems services
supporting services
services necessary for the production of all the ecosystem services
soil formation nutrient cycling primary production
They differ from provisioning, regulating, and cultural services in that their
impacts on people are either indirect or occur over a very long time,
whereas changes in the other categories have relatively direct and short-
term impacts on people.
Ecosystems services
supporting
provisioning regulating cultural

Ecosystems and evolution of the SLoT Model
representing the “natural component” means taking in

account:
• existence of ecosystems complexity
• plots between ecosystems at local scale
• network of relationships, feedback loops between local and
global scale
Ecosystems services
At local scale: what does the SLoT model see as “local

natural component”? What does “local ecosystem” means?
• presence of different ecosystems

• mutual relationships between ecosystems
• spatial overlap and contacts with systems regulated by societies
(agrosystems or part of it, antropized areas, urban areas, etc)
in the SLoT there are local network of “ecological agents” wich

interact between them
(ecosystem or part of it, wetlands, woodlands, grasslands, Biotopes)
At global scale: a global network connecting different local

ecosystems, different local networks of “ecological agents”
It is the same role of the long mesh network extending at global

scale, connecting different anthropic actor considered by the
SLoT.
Representation of the “natural component” assumed as the

socio-economic components having global and local networks
of social and economical actors demandin, supplying and
exchanging economic and social services.
How does this parralelism sound? Is that comparable?

Towards an environmental sustanability
ecosystem services do not dipend by static conditions

E.S. are results of permanent complex processes with they own
rithms and velocity
Sustainability is not just a matter of quantity, but it refers to

time-scales, rithms and carrying capacity of ecosystems.
one action is environmetally sustainable if the use of E.S. has a

rate lower (or equal) to whom produced by ecosystem its own.
dangerous relationships

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Università degli Studi di Padova

Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Storiche

PhD project: Spatial Expansion of the

PhD Student: Eugenio Pappalardo Supervisor: Dr. Massimo de Marchi

between actors, social structures and territory mutual complex

• wider analysis on local territorial systems

(Dematteis, Governa, 2005)

Using this new category allows to combine the global

sustainable territoriality means assuming the awareness

• Society and Environment

Internationalization of the environmental issue:

social-economical operative-analytic summary of complexity

mine and dump (Sacks, 1998)

(Dematteis, Governa, 2005) natural environment

• the territory as epicentre of sustainability concept

sustainability pass through a territory definetely

(Dematteis, Governa, 2005)

- Natural environment the SLoT model refers to

(Dematteis, Governa, 2005)

Nature is not just an external “re-source” to be exploited as much

Nature is a complex system (ecosystem, biosphere):

- open system obeying to the thermodinamic principles

spatial configuration – global relationships

i.e.: - atmosferic oxygen regulation

In this theoretical framework the environmetal issue takes place

Anthropogenic direct drivers

• introduzione di specie alloctone

natural resources goods and services

ECOSYSTEMS PRODUCTION ECONOMIC

ecological crisis energetic crisis economic crisis

An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal,

Humans are an integral part of ecosystems.

CBD (UNCED, Rio de Janeiro, 1992) COP, SBSTTA (Montreal, 2000)

- a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and

- reach the 3 objectives of CBD:

- it is based on the application of appropriate scientific

It recognizes that humans, with their cultural diversity,

Ecosystem services are the conditions and processes through

• multiscalar concept of biological diversity

E.S. include provisioning, regulating, and cultural services

E.S. is a multiscale concept: from local scale to the global one

E.S. include both natural and human-modified ecosystems as

E.S. encompass both the tangible and the intangible benefits

soil formation nutrient cycling primary production

provisioning regulating cultural

representing the “natural component” means taking in

At local scale: what does the SLoT model see as “local

• presence of different ecosystems

in the SLoT there are local network of “ecological agents” wich

At global scale: a global network connecting different local

It is the same role of the long mesh network extending at global

Representation of the “natural component” assumed as the

How does this parralelism sound? Is that comparable?

ecosystem services do not dipend by static conditions

Sustainability is not just a matter of quantity, but it refers to

one action is environmetally sustainable if the use of E.S. has a

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