Area of investment and support

Amazon +10 Initiative: research expeditions to the Amazon

Five projects are funded through this investment, part of the Brazilian-led Amazon+10 Initiative aiming to support research and technological development in Brazilian Legal Amazonia.

• Budget: The total UK budget for this programme is £4.25 million
• Duration: This is a single UKRI funding opportunity (closed April 2024) and research activity runs from 2025 to 2028
• Partners involved: Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, lead), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Brazil National Council of State Foundations for Research Support (CONFAP), Brazil National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

The scope and what we're doing

The UKRI Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) are funding the research investment Amazon +10 initiative: research expeditions to the Amazon, within the Brazilian-led Amazon+10 Initiative.

The Amazon+10 Initiative aims to support research and technological development in Brazilian Legal Amazonia, focusing on a deeper understanding of nature-society interactions for sustainable and inclusive development in the region. The initiative is led by partners in Brazil: the National Council of State Foundations for Research Support (CONFAP), with the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

The priority themes of the ‘Amazon +10 initiative: research expeditions to the Amazon’ investment are:

• understanding habitats and their species
• study biodiversity as a source of livelihood and potential for bioeconomy
• conservation and restoration of natural capital
• studies of the tangible and intangible heritage of ancestral, indigenous and traditional peoples of the Amazon and their associated knowledge systems
• documentation and conservation of Amazonian indigenous languages and associated knowledge systems
• studies on sustainable use of natural resources, institutional arrangements for conservation, and territorial dynamics of indigenous and traditional communities
• integration of field data with emerging technologies

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has funded these projects through the UK International Science Partnerships Fund, and all funded projects will contribute to the UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment to promote the economic development and welfare of people in Brazil.

All research teams include at least one member who has traditional knowledge related to the relevant Legal Amazon territory, referred to as PIQCT (the Portuguese acronym for indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and traditional communities).

The objectives of ‘Amazon + 10: research expeditions to the Amazon’ are to:

• support the organisation of scientific expeditions aimed at expanding our knowledge about biodiversity or socio-cultural diversity in the Amazon
• build institutional research partnerships between organisations in the Amazon and outside the region, and connect researchers with different affiliations
• foster the strengthening of local research infrastructure and training of professionals in taxonomy, systematics, museology and ethnobiology, under the coordination of teams based in the Amazon
• encourage scientific research in remote and understudied parts of the Amazon
• encourage scientific research that proposes ways to surmount the challenges of studying less well-known and less studied taxonomic groups
• encourage co-creation of applications with traditional knowledge holders from local indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and communities living along rivers
• promote activities involving education, popularisation and scientific diffusion to different kinds of audience in all sectors of society, and involving specialists, groups and institutions engaged in formal and non-formal education (for example schools, extension units, museums, science centres, zoos, botanic gardens, aquariums, conservation unit visitor centres and non-governmental organisations)

Why we're doing it

The Amazon is world-famous for its outstanding biodiversity, with genetic resources still largely unmapped. The collection of scientific data and materials, biological and mineral specimens, objects belonging to Indigenous and popular culture, present and past, and the traditional knowledge associated with them can enable a better use of the region’s substantial natural and social resources in the future.

Past projects, outcomes and impact

Five projects have been funded under this scheme and will run from 2025 to 2028.

Amazonian BioTechQuilombo: Amazonian biodiversity, technology assessment and knowledge exchange with Quilombos

Project lead: Dr Polyanna da Conceição Bispo

This project will collaborate with Quilombola communities to analyse biodiversity data gaps in Amazonian conservation areas. The researchers will use traditional knowledge of the local communities to identify key animal and plant species crucial to the lifestyle of the Quilombos and evaluate their role in ecosystem preservation amid socio-ecological challenges.

The project will employ traditional methods and modern technologies like DNA barcoding, eDNA and remote sensing to comprehensively record biota and landscape features.

Quilombola communities will be involved throughout the research process with the aim of developing automated systems for community-based biodiversity measurement to:

• promote conservation
• strengthen relationships
• empower communities
• enhance research capabilities

Brazil-UKRI: the recovery of the adaptive capacity of pre-Columbian tree crops to environmental changes

Project lead: Dr David Moreno Mateos, University of Oxford

This project will investigate the adaptive potential of the Brazil nut and other Amazonian tree crops associated with Brazil nut areas, after human disturbance has stopped.

Plant leaves, cambium tissue and roots will be sampled from pre-Columbian archaeological sites, known as Terras Pretas Amazônicas, where the descendants of ancient Brazilian nut trees still grow today. The samples will be used to build a record of changes in the trees’ genomes across 2,000 years.

The project team includes experts in forest restoration, domestication and genomics. They will explore changes in the whole genome of the Brazilian nut tree and associated tree crops, and its associated soil microbiome.

The results will help find genomes with increased genetic variability and adaptive potential. Trees with this potential can then be used in tropical forest restoration and agriculture, increasing the resilience and resistance of forests to ongoing global changes.

Voices of indigenous Amazonia: historical processes of sociobiodiversity in the face of the challenges of the Anthropocene

Project lead: Dr Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, University College London

This project will study Amazonian biodiversity and its long-term interactions with indigenous peoples in three regions characterised by complex sociocultural systems:

• the Upper Negro Indigenous Territory (Amazonas state)
• the Xingu Indigenous Territory (Matto Grosso state)
• the Kayapó Indigenous Territory (Pará state)

The researchers will combine human and biological sciences with indigenous knowledge to improve the production of knowledge about Amazonia. They will document biodiversity and its relationship with knowledge and sociocultural practices of present and past indigenous peoples by:

• making biological inventories of species little known to Western science
• characterising indigenous landscapes through participatory mapping and remote sensing
• fostering exchanges of biodiversity-related knowledge between Western scientists and Indigenous people
• recording long-term anthropogenic changes in vegetation, fauna and soils
• collaboratively producing relevant ethnographic, linguistic and sociocultural documentation

The project will produce relevant contributions to tackle the current climate emergency and socio-environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. This compromises forests, resources and the continuity of the lifeways of indigenous peoples of Amazonia.

Tsiino Hiiwiida: unveiling multiple dimensions of plant and fungal biodiversity of the Upper Rio Negro

Project lead: Dr Sandra Knapp, Natural History Museum

Tsiino Hiiwiida of the Upper Rio Negro in Brazilian Amazonia is an epicentre for the discovery of new and endemic species but it is disproportionately less explored botanically than other diversity hotspots of northern South America.

The project involves a network of:

• professors
• researchers
• indigenous and non-indigenous students
• parataxonomists

Together, they will:

• aggregate scientific knowledge
• accelerate the discovery of plants and fungi
• fill gaps in taxonomic, biogeographic and evolutionary knowledge of this biologically and culturally unique region

The project will use traditional fieldwork and studies in taxonomy, evolution, molecular systematics and biomonitoring. with the latest metagenomic technology and interactions. It will also focus on interacting and empowering the local indigenous communities to offer a novel glimpse into the diversity of this extraordinarily rich region.

UKRI-Brazil: participatory monitoring of traditional territories: digital platform for co-production of data on sociobiodiversity in Amazonian areas

Project lead: Dr Ben Coles, University of Leicester

This proposal seeks to develop a mobile, digital platform that records and catalogues socio-biodiversity through the co-creation of local, traditional and indigenous knowledge.

Researchers will work with traditional Amazonian communities to develop an artificial intelligence system to create an inventory of traditional knowledge on the biodiversity of traditional territories.

The main objective of the project is for this digital tool to record and scientifically validate traditional practices and knowledge of biodiversity. It will also relate them to globally available scientific databases, while enabling communities to maintain control over their knowledges and consequently territories.

Co-creating the platform with local communities will allow the platform to be regularly updated by those communities and to become a tool for monitoring biodiversity in their territories.

The platform will include a toolkit that can be used to resolve conflicts between these communities (and similarly positioned social groups) and market-based actors that enter traditional territories to extract, profit and otherwise exploit from their rich biodiversity.

Who to contact

Ask a question about this area of investment

Lucy Hopewell, email: ISPF-Brazil@nerc.ukri.org

Last updated: 13 March 2025