Current

We are working to better understand the impacts of land use and climate on the risk of vector-borne diseases, and especially mosquito-borne disease, in Latin America. In partnership with researchers in the United States and Peru, we are advancing scientific understanding of the relationship between land use, human behavior and vector-borne disease, with a focus on the Madre de Dios region of Peru. We are also developing new models to map and quantify the impacts of land use decisions on disease risk in Madre de Dios and elsewhere in Latin America.

Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) is an index, modeled after Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that provides a clear signal of the value of nature's contribution to human wellbeing. It has been developed and piloted from city to national scales in China, and has been officially adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission as part of the UN-SEEA system of ecosystem accounting. Project partners: NatCap Stanford, NatCap University of Minnesota, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Funding: Chinese Academy of Sciences, Stanford gift funds.

Evaluated various scenarios of shade-grown coffee implementation throughout Costa Rica’s agricultural sector to quantify potential improvement in carbon storage, pollinator abundance, crop yield, sedimentation, and water quality, and to improve traceability and sustainability of shade-grown coffee in the sector. Collaborators: Coffee Institute of Costa Rica (ICAFE).

This 18-month project employs NatCap's well-tested participatory process to build support for a more sustainable development pathway by co-producing knowledge of ecosystem services and the benefits they bring to communities in collaboration with scientists, policy experts, and leaders in the Llanos de Moxos region in Beni, Bolivia. Collaborators: Center for Research in Biodiversity and the Environment at the Autonomous University of Beni, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bolivia, FaunAgua, Armonía, Department for Archaeology of the Americas at the University of Bonn.