Upper Madera (Bolivia – Brazil)

Participatory mapping is a tool to socially construct a geospatial visualization of infrastructure within a mosaic of protected areas, indigenous territories and other lands. Participants in GIA workshops identified and mapped areas considered to be of high value, areas of perceived threats, and recommended actions.   Maps and textual analysis from the Upper Madera mosaic may be found here, while a cross-regional synthesis may be found here (Forthcoming).

The Upper Madera Community of Practice and Learning brings together a range of actors who collaborate together in multiple ways to address shared challenges. Understanding how collaboration occurs and how different organizations can work together to maximize their collective impact are important areas for analysis and reflection.

In addition, many other stakeholders such as financing, construction, political and economic actors influence governance, infrastructure development, and conservation and development outcomes.  It is important to understand who these actors are, their interests, sources of power, and opportunities to influence them.

Learn more about case studies and other analyses related to the Upper Madera CoP-L network and other infrastructure governance stakeholders here (Forthcoming). For a more synthetic perspective on stakeholder analysis here (Forthcoming), and for organizational analysis here (Forthcoming).

“Effectiveness of conservation strategies for infrastructure governance”
Dr. Jazmin Gonzales Tovar

Our preliminary assessment of conservation strategies identified several promising cases that offer opportunities for analysis and learning. By comparatively analyzing four specific cases—one in each of the four GIA countries (Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru)—this research aims to assess the effectiveness of strategies aimed to promote infrastructure governance. The study takes a close look at contextual/exogenous factors (e.g. politics), power relations, synergies among diverse types of strategies, political mobilization, and coalitions/collaborations. It will deeply explore how certain social-environmentally oriented actors faced specific infrastructure projects in a given Amazonian region; which strategies they utilized to advance their desired goals, how they exerted power to influence decision-making, how they built coalitions and interacted with actors that had different goals or priorities, what were the results, and why (e.g. what was the effect of contextual factors and power relations).

The chosen cases in Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil feature successful stories of indigenous groups who managed to stop or pause infrastructure projects that would have impacted their territories and infringed on their rights. For those three cases, this research aims to produce scientific evidence and communication materials that help these indigenous groups in their lucha.

For Bolivia and Colombia, Jazmin is working in direct collaboration with indigenous leaders from the studied communities. In Colombia, the project will benefit from the involvement of Nidia Becerra, an indigenous Inga and leader from Yunguillo. Yunguillo is an empowered indigenous resguardo known for its constant fight for their rights, successfully stopping two road projects. Nidia will work with the support of two community members, who will be field assistants. For the case of Bolivia, Jazmin is building a collaborative relationship with Valentín Luna Ríos and Domingo Ocampo Huasna, two indigenous leaders from the communities of the Madidi and Pilón Lajas region, in the Madera river basin. These indigenous communities, organized in a mancomunidad, fought to stop the hydroelectric project Chepete – El Bala. These indigenous leaders will participate in the study as co-researchers. They will be the key link with their communities, overseeing the interviews with the traditional and spiritual authorities and leaders, and contribute with writing the analysis and conclusions.

GIA had a series of virtual meetings with each GIA mosaic-level Community of Practice and Learning to present results from GIA’s first year of activities and discuss next steps for 2020.

Please, access the Upper Madera CoP-L meeting below.

Learn more about events, activities and additional studies being carried out in the Upper Madera here.

Marliz Arteaga Gomez
Title:  Multi-Level Governance in a Complex Social-Ecological System: The case of the

Hydroelectric Dam Complex in the Madera Basin (Bolivia and Brazil)

Marliz is looking at multilevel governance of hydroelectric dams and their impacts on the livelihoods of communities living in the upper Madera River basin, including a comparison of policy frameworks for licensing of dams in Bolivia and Brazil.  She is taking a political ecology approach, using discourse analysis with an emphasis on power, to understand the role of local social organizations and mobilization, comparing communities in Beni and Pando, Bolivia and Rondônia, Brazil with differing levels of social capital based on prior history of mobilization, as well as looking at livelihoods and gender. Marliz has done archival work with governmental documents, key informant interviews with NGOs, and focus groups with communities.

Alexandra Sabo

(Forthcoming)