Dr Tim Baker will lead a new project to understand the resilience of the forests of the Peruvian Andes Amazon region to climate change

Dr Tim Baker will lead a new project funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The project aims to understand the resilience of the forests of the Peruvian Andes Amazon region to climate change and incorporate this information into the management of the protected area network. 

The project, also involving Professor Oliver Phillips and the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana, the Jardin Botanico de Missouri, Wake Forest University, the Wildlife Conservation Society – Peru and the Servicio Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas, Peru (SERNANP; the Peruvian Protected Areas Authority), builds on the long-term RAINFOR forest plot network in Amazonia. 

The protected areas of the Andes Amazon region of Peru contain some of the world’s most diverse forests and are a natural laboratory for studying the effects of climate change in the tropics. 

This project will use permanent forest plots located along gradients of rainfall, elevation and flood duration to compare how different environmental drivers are affecting forest structure and composition. 

By working closely with SERNANP, a key component of the project is to inform management policies of the protected areas of the Peruvian Andes Amazon region. 

The $1.5 million project aims to integrate the permanent plot network with the protected area monitoring system of SERNANP, as well as ensuring that the results inform management plans for economically-important species and are used to design a protected area network that is resilient to climate change.