FABLE’s South American collaboration towards shared regional and global objectives

FABLE’s South American country teams, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia met in Bariloche to collaborate on the development of a regional approach to long-term FABLE pathways, data sharing and enhancement of the South American regional GLOBIOM model.
Members of FABLE’s South American country teams, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia meeting in Bariloche

The Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land Use and Energy (FABLE) Pathways Consortium was launched in 2017 by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). It currently comprises close to 20 country and regional teams composed of leading research institutions. Consortium members collaborate to develop integrated long-term pathways towards sustainable land-use and food systems consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement. The FABLE analyses will also assess international spillover effects to ensure that national pathways are consistent with global objectives.

Back in December 2017, SDSN and IIASA brought together, for the first time in Vienna, the local knowledge institutions of 12 FABLE country teams.

There, among many other interesting discussions and presentations, the Brazilian country team, represented by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the Institute of Applied Economics Research (IPEA), presented its experience on how the country reached its Paris Climate Agreement targets. One of the tools that was used to achieve this was the Brazilian version of the Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM) developed in collaboration with IIASA which allows for spatially explicit data to be modelled and analyzed into scenarios and enables policy-makers to test the impact of potential policies on land-use change and competition over the various sectors (agriculture, forestry, energy, water use, etc.).

This discussion inspired FABLE’s South American country teams: Argentina (represented by Fundación Bariloche and the National Agricultural Technology Institute), Brazil (INPE and IPEA), and Colombia (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and Universidad de los Andes), to come together and discuss their region’s common priorities, including protecting shared precious resources such as the Amazon. In view of several overlapping objectives that were identified, the teams set out to collaborate to develop a regional approach to long-term FABLE pathways.

FABLE South American teams

On 19-21 March 2018, in an event co-organized by Fundación Bariloche and the SDSN, the three country teams met in the beautiful mountains of Bariloche, Argentina, for a three-day meeting to begin their collaboration and start sharing their respective data and expertise to potentially develop and enhance the South American regional GLOBIOM model introduced by the IIASA and the Brazilian team back in December. To work towards this, they agreed to jointly produce new land use maps, develop multiscale modelling, and provide restoration and biodiversity assessments. Following the next FABLE Consortium meeting taking place in June 2018, the South American FABLE country teams will meet again in September.