General

Soil is a fundamental resource yet every year some 10 million ha of cropland are lost to soil erosion, mostly due to unsustainable agricultural and forestry practices. Erosion impacts overall sustainability in two ways: (a) reduction in farmland for food production, and (b) discharge of sediments and associated contaminants into water courses polluting water supply, fisheries and aquaculture, and reducing hydropower capacity due to reservoir siltation. Soil erosion and its environmental impacts sit centrally within the Energy-Food-Water-Environment Nexus. New approaches to land management change are required to reduce socio-economic impacts of soil erosion but in spite of its significance, soil erosion is insufficiently understood in its social dimensions, and is almost non-governed in Latin American DAC countries. Two factors may explain this: (a) erosion is often slow and "invisible", or accepted as the norm, and (b) erosion is highly complex, emerging from interaction of socio-economic and natural processes, with interconnected feedbacks between external and internal drivers. Working in collaboration with researchers from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, the Chile-UK partnership aims to develop a new integrated approach for understanding and governing soil erosion at the river basin scale. Our multidisciplinary team combines innovative scientific measuring methods and advanced Latin American approaches for socio-cultural intervention to provide a new framework within which soil erosion challenges in Latin America can be addressed.

Objectives

The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with developing countries across the world to promote the economic development and social welfare of the partner countries.

General

Centro Especializado de Atencin a la Mujer (CEAMUJER) will provide leadership training investment capital technical assistance and legal services in 20 rural communities in the department of Matagalpa to increase the resident's income generating capacity promote land titling encourage gender equality and reduce domestic violence. The project will reach approximately 1200 men and women directly and another 4800 indirectly.

General

Comisso Pastoral da Terra do Rio Grande do Norte (CPT-RN) will work with community associations to introduce low-cost infrastructure for farming with limited water resources in 10 settlements formed pursuant to Brazils program of land reform in western Rio Grande do Norte. The infrastructure will benefit 500 farmers and 2,515 members of their families.