Expertise in research integration and implementation is an essential but often overlooked component of tackling complex societal and environmental problems. We focus on expertise relevant to any complex problem, especially contributory expertise, divided into 'knowing-that' and 'knowing-how.' We also deal with interactional expertise and the fact that much expertise is tacit. We explore three questions. First, in examining 'when is expertise in research integration and implementation required?,' we review tasks essential (a) to developing more comprehensive understandings of complex problems, plus possible ways to address them, and (b) for supporting implementation of those understandings into government policy, community practice, business and social innovation, or other initiatives. Second, in considering 'where can expertise in research integration and implementation currently be found?,' we describe three realms: (a) specific approaches, including interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, systems thinking and sustainability science; (b) case-based experience that is independent of these specific approaches; and (c) research examining elements of integration and implementation, specifically considering unknowns and fostering innovation. We highlight examples of expertise in each realm and demonstrate how fragmentation currently precludes clear identification of research integration and implementation expertise. Third, in exploring 'what is required to strengthen expertise in research integration and implementation?,' we propose building a knowledge bank. We delve into three key challenges: compiling existing expertise, indexing and organising the expertise to make it widely accessible, and understanding and overcoming the core reasons for the existing fragmentation. A growing knowledge bank of expertise in research integration and implementation on the one hand, and accumulating success in addressing complex societal and environmental problems on the other, will form a virtuous cycle so that each strengthens the other. Building a coalition of researchers and institutions will ensure this expertise and its application are valued and sustained.

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Commodity prices, exchange rate, infrastructural projects and migration patterns are known and important drivers of Amazon deforestation, but cannot solely explain the high rates observed in 1995 and 2003-2004 in six Brazilian Amazon states. Deforestation predictions using those widely applied drivers can underestimate deforestation rates by as much as 50%. We show that years with the highest deforestation rates also correlate with large administrative shifts caused by presidential elections which results in periods of managerial instability associated with episodic inefficiency, leading to weak institutions unable to properly combat illegal deforestation. Although surveillance and regulatory action plans to combat deforestation have held back deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon since 2005, our results suggest that environmental management institutions should be aware such administration shifts set a burden on the policy targets associated with conservation policies. Institutional vulnerability immediately after major elections is an acknowledged fact in Brazil, though it has been mostly disregarded as an indicator of ecological threat.

The Semi-Arid region of Brazil (SAB) has been periodically affected by moderate to extreme droughts, jeopardizing livelihoods and severely impacting the life standards of millions of family farmers. In the early 1990s the Human Coexistence with Semi-Aridity (HCSA) emerged as a development approach. The debate on HCSA is limited to Brazilian literature but as a technological and a bottom-up governance experience, researches on the topic could add some insights to international debate on living with drought. The present paper adopts an historical perspective on HCSA before discussing the main HCSA's rainwater-harvesting methods found in two case studies in the SAB as a local appropriate and advanced technological package for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Qualitative analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews with key local stakeholders, 29 unstructured interviews with family farmers, and surveys in 499 family farms are used. The results show that regardless the highly adaptive potential, the technologies are adopted in differ rates among them and in between case studies chosen, influenced by non-technological factors and interacting the broader public policies context. Scaling up the HCSA's technologies in the rural SAB is a development path towards the SDGs.

International audienceAfter almost four decades since its creation, the action os INCRA in the Amazon region shows a paradox: on the one hand the human occupation of that region was a strategy of the military regime, but on the other hand it is after the democratization that the agrarian reform policy intensifies the settlement of peasants in the Brazilian Amazon. The institutionalization of policies aiming at protecting the environment, which increased during the last two decades, is contradictory with the social protection, as in the Amazon it is very much based on a model of agrarian reform that provokes deforestation.Após quase quatro décadas de existência, a ação do INCRA na Amazônia revela um paradoxo: por mais que a ocupação humana daquela região fosse uma estratégia dos governos militares, é na fase democrática recente que a reforma agrária brasileira intensifica a instalação de agricultores em projetos de assentamento. Por outro lado, a institucionalização de políticas de proteção do meio ambiente, marcante nas duas últimas décadas, se revela contraditória com as práticas de proteção social que têm, na Amazônia, um foco de destaque num modelo de reforma agrária que provoca inevitáveis consequências ambientais

O texto revisita, 20 anos depois, a obra O Poder dos Donos. Ali, ficava evidente a plasticidade das velhas formas do patrimonialismo, espinha dorsal da estrutura econômico-social do Sertão nordestino, com intrincado enraizamento na ordem política da região. Explorando a hipótese da ressurgência da tradição, mesmo diante de surtos modernizantes, o artigo apresenta novos elementos explicativos do contexto recente: o deslocamento da visibilidade nacional da questão regional, do Nordeste da seca para a Amazônia da floresta; o esvaziamento político dos currais eleitorais rurais; a emergência da exclusão social como campo de estudo e como questão urbana.

Resumo: O processo decisório e de implementação de políticas ambientais tende a adotar práticas que obedecem a critérios que se consagram internacionalmente como condições de possibilidade e de suficiência para que os fins desejados sejam atingidos. É como se existisse uma cartilha que estabelecesse as regras gerais da busca do desenvolvimento sustentável. Na atualidade, uma espécie de manual (virtual) da boa governança serve de guia e pré-requisito na elaboração de programas e projetos socioambientais. Porém, a reprodução indiscriminada e a ampliação interminável, ao longo do tempo, da lista de quesitos considerados como ingredientes necessários, podem ter efeito contrário ao esperado e constituir obstáculo para que as políticas ambientais e de desenvolvimento sejam eficientes. A preocupação em cumprir formalmente com critérios gerais pode obscurecer a sua expressão substantiva. Com isso, há espaço para "caronas" do discurso ambientalista e para um fosso entre o discurso e a prática na gestão ambiental. O objetivo deste estudo é demonstrar como os quesitos considerados necessários para uma boa governança são produzidos e reproduzidos ao longo do tempo. Esta dinâmica, sob a égide do manual, favorece a banalização e a volatilidade dos quesitos mencionados. Ao banalizar a sustentabilidade, amplia-se cada vez mais a distância entre o discurso politicamente correto e a eficácia prática de políticas ambientais e de desenvolvimento. Para reduzir essa distância, é proposta a utilização do conceito de governança suficientemente