Addressing key ecological questions to support policy-making in Brazil

Abstract

In Brazil, there is generally a lack of information flow between scientists and policy makers. Here, we address 29 ecological questions of high policy relevance in Brazil, in an attempt to encourage the participation of science in decision-making. Similar addresses have been made by British and American scientists (Fleishman et al., 2011; Sutherland et al., 2006), and it is our goal to bring such matters to the Brazilian reality. We had several meetings during an Ecosystem Ecology seminar held at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora and categorised our questions into five different topics. Brief introductory paragraphs are shown below each topic and the questions are presented subsequently without any order of relevance.