Big Bet: Build the world’s first Great Amazon Reef biodiversity map to set a foundation for the development of a marine bioeconomy.
Project: Develop a baseline of biodiversity for several bioeconomy hotspots in Brazil, which will serve to inform our understanding of the health of the Great Amazon Reef System (“GARS”) – an ecosystem still vastly unknown and at peril of extinction as a result of extractive oil and gas practices in the region. Through this initial mapping, the project hopes to determine how climate change affects GARS biodiversity on a regional scale and develop modular units for the production of seaweed, bivalve, and corals in different geographic locations across Brazil. Potential outcomes include development of state policies and socio-economic improvement to local coastal communities through job generation.
Fabiano received his Oceanography degree (1997) from the University of Rio Grande, a PhD Biochemistry (2003) Ghent University. He is a Professor in UFRJ (2006) and a Fellow researcher of the Brazilian Research Council, and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.