Ecology of the Forests of French Guiana
The tropical forests of French Guiana cover 8 million hectares. They are ecologically Amazonian, historically French and politically European, and constitute a tropical rainforest, characterized by considerable biodiversity and relatively uninterrupted, albeit with many types of localized disruption.
The unit has a remit to combine several ecological approaches, on the one hand so as to investigate the relations between the biodiversity of managed tropical forest ecosystems and their functioning, and on the other hand so as to encourage innovation in terms of forest resource use, taking account of the constraints on use imposed by the humid tropical environment. It is also involved in training: it has established a PhD-level training programme in French Guiana and runs a module of the ENGREF Masters in Tropical Ecosystems each year.
- La recherche agronomique pour le développement (Cirad), France
- École Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts (ENGREF), France
- Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), France
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), France
- University of the French West Indies and French Guiana (UAG), France