Building a Scientific Consortium for Applied Research for the Amazon in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Earth observation and geospatial information have become regularly used by a growing range of end users and stakeholders in Amazonia, from monitoring terrestrial ecosystems for conservation to providing data for payments for results based initiatives. In recent years, scientific consortiums in the Amazon, both national and international, have attempted to bring the increasing quantity of data and products available into the forefront so they can be accessed by government entities and civil society. Now ending its second year, the SERVIR-Amazonia Program has the overarching objective to connect data from space-borne platforms to "village" or end-users in the field that can benefit from these data sets, which are often inaccessible to them.

However, the regular challenges of such an undertaking have been complicated by the pauses and adjustments in activities brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we will review the demand-based product development, the theory of change, and technical assistance for collaborative platforms as it has been applied during the program´s operation, particularly this past year. We will also address the challenges and lessons learned from conducting virtual capacity building activities and virtual product building collaboration in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which eliminated all field exercises and field validation at least until after the first quarter of 2021. Finally, we will look ahead to solutions and opportunities for the coming year.