Tackling social challenges and supporting local solutions to avoid tipping points in the Amazon

Stockholm Seminar with Eduardo S. Brondizio, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University-Bloomington and the University of Campinas, Brazil. Welcome on 12 December between 14.30 and 15.30!

To reverse the current path toward irreversible ecological tipping points in the Amazon, the world needs to change how it views and interacts with the rainforest and the diverse people who live there. This change must go beyond environmental concerns like deforestation, water cycle disruptions, and loss of biodiversity. It must also tackle the serious social challenges facing local communities, such as poverty, violence, and social precarity. Solutions should focus on supporting systems already created by the people of the Amazon, based on their needs and values.

The Amazonians face a stark reality of social struggles, largely invisible in international discussions. These include widespread poverty, violence, organized crime, illegal economies, and environmental damage from mining and pollution—issues that hit Indigenous and marginalized groups the hardest. On the other side, there is a growing story of hope: a rise in grassroots initiatives led by rural and Indigenous communities, local organizations, and collaborative networks across the region. This presentation will explore these two interconnected realities and argue that supporting the people of the Amazon is not only a moral imperative, but also essential for building a sustainable and resilient region that contributes to the health of the planet.

Time and place

• Thursday 12 December 2024, 14.30-15.30 CET
• Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lilla Frescativägen 4A, Stockholm

About the speaker

Eduardo S. Brondizio Directs the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes (CASEL), and is a Senior Fellow at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University-Bloomington and member of the faculty of the Environment and Society program (NEPAM) at the University of Campinas, Brazil.
Brondizio has uniquely weaved agricultural sciences, anthropology and geospatial analysis to address questions of human-environmental interaction from the local to global scales.
For more than three decades, he has dedicated his research to understanding and responding to the social-environmental transformation and governance challenges of the Amazon.  Professor Brondizio was awarded the Volvo Environment Prize 2023.

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