Discover the Brazilian Amazon through the lives of the communities who call it home. This webinar explores competing visions of the region, the concept of social biodiversity, and the vital role traditional communities play in sustaining ecosystems, revealing how human geography can deepen our understanding of conservation and environmental change.
The Brazilian Amazon is a big place. It is known for its tropical forests; for its incredible biodiversity, and increasingly for threats like deforestation that threaten to destroy its fragile ecosystems. The region is also home to 50-60 million people, the majority of whom live in cities and towns. Significantly, however, the Amazon is comprised of different geographical imaginations. These variously range from its position as a ‘Green Hell’, a dense, inhospitable jungle, rife with disease and ready to be conquered to it being the Lungs of the Earth, an Edenic Paradise of primordial Nature that must be saved from outsiders. This places the region under significant pressures from those who wish to exploit its vast resource potential and those who wish to save it. Such conflicts leave the people who live and work in the Amazon somewhere in the middle and raise questions about what the Amazon ‘is’; what is it ‘for’ and ‘for whom’.
Curious about the world around you?
Our Super-Curricular Webinar Series explores a range of fascinating topics, giving you the chance to hear from University academics. Discover new perspectives, explore current issues, and gain insight into how these topics are studied and applied in higher education and beyond.
All webinars will be recorded. If you sign up you will be able to access the recording after the event.