Protecting the Amazon Rainforest: A Regional Governance Challenge with Global Implications

Please join us on Wednesday 16th November 15:30 - 17:15 for a research seminar on 'Protecting the Amazon Rainforest: A Regional Governance Challenge with Global Implications'. The event will take place in hybrid form, meaning that you can attend in person (Clothworkers South Building Lt 2 (3.04)) or online via Zoom.

Background

The Amazon is crucial to maintaining global climate balance. It has a great influence on heat and water vapor transportation to higher latitude regions. It also has a particularly important role on atmospheric carbon sequestration, and consequently, it contributes to the reduction of global warming. The Amazon is more than half of the world’s tropical rainforest and it is the world’s largest tropical forest. The region represents between 4 and 6% of the earth’s total surface and between 25 and 40% of the surface of America. The Amazon is also a synonym of cultural diversity, which is the result of a historical process of land occupation and interaction among different ethnic and geographical origin groups. It is home to 400 indigenous peoples, who speak more than 300 languages ​​(with their many dialect variants).

The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) is an intergovernmental organization formed by the eight Amazonian countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela, which signed the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT), becoming the only socio-environmental block in Latin America. In 1995, the eight nations decided to create the ACTO, to strengthen and implement the objectives of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty. ACTO, with a broad vision of the South-South cooperation process, works in different dimensions within the framework of the implementation of the ACT: political-diplomatic, strategic, and technical, building synergies among governments, multilateral organizations, cooperation agencies, organized civil society, social movements, scientific community, productive sectors and society as a whole.

Speakers:

In this seminar, the Executive Director of ACTO, Carlos Alfredo Lazary Teixeira, will provide an overview of ACTO and the major current challenges facing the Amazon Rainforest. He will be joined by Dr. Maria Antonia Tigre, Global Climate Litigation Fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School and Deputy Director of the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment, who will present on international environmental law and regional cooperation in the Amazon region. Dr Markus Fraundorfer, Lecturer in Global Governance at POLIS, will set the discussion within the context of COP27 and the outcome of the recent Brazilian presidential elections.

This webinar is convened by the Centre for Global Development with the following objectives:

• Provide an overview of the current context and governance dynamics of the Amazon Rainforest
• Stimulate discussion on the various governance challenges, environmental law and regional cooperation

Please register here.