The Amazon Complex – More than a Rainforest: Scientific & Transdisciplinary Approximations

Studying the Amazon is a life’s mission; accordingly, in 4 hours we will only raise three questions that are currently discussed scientifically and politically: What does it mean to be a region approximating a global climate tipping point? & How could a decolonial approach transform relationships to and within the Amazon? & Which alliances of diverging civil societies are imaginable? The first panel will lay scientific ground from which we approach complex interdependencies of multiple transitions in the Amazon; the second panel will concentrate on the question how those transitions could become just transitions. The third panel will explore ideas for a dialogue of climate crisis by diverse civil societies.

Panel 1: Since 2011 an interdisciplinary group of scientists from Brazil and Germany works together on Amazonian land use change and tipping points, on conflict drivers and conflict solution approaches https://www.lai.fu-berlin.de/forschung/carbiocial/index.html & https://prodigy-biotip.org. Major challenges of this common endeavor are the different scales and temporalities of natural and societal processes. Additionally, the constant changes of national and global frame-conditions make it more insecure to engage in predictions of future scenarios. To develop visions for just transitions, a constant dialogue with local and global civil society is indispensable.

Panel 2: Berlin’s vibrant civil society is strongly engaged in Brazilian and European/German-Brazilian politics to advance such a dialogue on our second panel. As a basis for discussion, we will draw on the critical expertise of a research network from the University of Münster working on bioeconomy and just transition https://sabio-project.org/.  In our Fishbowl-Discussion, a dialogue about just future(s) of the region will unfold. The focus will rest on how the identified transformation approaches can be operationalized, e.g. by changing import policies regarding non-timber-forest-products, by a critical assessment of bilateral treaties to foster the import of hydrocarbons and rare earths, or, more generally by a change of attitudes and behaviors regarding the reasons for destructive transitions in the Amazon.

Panel 3: As we are preparing an encompassing international dialogue on climate crisis involving representatives of German and Latin American civil societies for 2024 in the framework of the Centre Mecila https://mecila.net/, we invite the participants of the present symposium to discuss ideas for this workshop to come in 2024.

Location: Lateinamerika Institut, Rüdesheimer Str. 54, 14197 Berlin, Room 201.

Time: 16:15 – 20:30 h.

Register with Nina Leibbrandt from the Mecila-Centre: n.leibbrandt@fu-berlin.de