Brazilian Amazon researcher wins Nobel Prize for the Environment - Brazil March 30, 2025

Photo Credits © Unicamp/Divulgação, photo anthropologist professor Eduardo Brondízio

Guilherme Jeronymo - Agência Brasil reporter

Published on 29/03/2025 - 11:32 São Paulo

Reproduced from Agência Brasil

Brazilian Amazon researcher wins Nobel Prize for the Environment - Brazil

Eduardo Brondízio shares the prize with Argentinian Sandra Díaz

Anthropologist and professor Eduardo Brondízio, who teaches environmental anthropology at Indiana University in the United States and is an associate in the Graduate Program in Environment and Society at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), will receive the 2025 Tyler Prize, one of the most important in the environmental field worldwide, known as the Nobel Prize for the environment. The honor will be shared with Argentinian ecologist Sandra Díaz.

Brondízio has been conducting research on the Amazon for 35 years and is an international voice on the importance of valuing riverside communities and traditional peoples in environmental conservation and sustainability policies. Díaz and Brondízio are also recognized for their work in promoting policies and actions that integrate socio-environmental justice.

The award ceremony is scheduled for April 10, 2025, in Los Angeles. The Brazilian and the Argentinian are the first South Americans to be recognized with the award.

In an exclusive interview with Agência Brasil, Eduardo Brondízio highlights the importance of the 30th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP30) for defining concrete actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The meeting will be held in November in Belém.

“The last two COPs didn't make the expected progress, and the climate impacts are becoming more apparent and undeniable. Internationally, there is a great expectation at this COP to be able to generate a more effective agreement to change the current scenario of greenhouse gas emissions, but also to constitute a broader plan for investments in adaptation to climate change, prioritizing the most affected populations,” he said.

Agência Brasil: Professor, what aspects of your research have the most to do with your recent award at the Tyler Prize?

Eduardo Brondízio: On the one hand, the interaction between regional development, markets and environmental changes, and rural communities in the Amazon, focusing on the responses of collective and local actions and how they influence the regional reality, including regional urbanization, and, on the other hand, I approach these themes at a global level - how global changes affect the quality of life of human societies, the contribution of indigenous and rural populations to food production and biodiversity conservation and urbanization in the global south.

Agência Brasil: What are the most important aspects of this relationship between communities and the Amazon today?

Brondízio: For example, how rural and indigenous communities bring solutions to reconcile conservation and economic development. I also try to understand how the pressures of agricultural expansion, urbanization, and environmental change affect these populations, how they influence the migration of these rural and Indigenous populations to the cities, how this transforms the cities, and the relationship between cities, people, and the environment.

Agência Brasil: This year is an important one for this theme, with discussions such as COP30, isn't it?

Brondízio: This year, COP30 is a catalyzing theme on two levels. Globally, in the sense that the last two COPs didn't make the expected progress, and the climate impacts are becoming more apparent and undeniable. Internationally, there is great expectation at this COP to be able to generate a more effective agreement to change the current scenario of greenhouse gas emissions, but also to constitute a broader plan for investments in adaptations to climate change, prioritizing the most affected populations.

It is also a time of fragmentation in international cooperation, so there is an expectation that it will offer a space to seek convergence between various sectors of society around more concrete actions. There is another level where COP30 has already played a catalyzing role, that of the Amazon and Brazil. There is hope of mobilizing energy, collaboration, and funding to reverse the social and environmental deterioration in the region. The environmental and social problems of the Amazon offer a mirror of the global situation where climate change, biodiversity degradation, and social inequalities are self-reinforcing.

Agência Brasil: Why is this moment important for the Amazon?

Brondízio: The Amazon, Brazil, and neighboring countries have seen important advances in the last 30 years, such as the creation of protected areas, the demarcation of indigenous lands, and the creation of sustainable use areas, which in Brazil cover around 45% of the region. This progress has managed to guarantee rights for communities and has been fundamental in blocking, at least partially, the expansion of deforestation and fires. Another important advance in this period has been the expansion and innovations of socioeconomics, which have guaranteed environmental gains and the valorization of local knowledge and biodiversity. This is a giant economy, albeit invisible, which comes from the people, forests, and rivers of the region.

Agência Brasil: And what is the context in which these advances are taking place?

Brondízio: These great advances have been taking place side by side with the transformation of the region through the expansion of deforestation, mining, infrastructure, and urbanization. Progressively, these transformations are creating a situation for indigenous and protected areas. Today, the disorderly expansion of these activities, as well as the expansion of organized crime, represents a threat to the sustainability of these territories. Protected areas are under siege and have become “islands”. They are effective in guaranteeing environmental governance within their boundaries, but not in preventing the impacts of what comes from outside. It is a priority today to safeguard these territories and enable communities to make progress in terms of socioeconomics.

Another element is the region's urbanization, with 770 cities in the legal Amazon alone. Previously disjointed and poorly connected physically, today interurban connections are creating a grid that will define the environmental governance of the territory for decades to come. Today, hbu uaylva'v urban, rural, and indigenous realities are intertwined. Many of the Amazon's urban areas are some of the most precarious in Brazil and are also suffering from climate issues such as drought, flooding, and extreme temperatures, as well as high levels of mercury pollution, pesticides, and air pollution.

Agência Brasil: What are the conditions of these cities today, especially the capitals?

Brondízio: IBGE [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics] data from 2022 shows, for example, that subnormal occupations dominate in the main capitals of the Amazon, reaching more than 55% of occupations in Belém and Manaus. This should not be forgotten, as most of the population of the Brazilian Amazon, almost 80%, lives in these areas. In addition, urban areas have a direct influence on rural and indigenous areas and the health of the region's forests and rivers. The precariousness of urban and rural areas has led to an accelerated growth of illegal economies and organized crime in the region. In addition to urban violence in the region, which is high in the rest of Brazil, this scenario has put enormous pressure on Indigenous and rural communities, as well as attracting young people to the illegal economy and organized crime, both of which are increasingly linked to international drug trafficking.

Agência Brasil: In this context, how important is the emergence of young leaders in the region?

Brondízio: It's very important. The advances in protection and socioeconomics in the Amazon come from the struggle of a generation of leaders who faced these challenges from the 1970s to the 1990s, managing to offer a model of territorial governance and economic alternatives based on regional biodiversity. The new generation needs to carry these victories forward. It is very gratifying to see a new generation of indigenous and rural youth continuing these advances and seeking new alternatives and narratives for the future of the region that are compatible with their cultural values, but also integrated and have access to services and opportunities to improve living conditions where they live.

The global and national trend over the last 50 years has been a very strong decrease in the rural and indigenous population, and this is the result of a series of social, economic, and environmental pressures. Lack of prioritization of investments in these areas, lack of economic options, and lack of access to services and educational opportunities discourage the vitality of rural and indigenous communities. These conditions also lead many young people to be employed in illegal economies and organized crime. In areas where opportunities are present, we see these leaders engaging in national and international discussions, playing a leading role in national and international biodiversity and climate agreements and also bringing new visions and responses to current demands.

We have seen the formation of youth networks in the region. However, to keep young people in their communities, it is essential to ensure the economic viability of socioeconomics, provide access to education that is compatible with local realities and also access to communication technologies. Finally, this issue involves the social and cultural appreciation of the role of these communities in the economy, conservation, and tackling the region's social problems. Young people who see society valuing the people of the Amazon and their role in sustainable regional development are proud of their contributions and worthy of their role in the future of the region. We need to value them, they are the future of the Amazon.

Reproduced from Agência Brasil