In April 2023, Michigan State University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies will host a symposium and workshop on Why the Amazon Matters for the Fate of the Earth. The symposium will focus on the dynamics of forest change in the Amazon Basin and its current status in regulating the climate as a source and sink for carbon, including the trajectory of CO2emissions to date, the activities that are resulting in carbon sequestration, and evidence for changing management approaches, carbon markets, and other efforts to take advantage of the natural capital provided by Amazonian forests.
The planning committee—comprising Emilio Moran, Maria Claudia Lopez, Scott Start and Laurie Medina--has invited a cadre of scholars from Latin America with deep experience in the Amazon to engage with scholars from MSU to build a network of research collaboration. The symposium will include one day of scientific presentations open to the campus community followed by two days of workshops in which the presenters will engage one another to define critical new research directions, identify funding sources, and begin to develop collaborative research proposals. The network we aim to build will produce and disseminate critical interdisciplinary information to advance science-based climate action and scholarly tropical forest-climate research, including informing global carbon modeling by the Global Carbon Project, the IPCC, and others at the forefront of both understanding and acting on scenarios for the future health of the Earth and its essential systems.
The symposium and workshops are jointly supported by a grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation’s Climate Change Initiative, the ISP Dean’s Office, the CANR Dean’s Office, and CLACS.