Tools and Strategies for Conservation and Development in the Amazon: Lessons Learned and Future Pathways
3-5 October 2017 | University of Florida, Gainesville
Workshop organized by
UF Tropical Conservation and Development Program at the Center for Latin American Studies in collaboration with Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
In collaboration with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the University of Florida held an intensive 3 day workshop in Gainesville, Florida on 3-5 October 2017. The Amazon faces a suite of driving forces – such as global market demands, infrastructural investments, climate change, social conflicts, political corruption – that pose threats to the region’s conservation and 
sustainable development. Concerned researchers, activists and local Amazonian peoples are responding to these threats through multiple approaches that seek to understand and deploy knowledge and resources aimed at achieving socially just and environmentally sustainable Amazonian development. In these efforts to improve conservation and development outcomes, they have implemented a variety of tools and strategies, ranging from political advocacy at multiple scales, to diverse economic incentives and alternative development proposals. Such tools and strategies constitute key elements supporting governance including multi-stakeholder collaboration to achieve positive conservation and development outcomes. A key input in governance processes is knowledge, encompassing information and its sources, uses, and applications in scenarios fraught with power differences and competing narratives. This workshop brought together diverse stakeholders to critically evaluate and reflect on the tools and strategies used to address current threats to conservation and sustainable development in the Amazon. Using generative questions in facilitated sessions, we discussed factors that facilitate or hinder the impacts of interventions in the Amazon, whether tools and strategies could be replicated or scaled up, and other issues. The product of the workshop will be a collaboratively-written synthesis document that considers and proposes useful steps forward to advance alternative visions and pathways. This document is expected to be posted here in early March 2018. To learn more about the workshop and access links to presentations, follow the links listed below.
Organizing Committee
| Bette Loiselle, UF | Robert Buschbacher, UF | Stephen Perz, UF | Marianne Schmink, UF |
| Director, TCD Program. Center for Latin American Studies. | School of Forest Resources & Conservation. Center for Latin American Studies. | Department of Sociology. | Center for Latin American Studies. |
Support Team
| Patricia Delamonica Sampaio | Maira Gutierrez Rascon | Carolina de Oliveira Jordao |
| Program Coordinator, TCD Program. Center for Latin American Studies. | Program Coordinator. Center for Latin American Studies. | PhD student, SNRE. |
| Johanna Espin | Marliz Arteaga G. Garcia | Vanessa Luna Celino |
| PhD Student, Sociology. | PhD student, SNRE. | MALAS student |
University of Florida sponsors
- Tropical Conservation and Development Program
- Center for Latin American Studies
- Office of Research
- Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- University of Florida International Center
- School for Forest Resources and Conservation
- University of Florida Biodiversity Institute
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Department of Sociology
- Florida Climate Institute
- George A. Smathers Libraries