Avoiding an Amazonian tipping point: Tackling social challenges, rethinking governance, and supporting local solutions
Friday, October 17, 2025 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
- LocationHesburgh Center Auditorium
- DescriptionEduardo Brondizio, distinguished professor of anthropology at Indiana University-Bloomington and a leading scholar of Amazonian social-ecological systems, will join the Notre Dame community as part of the newly created series titled Notre Dame Seminars on Sustainability.
Dr. Brondizio will explore the future of Amazonia by rethinking current crises to address not only environmental concerns such as deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water cycle disruption but also critical social challenges, including poverty, violence, and social precarity. He will highlight how Indigenous peoples and other historically marginalized and vulnerable communities are responding to these crises through grassroot movements. Often inspired by Liberation Theology, these local initiatives advance sustainability and social justice while influencing regional environmental governance and economies.
Through his presentation, he will demonstrate why confronting Amazonia’s social predicaments is not only a moral imperative but essential for building a sustainable and resilient future for the region and the planet.
Eduardo S. Brondizio is a distinguished professor of anthropology, director of the Center for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Landscapes, and a senior fellow at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University-Bloomington. For over three decades, Brondizio’s work has documented, examined, and responded to the social-environmental transformation and governance challenges of Amazônia and contributed to numerous international initiatives addressing the social dimensions of and the contributions of Indigenous and local knowledge to global environmental change assessments and responses.
Notre Dame Seminars on Sustainability Series is a signature lecture series organized by the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative that brings global sustainability leaders and world-class scholars to campus for knowledge sharing and engagement with the Notre Dame community.
About Just Transformations to Sustainability
As sustainability challenges intensify, their cascading effects on food, energy, water, and infrastructure increasingly threaten the well-being and dignity of people worldwide. Notre Dame’s Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative is the University’s far-reaching response to these urgent threats. Inspired by Pope Francis’s landmark encyclical Laudato si’ (On Care for Our Common Home), the Initiative brings together interdisciplinary scholars, dedicated students, and action partners from around the world to advance transformative solutions for a more just and sustainable future.
Originally published at strategicframework.nd.edu. - Websitehttps://green.nd.edu/events/2025/10/17/avoiding-an-amazonian-tipping-point-tackling-social-challenges-rethinking-governance-and-supporting-local-solutions/