The two-day international conference, held at the Storey in Lancaster city centre on 19 and 20 November, will highlight the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the violence happening against Indigenous people there, while also offering some hopeful solutions.
The free conference, with an associated exhibition being launched this Sunday, aims to keep alive the work of environmental journalist, Dom Phillips, and Indegenous expert, Bruno Pereira, who were murdered in the Amazon last June while researching a book on the subject. Mr Phillips, whose sister Sian lives in Lancaster, had been in conversation with several Lancaster University Amazon experts during his research.
The conference has been put together by the Lancaster Environment Centre in partnership with low carbon workspace, Halton Mill, and Lancaster City Council. It will have a particular focus on Indiginous perspectives and how their knowledge and understanding of the rainforest can help to save the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse regions on earth, which plays a vital role in regulating the climate.
Keynote speaker, Indigenous leader, Dr Nelly Marubo, will talk via zoom from Manaus. She worked with Bruno Pereira for four years at FUNAI, the Brazilian agency for Indigenous people which he led.
Lancaster University researchers, several of them from the Amazon region, will be speaking in person about their research, including sustainable farming, social justice, community resilience and preserving biodiversity.
Dr Leonardo De Sousa Miranda, who recently arrived at Lancaster from Brazil, is an environmental data scientist who assesses the effects of climate change and conservation strategies on Amazonian biodiversity and ecosystem services. He will speak about the Amazon Tipping Point, where vast areas of the forest start turning into savannah.
He said: "Our team at Lancaster is working on how to propose evidence-based conservation actions to decision-makers that truly address the relationship between biological diversity and the practice of sustainable activities, taking into account the cultural and ancestral knowledge of traditional populations."
There is also a round table discussion about the challenges the media face in covering the Amazon with journalists, including Jonathan Watts and Tom Phillips, former colleagues of Dom Phillips from the Guardian newspaper. Campaigning organisations, Survival International and Cool Earth, will talk about their work with Indigenous people in the Amazon, and Greenpeace will lead a discussion on ways that people in the global North can change their behaviour to help to preserve the rainforest.
Sian Phillips, Dom Phillips' sister, said: "Dom was killed because he sought to tell the world what is happening to the Amazon and its people. He was a brilliant journalist and his mission to shine a light on what is happening there clashed with the interests of a growing number of individuals determined to exploit the Amazon, despite the impact their illegal activities have on its Indigenous inhabitants…While dealing with the personal tragedy, his family and friends are committed to ensure the story can still be told."
The Lancaster Environment Centre has also been involved in putting together an associated exhibition at Halton Mill, which will be opened by Sian Phillips, at 5 pm on 30 October - the day Brazilians go to the polls in an election that could remove President Jair Bolsanaro, who has encouraged exploitation of the Amazon. The launch, which is open to everyone, will include Brazilian music and food.
Both events are part of a month of activities - For Dom, Bruno & the Amazon - taking place in and around Lancaster. You can see the full programme here.
