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Coming 2020 to the Andes and Amazon Field School
Sustainability Maymester May 9-30, 2020
In the Spring of 2019 the Andes and Amazon Field School will introduce a new May session centered around immersing students in cutting edge applied research on the sustainability of the Amazon. The session is the outcome of a grant from the Global Institute for Sustainability Outcomes entitled "Language for Sustainability: Sustaining Biodiversity and Bio-cultures through Indigenous Languages and Participatory Science." This grant brings together biologists, linguists, anthropologists and development specialists to find solutions to the sustainability of the Amazon in these tribal regions. The grant will fund the construction of an extension to the Andes and Amazon Field School in a Waorani community on the pristine Nushino River to open in the Spring of 2020. Although the Maymester would mostly be held at the Field School's current site on the Napo River it may include a 4 day visit to this new sight on the nearby Nushino River.
The session will feature courses taught by 2 faculty from Arizona State University, Christine Buzinde and David Manuel Navarrete.
In conjunction with ASU courses we propose to add a 2 course 6 credit Pitt in Ecuador Maymester focussed around the same theme of sustainability. Pitt students would interact informally with sustainability students and faculty from Arizona State University but would have separate University of Pittsburgh classes following the model used successfully in our June and July sessions.
Morning Class:
Afternoon class: Strategies for Sustaining Amazonian Culture and Environment 3 credits
Dr. Buzinde is a Uganda born Associate Professor in the School of Community Resources & Development who specializes in sustaining indigenous communities through educational tourism. She has previously helped to establish educational tourism programs in Masai and Navajo communities.
Dr. Manuel-Navarrete a native of Catolonia began as a consultant for the Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division for the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Carribbean in 2004. In 2007, he joined King's College in London as a research associate in the Department of Geography. Later on in 2010, Manuel-Navarrete was a visiting researcher for Free University of Berlin and Ibero-American Institute in Germany. Manuel-Navarrete's recent research investigated climate change governance, socio-ecological inequality, and knowledge systems for sustainable agriculture. He is currently exploring how the boundaries produced by tourism urbanization regulate the access of diverse social groups to ecosystem services in coastal regions. Understanding how socio-ecological boundaries are managed, and eventually transformed, by boundary spanning individuals/objects/organizations is key to achieving sustainability goals.
Professor Glenn George, University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown
"Social Media for a Sustainable Amazon." 3 credits Professor Glenn's course explores how social media might connect the Amazon to the global economy in ways that are mutually beneficial to the economies of the Amazon and the globalized world. An important piece of the puzzle sustaining the western Amazon is how best to provide education, connectivity, and green employment to indigenous young people without their having to leave their forest communities. Increasingly the answers are being provided by the internet and social media.
Dr. Tod Dillon Swanson
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Senior Sustainability Scholar
Global School of Sustainability
Arizona State University
Director, Andes and Amazon Field School
Swanson's course will introduce students to the formidable moral and practical issues facing Amazonian sustainability. In addition to reading the latest research students will meet regularly with indigenous community members to explore how the Amazonian environment and indigenous culture might be preserved together even as they adapt to globalized future.
CAFIESA Cacaos Finos del Ecuador
Global Agriculture Information network Ecuador Cacao Update
Proposed Pitt in Ecuador Sustainability Maymester (May 2-16, 2020)
Río Nushino Waorani community site of ou planned Andes and Amazon Field School Extension
