The Amazon contains half of the planet’s tropical forests and has the largest river basin on Earth. Critical to the world’s climate and water resources, it holds the largest stores of carbon and is home to one of the world’s highest concentrations of biodiversity. Amazonia is also home to more than 410 distinct Indigenous ethnic groups who hold territorial rights to more than 20% of the region. These diverse peoples have developed a deep ecological knowledge of forest dynamics and have contributed to forest ecologies for more than 12,000 years. Consecutive years of extreme drought and escalating fires have exacerbated environmental and social crises in the Amazon, underscoring the region’s vulnerability to climate change, biocultural diversity loss, and the rise of organized crime. While efforts to curb deforestation have been successful in recent years, the Amazon now faces multiple potential tipping points that must be addressed through groundbreaking cross-sector collaborations aimed at transformational leaps and exponential change.

Amazonian Leapfrogging 3.0 will be held at Princeton University on May 8-9, 2025. The conference will bring together leaders in science, policy, finance and business, civil society, media, and social entrepreneurship from Brazil, Princeton, and beyond to explore nature-based solutions that promote conservation and socioeconomic development in the Brazilian Amazon. Doing so requires a better understanding of this critical juncture, a clear identification of the obstacles, and implementation of breakthrough ideas for exponential action to protect and restore forests, enhance ecosystem services and biodiversity, and promote a sustainable bioeconomy, low-carbon agriculture, and adaptive infrastructure.

Schedule

May 8, 2025 - Lewis Auditorium, Robertson Hall

1:30 pm 
Opening Remarks
João Biehl, Gabriel Vecchi, and Deborah Yashar

1:45 pm
Amazon at Tipping Points & Indigenous Sciences
Panelists: Marina Hirota (UFSC/Serrapilheira), Erika Berenguer (Oxford), Justino Rezende Tuyuka (UFAM), and Eduardo Brondizio (Indiana University)
Discussant: Adriana Petryna (U Penn)

3:00 pm
Latest Princeton Studies on Climate Change and Adaptation
Gabriel Vecchi & Jamie Caldwell, Jonathan Levine, David Wilcove & Alex Wiebe, Eric Larson 
Discussant: Agustín Fuentes (Princeton)
Discussion with participants

4:00 pm
Coffee Break

4:30 pm
The Rainforest as an Indigenous-Built Environment: Lessons for Sustainable Conservation and Biodiversity 
Eduardo Neves (USP)
Discussant: Bernardo Esteves (Revista Piauí)
Discussion with participants

5:30 pm
Where Are We in the Amazonian Leapfrogging Trajectory?
Panelists: Tasso Azevedo (MapBiomas), Beto Veríssimo (Amazônia 2030), André Lima (Ministry of the Environment, Brazil)
Discussant: Jennifer Widner (Princeton) and Candido Bracher (Philanthropist)
 

Sponsorship of an event does not constitute institutional endorsement of external speakers or views presented.