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 9, 2025 - Julis Romo Rabinowitz 399

8:00 am
Breakfast

8:30 am
Opening remarks

8:45 am
Intensified Ecological Pressures, Organized Crime, and Institutional Obstacles
Panelists: Ane Alencar (IPAM), Leila Pereira (Insper), Ubiratan Cazetta (ANPR)
Discussant: Marcia Castro (Harvard)

10:00 am
Political-Economic Conditions for Leapfrogging (Forest Carbon, Land Use Intensification, Financing)
Panelists: José Alexandre Scheinkman (Columbia), Juliano Assunção (PUC-Rio/CPI-Brazil), Juliana Santiago (BNDES)
Discussant: Navroz Dubash (Princeton)

11:15 am
Coffee break

11:30 am
Keynote Address: On the Right to a Healthy Environment
Luís Roberto Barroso (Chief Justice of Brazil’s Supreme Court)
Discussant: Razia Iqbal (Princeton)

1:00 pm
Lunch

2:00 pm
Breakthrough Science I - Amazon Water Links: Connecting Air, Surface and Groundwater
Marina Hirota (UFSC/Serrapilheira) & Caio Mattos (UFSC/Serrapilheira)
Discussant: Reed Maxwell (Princeton)

2:30 pm
Breakthrough Science II - Cutting Down the (Hydropower) Plants: Deforestation and Electricity Generation in Brazil
Gustavo Pinto (CPI-Rio/Amazônia 2030)
Discussant: André Clark (Siemens Energy)

3:00 pm
Breakthrough Initiatives to Exponentiate Successful Pilots and Accelerate the Amazon Leapfrog I
Salo Coslovsky (NYU), Marcelo Medeiros (re.green), Bia Saldanha (Amazônia Meu Amor), Eduardo Figueiredo (Hydro)
Discussant: Charles Sabel (Columbia)

4:00 pm
Coffee break

4:30 pm
Breakthrough Initiatives to Exponentiate Successful Pilots and Accelerate the Amazon Leapfrog II
Paulo Barreto (Imazon), Valmir Ortega (Belterra), Eduardo Ourívio (Grupo Trigo), Hugo Barreto (Vale)
Discussant: Benjamin Bradlow (Princeton)

5:30 pm
The Place of the Amazon in the Planet’s Future
Luciano Huck (Globo), Denis Minev (Bemol), Renata Piazzon (Arapyau), Jorge Viana (Apex)
Moderators: Beto Veríssimo (Amazônia 2030) & Tasso Azevedo (MapBiomas)
 

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