U.S.-Brazil Program: Deforestation in the Amazon: Social Science Debates and the Struggle for Synthesis

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

0105183 Walker This Americas Program award will support Dr. Robert T. Walker of Michigan State University in collaboration with Marcellus Caldas and Joaquin Bento de Souza Ferreira, both of the University of Sao Paulo. The purpose of this proposal is to organize a social science workshop to address our collective understanding of the processes driving tropical deforestation, and to identify potential policy responses. Three subjects will be addressed: (1) research methodology, (2) the drivers of deforestation, (3) and policy responses. The objective of the conference is to bring together researchers of various disciplines, working at different geographical levels in the Brazilian Amazon, to facilitate the integration of their work into more universal theories about the social dimensions of tropical deforestation. The workshop by its very structure will facilitate international collaboration on key research questions and will establish generational continuity in the social science research community studying the Amazon.