Webinar: Protecting the Amazon’s Wildlife and Biodiversity

The Pulitzer Center Rainforest Journalism Fund (RJF) and the National Geographic Society will host an online webinar on September 5, 2023, at 6:00pm BSB (São Paulo) to celebrate Amazon Rainforest Day.

The webinar will showcase how journalists and researchers join forces to understand rainforest dynamics: from the pink dolphins and arapaima fish to an Indigenous language that is almost extinct in Peru. The webinar will also look at how journalists and researchers can work together to enrich the understanding of the status and health of rainforests.

Last April, National Geographic Society and Rolex launched the Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition, a multi-year science and storytelling transect of the Amazon River basin, from the Andes to the Atlantic.

In this webinar, you’ll hear from National Geographic Explorers and biologists Ruth Pillco, João Campos-Silva, and Fernando Trujillo, each leading a component of the Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition that will provide insight into wildlife migration and habitat range. Photographer and RJF grantee Florence Goupil will share her experience and visuals while working with Pillco on an expedition in Peru.

Event details:

Time: 6:00pm BSB (São Paulo)

Language: English with live interpretation to Spanish

Duration: 90 minutes

Registration link: https://bit.ly/AmazonDayZoom 

Panelists:

• Florence Goupil, photojournalist, Rainforest Journalist Fund grantee, National Geographic Explorer

Goupil is a self-taught Peruvian documentary photographer based in Cusco. In 2022, she participated in the Hamburg Portfolio Review and Pulitzer Center climate crisis events in Washington, D.C. In 2023, Goupil was invited as a speaker to the National Geographic Storytellers Summit in Washington, where she presented her project Qutiy, Returning to the Land, about Native American corn.

• Fernando Trujillo, marine biologist, Whitley Gold Award recipient, National Geographic Explorer

Trujillo is a founding member of the Fundación Omacha and a marine biologist from Jorge Tadeo Lozano University. His specialty is aquatic ecology with an emphasis on aquatic vertebrates. He has developed plans for the management of protected areas and endangered species as well as plans for monitoring fauna and evaluating their environmental impact. He has also participated in the development of agreements regarding fishing regulations and toxins in aquatic systems and wetlands. Trujillo holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of Greenwich (London) and a doctorate in zoology from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland).

 

• Ruth Pillco, biologist, National Geographic Explorer

Pillco is a Peruvian biologist working on conservation and biodiversity projects in the rainforests of Costa Rica and Peru. In Costa Rica, she leads rare and threatened tree conservation projects on the Osa Peninsula, making inventories of flora, collecting seeds, and germinating threatened trees to be used in restoration projects. A member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) group of tree specialists, she has collaborated with the Global Tree Campaign to assess the IUCN conservation status of endemic trees on the Osa Peninsula. In Peru, she leads an Andean bear conservation project for the nonprofit Conservación Amazónica-ACCA in the Peruvian Andes of Manú National Park.

• João Campos-Silva, biologist, Fulbright Scholar, Rolex Laureate, National Geographic Explorer

Campos-Silva has been working in Amazonia since 2008, trying to understand how to align biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing. He believes that a sustainable fate for Amazonia will only be possible if conservation becomes a concrete pathway toward a better life for local dwellers. He is the inaugural president of Instituto Juruá, a research NGO created to develop and implement community-based solutions for Amazonia conservation. Campos-Silva is also a post-doctoral researcher at University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in Norway, associate researcher at Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL) and Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), a fellow from the Mulago Foundation, and a Rolex Awards laureate in 2019.

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