The Governance and Infrastructure in the Amazon (GIA) Project is led by the University of Florida’s Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) Program and aims to create, strengthen and expand a Community of Practice and Learning (CoP-L) for exchanges of experiences and reflections on the use of tools and strategies for infrastructure governance by conservation and development practitioners in the Amazon.
In this 12th edition of the GIA newsletter, we want to acknowledge all our partners, community leaders, participants and performances of the Pan-Amazon Workshop, which occurred May 24th, 25th and 27th, 2021. The workshop centered on sharing experiences and reflections on strategies to improve infrastructure governance in the Pan-Amazon, particularly in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. Happy reading!
A big thank you to all participants, partners, and organizers
We start this newsletter with a special THANK YOU to all participants, partner organizations, and the GIA facilitation team that made the Pan-Amazon Workshop: “Sharing experiences and reflections on strategies to improve infrastructure governance,” a great success.
During the three-day workshop, 50 people participated per day via zoom. Participants came from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and the U.S. The workshop participants not only engaged in discussions throughout the event, but served on the various panels or acted as session moderators. We acknowledge the great insights, messages, and participation of our partners and the GIA U.S. team. GIA students and postdoc researchers were instrumental in organizing the event alongside GIA coordinators and TCD faculty and staff. We are tremendously grateful to all these people, thank you so much!
Finally, we are thankful to all the artistic performers that ended our event with meaningful and beautiful performances.
Watch GIA short videos released during the Final Pan-Amazon Workshop
During the final Pan-Amazon Workshop, we released three short videos related to the project. Check them out!
First, remember GIA’s Project Trajectory.
Second, check out testimonials from GIA’s discussions from our webinars on Communication Strategies for Political Impact.
Third, hear our GIA local mosaic partners talk about their lessons learned while participating in GIA.
Some art to express our connection with the Pan-Amazon regions
During the final Pan-Amazon Workshop, we collectively created a playlist of songs suggested by participants. The songs are from different countries and reflect our sense of community working together across Amazonia – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru, as well the U.S. continent. Please, feel free to access this playlist and enjoy it anytime!
We also want to share a short video we presented during GIA’s event produced by one of our local partners and their colleagues titled “3 thousand RIVERS voices in the forest“. This video is an amazing multimedia opera sung through the stories of people living in the Amazonian rain forests of Colombia and Brazil. The production was created and composed by Victor Gama with a libretto inspired by ‘Cariba Malo’, a book by the late Colombian anthropologist Roberto Franco and supported by Amazon Conservation Team Colombia, Mas Arte Mas Accion, Flora ars + natura and commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Prince Claus Fund.
GIA’s project next steps
Now that our successful final Pan-Amazon Workshop: “Sharing experiences and reflections on strategies to improve infrastructure governance” has finalized, we are preparing final products that include, among other things, a digital application textbook of cases that can be used by our partners in each of the GIA’s focal mosaic and beyond! We also implemented the Carretón del Conocimiento II from June 2nd to June 4th, organized by our local partners in Guayaramerín, Beni, Bolivia. More information on this soon.
