Organiser's description (via the Centre for Food Policy):
Speaker: Mairon G. Bastos Lima, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden
What we eat determines how land is used across the globe. Our food choices help set cultural trends, investment patterns, and ultimately shape even distant landscapes – think of cocoa or coffee production, for example. The Amazon has been blighted with deforestation for the last few decades partly because its non-timber products and traditional production systems are little known. Off the radar, they make way for pastures and soy, while people from local communities are forced to find their way to city slums. Yet a different outlook is possible and viable, if only trade can become a force for good. With a focus on Brazil, we will discuss some of the Amazon’s emerging “sociobioeconomy” initiatives – built on biological as much as local cultural diversity –, the challenges they face, and how they can become seeds for transformative change towards more diverse diets and sustainable agri-food systems.
The talk will be followed by an online Q&A session.
Mairon G. Bastos Lima is a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden. He holds a PhD in Environmental Studies from the VU University Amsterdam (2014) and has worked for nearly 20 years on the policy and governance dimensions of sustainable development, particularly in relation to agri-food systems, supply chain sustainability, and the bioeconomy. His work has especially addressed international policy dynamics in relation to domestic agendas and environmental change in the Global South.
