This lecture is hosted by the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, an Oxford Martin School Centre

Speaker: Britaldo Soares-Filho, Centro de Sensoriamento Remoto/UFMG, Brazil

Summary: In the next decade, Brazil will secure its place as the only large emerging economy to balance development with the environment, or it will miss this historic opportunity. With a 77% per cent decline in Amazon deforestation, Brazil has already demonstrated its potential to lead the world towards this complex balance. However, conflicting development and conservation policies, together with increased demands for agricultural products from Brazil, threaten the permanence of this success. Indeed the policies and investment plans put into place today will forever change the future of Brazil, and perhaps the Planet.

Britaldo's talk will describe applications of one of the world’s most sophisticated economic and ecological modelling platforms (SimAmazonia and SimBrasil) to help answer several key policy questions now facing Brazil, from infrastructure development, forest code revision, agriculture expansion, to ranching intensification, as well as the potential impacts of policy choices on regional economies and ecosystem services. Thus, he will show how the policy modelling tools that have been developed are helping Brazil's government agencies to design and coordinate national plans that seek to reconcile development with environmental conservation.

Venue: Lecture Theatre, OUCE, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY (please note the change of room)

This lecture will be followed by drinks