In 2023 and 2024, the Amazon faced severe droughts. Rivers dried up, cutting off transportation routes and restricting access to food and drinking water for riverine communities. Forest fires followed. In 2024 alone, 3.3 million hectares burned, releasing the same amount of greenhouse gases as Germany does in a year. The smoke harmed people and animals, and whole communities were displaced, disrupting their cultural and ecological connection with the forest. The crisis showed how vulnerable the region is to climate change and why solutions must extend beyond environmental predictions.
Recently, researchers from the Sociology of Law Department and the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) partnered with Indigenous and local communities in Leticia, Colombia's southernmost city, located at the intersection of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. The team will study how laws and policies influence people's ability to use traditional knowledge to adapt to climate change.
"People living in the Amazon have generations of experience on how to handle changes and challenges in the forest," says project leader Ana Maria Vargas. "Climate crises are increasingly impacting the Amazon's seasonal changes, but their bio-cultural knowledge is rarely included in broader climate strategies or decision-making."
Co-researcher Torsten Krause hopes the project will make climate policy in the Amazon inclusive and supportive, thereby reducing the social and economic inequalities that climate change risks exacerbating.
"Science and policy must listen to people who are affected by this crisis that they did not cause", he says. "We must all respect their knowledge and ways of life that can provide a pathway for equitable adaptation to the projected changes in the Amazon region."
Historically, most research on the Amazon has focused on predicting ecological shifts, like droughts, heat waves, and rainfall deficits. Solutions have often been infrastructure projects or conservation programs. Vargas argues that these efforts, while important, fall short if they ignore the traditional knowledge local communities rely on to adapt to life in the rainforests.
"It is possible to find plural solutions that both protect the Amazon's biodiversity and support the people who live there, so they can continue to be stewards of this vital ecosystem," she says.
