UF Center for Latin American Studies
Funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the project includes workshops, specialized training clinics, and an Amazon Summit at UF
March 28, 2025
‘The Power of Connections: Harvesting Lessons and Strengthening Coalitions for Amazonian Conservation’ will help advance thinking and create pathways for enduring conservation. Funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the comprehensive project includes thematic workshops held in the Amazon basin, specialized training clinics, targeted knowledge and communication products, and an Amazon Summit at the University of Florida (UF) in February 2026.
Over four decades, a wide range of actors — including Indigenous communities, local governments, private enterprises, universities, and philanthropic groups — have been working collaboratively to understand and protect Amazonia’s biocultural diversity amidst unprecedented ecosystem, socioeconomic, and political transformations. The Power of Connections builds on those efforts by sharing hard-won insights, strengthening intergeneration exchange and partnerships, and creating pathways for enduring conservation.
Funded by a $890,000 grant from the Moore Foundation to UF’s Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) Program at the Center For Latin American Studies (LAS) in collaboration with the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS) and leveraging decades of field partnerships cultivated by the Moore Foundation and TCD, this project will create a series of interconnected, iterative events that bring together key actors, including the next generation of conservation leaders committed to advance thinking and action for bolstering Amazonian biocultural conservation. The project will culminate in an Amazon Summit at UF featuring seasoned practitioners, next generation leaders, donors, Amazonian experts, and TCD alumni and students.
“We are at a pivotal moment of accelerated change in Amazonia, and because conservation is at its core a human endeavor, agility, creativity, and the sharing of successful lessons are essential to navigating these changes,” said Dr. Karen Kainer, Project PI and Professor in LAS/TCD and SFFGS.
Dr. Leonardo Villalón, Interim Director of the Center for LAS noted that “UF’s TCD program has fostered and developed strong partnerships across the Amazon for over 40 years, and TCD alumni are working in key areas across the region. The UF TCD team is uniquely positioned to lead this extremely timely and important effort.”
Project Co-PI and Director of TCD Dr. Bette Loiselle emphasized that “by creating opportunities for exchange and cross-regional and cross-generational learning, we are empowering the next wave of conservation leaders and strengthening the partnerships that are critical to ensuring the Amazon’s future.”
The Power of Connections represents a crucial opportunity to bring together diverse voices and build the strategic networks needed to protect the Amazon. By blending lessons from the past with innovative, future-facing conservation approaches, this initiative is poised to make a lasting impact on the region's ecological, economic, and sociocultural sustainability.
By September 2026, The Power of Connections project aims to:
The Andes-Amazon Initiative (AAI) in the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation was launched in 2003 with the aim to ensure the long-term ecological integrity and climatic function of the Amazon basin. Since its inception, the AAI has helped to conserve over 980 million acres, 23 times the size of Florida. Working with and supporting NGOs, indigenous organizations, universities and research institutions, governmental agencies, and private sector, the Moore Foundation currently aims to ensure that at least 70% of Amazon forest and freshwater ecosystems are effectively conserved and managed.
The Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) Program’s mission is to bridge theory and practice to advance biodiversity conservation, sustainable resource use, and human well-being in the tropics and elsewhere. TCD is a research and training program of the Center for Latin American Studies with 10 core faculty and approximately 100 faculty affiliates across campus. TCD has a longstanding track record of collaborating with partner organizations in the Amazon, and of convening or supporting networks of conservation practitioners actively working on conservation and sustainable development.
Since 1937, the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS) has been developing new knowledge and educating students and citizens about the sustainable management and conservation of natural resources.
For more information or to get involved, please contact:
Dr. Karen Kainer, kkainer@ufl.edu or visit us at TCD’s website, YouTube, or Facebook pages.
Soon, The Power of Connections project will launch its website—stay tuned!
