Session Description: Many people in the Amazon basin of South America continue long-term, indigenous legacies of ecological culture and interactions with the species and ecosystems where they live. Meanwhile, business interests, migration patterns, climate change, the current pandemic and a variety of external pressures and social dynamics threaten to permanently destabilize previously sustainable ways of life.

Professor Eric Wiener will present a slideshow based on his work in the Peruvian Amazon over the past 30 years, and he and Professor Ashwani Vasishth will share insights and lead a discussion about this critical time for the people and ecosystems of the most biodiverse region on earth.

Presenter’s Bios: 

Eric Wiener is an Associate Professor of Environmental Science. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, for over 30 years Dr. Wiener has been conducting research and other scholarship related to forest restoration ecology and sustainable forest management by
small landholders in Peruvian and Brazilian regions of the Amazon basin. Since joining the Ramapo College faculty, Dr. Wiener has been conducting extensive field research with strong student involvement about accelerated ecological change in forests of the
New Jersey and New York Highlands. In recent years, Dr. Wiener has also been conducting field research about raptor migration via the Ramapo Mountains, and the restoration and ecology of native wildflower meadows. His research interests also include sustainable landscaping and environmental stewardship.

Ashwani Vasishth is Associate Professor in Sustainability, Convener of the undergraduate Sustainability Program (BA), and Director of the Center for Sustainability at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Dr. Vasishth is President of the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS). He is part of the Environmental Studies Major and is a faculty member in both the South India and Peru Study Abroad programs. Dr. Vasishth’s pedagogy is focused on Education for Sustainability from within a transdisciplinary framework, always taking a scale-hierarchic, ecosystem approach to complexity, and within the context of a globalizing International SustainableDevelopment paradigm. He has research interests in an ecosystem approach, urban ecology, systems thinking and mental models.

Join Webex meeting: https://ramapo.webex.com/ramapo/j.php?MTID=m700f404f3faf11145e266401c5d95b31

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Co-sponsored by: The Roukema Center for International Education, the George T. Potter Library, Ramapo Green and the Ramapo Provost Office.