SGI Co-Organizes the Workshop “Amazon Frontline Report”

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 26–28—The 68th United Nations Civil Society Conference on Building Inclusive and Sustainable Cities and Communities included the workshop “Amazon Frontline Report—Challenges and Partnerships for Sustainability in Manaus, Brazil’s Amazonas State.”

The SGI and the Soka Institute for Environmental Studies and Research of the Amazon were among the organizations that co-sponsored the workshop.

At a time of high global concern about the state of the Amazon rainforest and the related impact on climate change, participants focused on such issues as how investors and people around the world can contribute to protecting the forest, how to empower indigenous people and value their knowledge, and how to develop social technologies that benefit local people, and help protect and promote local resources.

Tais Tiyoko Tokusato, the environmental education programs coordinator at the Soka Institute for Environmental Studies and Research of the Amazon, explained that Manaus, a city of over 2 million in the heart of the Amazon, has one of the lowest levels of plant cover of any Brazilian city. Noting that some 40 percent of schoolchildren there are not receiving environmental education, she described projects the Soka Institute has created to address this.

Adapted from a Religious News Service article.