The Amazon River Basin contains the world’s largest and most biodiverse river as well as its largest rainforest, providing the planet with an irreplaceable ecosystem that is a habitat for 30 percent of the world’s plant and animal species and that absorbs two billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. The Amazon River is also a key source of food, medicine, and livelihood for more than 30 million people across the region.
The Fulbright Program launched Fulbright Amazonia to create an international network of scholars and practitioners who will conduct research and recommend policies dedicated to protecting fragile eco-systems and improving lives and livelihoods in rural and Indigenous communities of the Amazon.
In the first cohort of Fulbright Amazonia, which began in June 2023 and concluded in December 2024, sixteen scholars representing the United States and countries bordering the Amazon River worked together to conduct interdisciplinary research to address the most pressing social, economic, and environmental issues in today’s Amazon basin.
Fulbright Amazonia is a program of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs , with funding provided by the U.S. Government, the Fulbright Commission in Brazil, and the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES). The program is administered by the Fulbright Commission in Brazil and the Institute of International Education in partnership with the binational Fulbright Commissions and U.S. Embassies in the Amazon region.