UA News

Amazon rain forest survival concerns the world, not just Brazil.

The Amazon rainforest acts as an important reservoir for atmospheric carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas that drives global warming, and it's also an irreplaceable font of species biodiversity.

So Amazon rainforest survival concerns the world, not just Brazil.

Scientists, musicians and artists at The University of Arizona may live in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, but they lead world-class projects changing what we know about and how we view the Amazon rainforest.

The UA's Biosphere 2, School of Music, Amazon-PIRE project and Institute for Environment and Society are joint sponsors for a special two-part "Survival of the Sphere" event that will be held at the UA on March 5.

Both parts of the event – a seminar and a performance – are free and open to the public.

The special seminar, "What is the fate of tropical forests under climate change," will be held at 3:30 p.m. in Room 531 of the Marshall Building, located 845 N. Park Ave.

Deborah A. Clark, a world-renowned tropical ecologist who has studied the rainforests of Central and South America for the better part of 30 years, will speak during the event. Clark will present results from her research that give fresh insight into the problem of how climate change may be putting tropical forests at risk.

Clark, of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, lives and works at La Selva Biological Station in northern Costa Rica. The 3,900-acre forest land, which receives more than 13 feet of rainfall annually, is one of the world's premier sites for ecosystem research.

The second part to the event is a narrative and musical performance that begins at 5 p.m. in Room 232 of the UA Music Building, located at 1017 N. Olive Road. Light refreshments will be served prior to the performance.

Brazilian classical pianist Simone Gorete Machado of the University of Sao Paolo and UA ecologist Scott Saleska merge art with science in their program.

Using a unique combination of narrative, visual imagery and music, Machado and Saleska explore the risks posed to the rainforest by deforestation and climate change while also celebrating the science that has taught us about the forest's beauty, diversity and the possibilities for saving it.

"It is very exciting for me, as a scientist, to collaborate with a musician to create new ways to more deeply appreciate the beauty and value of the forest for our world," Saleska said. "It is one of the great benefits of a university to society, to be a place where the liberal arts and sciences can find a common home and purpose."

Regents' professor of music Paula Fan, who helped initiate the program, said: "When words cannot describe the natural wonders of our world, often music can, in turn opening our senses to it unique dimensions of beauty."

Machado, an award-winning pianist who has performed widely throughout her native country, Brazil, as well as in the United States and Austria, is a tenured professor of music at the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil's most prestigious research institution. She holds a doctorate of Musical Arts Degree in Piano Performance from the UA and is a Biosphere 2 Artist-in-Residence.

Saleska, an assistant professor in the UA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology, is director of Amazon-PIRE, or Partnership for International Research and Education, a National Science Foundation-funded program that is a collaborative effort of North and South American scientists studying the future of Amazon forests under climate change.

More information is available on the Biosphere 2 Web site.