Eduardo Brondízio

Tyler Prize Laureate 2025

“Making the Invisible, Visible”:
A Change in Our Relationship with Amazonia

Born: July 18, 1962, São Paulo, Brazil
Affiliation at the time of the award: Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, USA
Environmental achievement: Celebrated for transforming global understanding of Amazonia through his work on local knowledge systems, social-ecological inequality, and community-led solutions for the world’s largest rainforest.

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Eduardo Brondízio

What if the key to safeguarding the Amazon, and avoiding its ecological tipping points, lies not only in protecting forests, but in supporting the people who call the region home?

Eduardo Brondízio has spent decades working alongside Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers, and rural and urban communities across Amazonia. His message is powerful: Amazonian peoples are essential actors, not obstacles, in conservation and climate solutions and local knowledge and grassroots innovations already exist and must be strengthened rather than replaced. Brondízio also calls for the social realities of the region to be recognized and addressed: poverty, violence, illegal economies, mining, pollution, and the profound marginalization of Indigenous and local groups, if we are to support the region in protecting our futures.

To Brondízio, “making the invisible, visible” means recognizing both the overlooked challenges and the overlooked solutions. His research has documented hundreds of grassroots initiatives, from community-led governance of land and water to the expansion of agroforestry, demonstrating that Amazonian communities are not just victims of change, but innovators shaping sustainable futures.

“This change must go beyond deforestation, water cycle disruptions, and biodiversity loss,” Brondízio explains. “It must also tackle the deep social challenges facing rural and Indigenous people, as well as the 80% living in cities.”

His work shows that strengthening Amazonian societies is essential to protecting the forest, and, ultimately, the planet.

Celebrating a Global Leader in Social-Ecological Science

During the Tyler Prize celebrations, Brondízio was honored for reframing how the world understands the Amazon. Scientists, Indigenous leaders, policymakers, and students gathered to recognize his contributions and his call for globally relevant but locally grounded solutions at a prestigious award ceremony in Los Angeles, USA, in April 2024.