FORTE - FORest ciTizenship for disaster rEsilience: learning from COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic had a disproportionately large negative impact on traditional rural societies with little access to modern health care. This research project will study how forest-dependent indigenous people of the Amazon forest engaged in citizenship to exercise their rights to influence institutions and political processes that increased their resilience and reduced their vulnerability to COVID-19. The study will use existing data to quantify the mechanisms through which these communities reduced their vulnerability in the past by being more engaged citizens. The research team, consisting of scientists from Brazil, the UK, and the US, will also collect new data using interviews with people living in traditional rural communities, to better understand the opportunities and barriers to their engagement. The research results will be disseminated to stakeholders, including local, state, and federal governmental agencies, and policy makers in Brazil. The results of this research could provide guidance on policies to strengthen inclusive democratic governance, reduce unequal access to health and other resources, and increase resilience to crises. The results of this research have global application, hence will help establish the US as a global leader in disaster resilience.


Citizenship from below, a process through which marginalized peoples self-organize to claim recognition and rights, is crucial to disaster recovery, resilience, and societal renewal. This project assembles an international team of social scientists from Brazil, UK, and the US to study how the forest people of Brazilian Amazonia have used collective action to mitigate the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthen disaster resilience. The study will: (1) quantify linkages between forest citizenship and COVID-19 resilience; (2) investigate various practices of forest citizenship that were employed during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (3) disseminate learning experiences of the forest people on how to promote forest citizenship and enhance disaster resilience across Amazonia and other parts of the world. The research project will address these questions through three interlinked projects---quantitative analysis of secondary health, governance, and environmental data (entire Brazilian Amazon), qualitative fieldwork in selected municipalities in Amazonia and Acre State, and action-research. The results of this research could provide guidance on policies to strengthen inclusive democratic governance, reduce unequal access to health and other public resources, and increase resilience to crises. The result of this research is scalable, hence can help establish the US as a global leader in disaster resilience.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.