Availability:
Accepting applications for Summer 2011.

Just mentioning the word "Brazil" evokes smiles among those who have visited. With half the land-mass and population of Latin America, Brazil features both world-class cities and undiscovered tribes. The Brazilian nation is a complex cultural melting pot with African, European and Indigenous roots.

For students who seek a deeper understanding of environmental issues at both a local and global level, our Brazil summer program offers a multifaceted look at conservation and development in an enticing and beautiful cultural context. Through participation in grass-roots sustainable development projects, homestays in traditional fishing communities and expeditions up the Amazon River to explore ethnobotany, ecotourism, and cultural and biological conservation, students gain firsthand knowledge of environmental challenges and solutions.

Our adventure begins in Salvador, Bahia, globally renowned for its unique and infectious Afro-Brazilian culture. From the sensual sounds of samba, to the high flying martial art of capoeira, this region of Brazil features incredible culinary and artistic traditions. While working with local children in art and sustainable design projects, students choose from a plethora of cooking, language, theatre, music, and dance classes. In the afternoons we visit pioneering NGOs that offer intriguing introductions to cultural and environmental conservation and development.

Our first plunge into the magical landscapes of Brazil will take place at Chapada Diamantina National Park, a tropical wonderland in the drier interior of Bahia, where waterfalls cascade over the Sincora Range and streams are lined with macaws, monkeys and orchids. Communities living in idyllic colonial towns surrounding this seldom-visited park have spearheaded an ecological movement in opposition to the destruction wrought by the extractive mining industry.

With a strong experiential base in Brazilian culture and contemporary environmental issues, we will hop the pinga litoral (costal drip) bus and “drip” our way up the coast of Northeastern Brazil where traditional fishing communities make up one of the most impressive cultural landscapes in Latin America. While living in fishing huts on pristine beaches, we will hear the stories of local community leaders who struggle to sustainably manage limited resources. We may even have a chance to sail out beyond the reef and try our luck alongside the fishermen.

Venturing inland, we will apprentice with local farmers in permaculture, or sustainable farming techniques, gaining valuable perspective that we can apply to our daily lives back home.

From Bahia we will travel to the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, the largest and most diverse ecosystem on the planet. Swaying in hammocks on the deck of a riverboat while gazing out at exotic species of birds and reptiles, we will travel upstream to remote communities struggling to maintain their quality of life amidst a constant turmoil of resource extraction, foreign incursion, and a shrinking forest. Perhaps one of the most isolated regions in the world, the deep Amazon offers a unique opportunity for profound cultural exchange and transference of important indigenous knowledge.

The Brazil summer program will afford students an intimate and diverse inspection of contemporary environmental issues. If you want to learn about the Amazon from the people who live there, and sit face to face with individuals struggling for sustainability and development in a rapidly changing world, come dig in the dirt, walk in the forests, and dance on the beaches of "the once and future country," Brazil.