ENV 580b () / 2025-2026

Yasuni: Understanding an Inhabited Megadiverse Forest

Credits: 1.5 Spring 2026: Th, 1:00-2:20, Sage 32

This 1.5 credit seminar explores the Yasuni as both a living ecosystem and an inhabited territory. The Yasuni, one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, is located in Ecuador and is part of the Amazon forest. Taught by Senior Lecturer Simon Queenborough, assisted by David Cordero-Heredia, the course bridges natural and social sciences to understand Yasuni as an inhabited megadiverse forest, a place where biological, cultural, and political layers converge. Through paired readings and discussions, we examine Yasuni as an ecological network, a space of Indigenous presence and resistance, and a frontier of global extractive interests. The seminar combines perspectives from biology, ecology, law, anthropology, sociology, and environmental governance to understand how life and power coexist in one of the planet’s most biodiverse, and contested, territories.