Lancaster researcher in Covid-19 fundraiser for Amazonian communities

A Lancaster researcher has joined a team of fundraisers to help communities in the Amazon suffering severe hardship as a result of Covid-19.
The Amazon is being disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Photo: Dr Daniel TregidgoThe Amazon is being disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Photo: Dr Daniel Tregidgo
The Amazon is being disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Photo: Dr Daniel Tregidgo

Dr Erika Berenguer, a Senior Research Associate in Lancaster Environment Centre and also at the University of Oxford, is part of a group attempting to crowdfund £20,000 for equipment for people living in both the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon.

Dr Berenguer, who has been working in the Amazon for 12 years, has teamed up with Lancaster alumnus Dr Daniel Tregidgo and colleagues from Oxford, to support five different regions with projects providing posters and information leaflets, masks and sanitary and food packs.

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Dr Berenguer, who is Brazilian, explained that the Amazon has been disproportionately hit by Covid-19, where travelling to a hospital can take several hours or even days by boat, and supplies are scarce.

She said: “The Amazon is known as a medical desert, given its unavailability of healthcare. For example, the state of Amazonas, in Brazil, is seven times the size of the UK and just has ICU beds in a single city. Unfortunately this is not the exception, but rather, the rule in the region.”

Dr Berenguer and Dr Tregidgo met while studying for their PhDs at Lancaster 10 years ago. Since then they have each worked in different regions of the Amazon, but virtually reconnected in March to work on the campaign together. The reserves supported by their campaign have strong links with Lancaster - two fellow LEC researchers, Prof Jos Barlow and Dr Filipe França, both work at two of the reserves the team is fundraising for. These are the Tapajós National Forest and the Tapajós-Arapiuns Sustainable Use Reserve.

Dr Berenguer said: “The Amazon is being disproportionately affected by Covid-19. From the 50 hardest-hit cities in Brazil by the pandemic, 41 are in the Amazon. When compared to the UK, we get a sense of the magnitude of the problem: In early June one of the areas we are aiming to help, Tefé, had five times the number of cases per 100,000 people than any region in the UK."

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And the combination of low levels of healthcare infrastructure and a high number of cases is not the only problem – this piece in The Conversation, co-authored by Dr Daniel Tregidgo and Dr Luke Parry in Lancaster Environment Centre, along with Patricia Carignano Torres at the University of São Paulo, explains how Covid-19 and seasonal floods are causing hunger in the remote Amazon.

The team is hoping to raise £20,000, which they will send to environmental agencies in the Amazon to provide vital equipment. The money will fund leaflets and posters to make people aware of the symptoms of Covid-19 and how it is transmitted – as many people live in isolated communities and, without access to energy or the internet, quality information is still scarce. Donations will also pay for masks and food parcels, as well as sanitary packs including personal care items and cleaning products. The team aims to reduce the necessity of Amazonians living in isolated communities to travel to town to purchase goods, where the rates of disease transmission are higher.

Anyone wishing to donate can do so via the Just Giving page here