Anthony Cummings, associate professor of Geospatial Information Sciences, grew up along the Caribbean coast of Guyana in South America. In the summer of 2021, he and five UT Dallas students spent two weeks there to learn from the Makushi indigenous community.
In the quest for sustainability, Dr. Cummings has returned to his origins to gain insight that could benefit humanity.
“Indigenous peoples possess skills and histories that we need to understand,” Cummings said. “We must collaborate with them to harness nature in a way that helps other societies better understand how relations with the Earth can improve.”
Cummings’ research — funded most recently by an NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant — has taken him far inland to the Rupununi, which borders the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Inhabitants there rely on the forests and savanna grasslands to sustain their livelihoods. The people of the Rupununi hunt animals that are harbored on their farms and maintain strong connections to the flora and fauna via methods passed from one generation to another.
“We can’t have a sustainable planet if we don’t understand how people shape their environments and the actions we need to take to allow them to continue co-existing in spaces they have occupied for centuries. Changes in land use and land cover, driven by forces far away from the Rupununi, can compromise the ability of the ecosystems to keep people happy and healthy. That’s not the world we want to live in.”
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