A well-traveled UF professor spoke about his experiences in South America to a crowd of 10 people gathered at the Civic Media Center Wednesday evening.
Stephen Perz, a UF associate professor of Sociology, discussed his work with local people from Bolivia, Brazil and Peru.
The three countries share common borders, known as the tri-national frontier, and Perz has been to the area more than 10 times during the past seven years to work to help local people more effectively participate in regional planning.
Many local communities do not have access to information about large-scale changes such as new roads or climate change, which can still affect their lives, Perz said.
This can lead to social problems involving human rights abuses as well as environmental problems such as deforestation, as seen in the 1980s and 1990s.
Unless local people get external support, it is very difficult for them to participate in regional planning to avoid these problems, Perz said.
"These things are worth doing because they need us and we need them," he said.
