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Robert T. Walker, professor of geography and Latin American studies, was honored in January by the Conference of Latin American Geography as the recipient of the 2021 Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholarship Award. The prestigious award recognizes a researcher whose body of work has made an exceptional contribution to the field of Latin American geography.

For decades, Walker has worked to raise the alarm on deforestation issues in the Amazon. In a recent publication, Walker projected a date for the impending demise of the Amazon rainforest — the first estimate of its kind. Cautioning that the Amazon stands on the edge of a “tipping point” due to climate change, fires and deforestation, he predicts the forest’s collapse by 2064.

Walker, who recently shifted his research focus to explore the onset of regional climate change in the Amazon Basin, has published prolifically on land use change and the mounting environmental crisis in South America. His high-profile academic articles — in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, One Earth, Global Environmental Change, and the Annals of the American Association of Geographers — have established Walker as a leading authority on land systems science. He has also publicized his findings in widely read publications targeted for general audiences, such as The Conversation and Earth Island Journal.

Throughout his career, Walker has traveled extensively to interview inhabitants and conduct fieldwork primarily in the Brazilian Amazon, as well as Ecuador and Mexico. His boots-on-the-ground approach has allowed him to explore complex human connections to the land-use changes he has witnessed firsthand. Walker pioneered an approach to research combining satellite imagery with data from fieldwork generated by household surveys.

Although much of Walker’s work has focused on exploring deforestation, he has also played a significant role in the development of forest recovery theories. Walker and geographer A.S. Mather originated the “forest transition” model, in which forest lands are reclaimed through active planting or spontaneous regeneration.

Established in 1986, the Carl O. Sauer Distinguished Scholarship Award is named after one of the most influential geographers of the 20th century. Given his deep appreciation for Sauer’s scholarship, Walker is especially honored to join the distinguished group of geographers to receive the award.

“Reading Sauer was like opening a window to the past and seeing the world for the first time,” Walker said. “I marveled at the volume of information he was able to process, and also that he could make coherent a story as vast as the one he told.”

Learn more about Walker’s research here.