ACT UPDATE   January 20, 2006

Dear Friends,

ACT would like to thank all of you who were able to contribute to our annual appeal. Your gifts make up a critical portion of our funding, allowing us both to continue our core projects and to respond to new challenges.

Through the arrival of the holiday season, ACT remained hard at work. Please read below about ACT's recent advances, and how you can help us rescue a key rainforest habitat.

• ACT-Brazil opens Center for the Protection and Monitoring of Indigenous Lands
• 2000 Tirio cultural maps get a makeover
• Get Involved! Help ACT protect Biodiversity in the Colombian Amazon
• ACT Sponsors art exhibit in Brazil to promote awareness of indigenous issues
• Duracell commercial featuring ACT now airs nationwide in Spanish

ACT-Brazil opens Center for the Protection and Monitoring of Indigenous Lands

Macapá, Amapá, Brazil - December 11, 2005.

The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) in Brazil celebrated the opening of the Center for the Protection and Monitoring of Indigenous Lands for the Parú de l'Este indigenous lands and the Tumucumaque Indigenous Park. The Center's objectives are to coordinate efforts for the integrated protection of indigenous lands; to provide logistical support for field activities; and to conduct remote monitoring, strategic planning, and training activities for indigenous forest rangers. In the words of Project Coordinator Marcelo Segalerba, the Center "will create and strengthen communication linkages with governmental entities, civil society and indigenous communities."

The first class of Brazilian indigenous forest rangers - which completed certification in September 2005 after months of training by ACT-Brazil staff - now has a high quality facility for their operations. The center is equipped with a working area, a meeting and training room, two computers with Internet connection, a map collection, reference library, multi-band radio, and two portable communication units. In addition, the indigenous park rangers and communities have been equipped with uniforms, boots, tarpaulins, solar panels, a 15 HP outboard motor, and a fuel tank. "This time, everything is going to be just fine," affirmed the indigenous ranger Tadeu Waiana. "The community is waking up and shaking up, because this is important."

Over 30 people attended the opening event, including representatives from the Tumucumaque Association of Indigenous Peoples (APITU); the Association of Tiriyó, Kaxuyana, and Txikiyana Indigenous Peoples (APITIKATXI); and the indigenous leaders João Aranha (Bona), Tadeu Waiana (Xuixuimene), Capixaba Apalai (Ananapiare), and Arentina Tiriyó (Kuxaré), all of whom confirmed their dedication to the effort. "Our community is committed to working hard with ACT for the protection of indigenous lands," stated the Kuxaré leader. "We support ACT in its efforts to help us protect indigenous lands," confirmed João Aranha. (See Figures 1., and 2. in the gallery for a closer look.)

Tirio cultural maps created in 2000 get a makeover

The ethnographic map of the areas of traditional use of the Tirio indigenous communities of southwestern Suriname is currently in the process of being revised and updated. At the time of its publication in 2000, it was the first map of its kind of the region, as well as the map that launched ACT's indigenous mapping projects.

Since the original production, there have been numerous innovations in GIS (Geographic Information Systems), and GPS (Global Positioning Systems) technology, and new information is being gathered by the Tirio communities for inclusion in their maps. For the past several months, ACT staff has coordinated and organized mapping workshops and provided training and guidance to Trio community members in order to realize their desire to revise the maps' content. A mapping team comprised of community members and ACT technical staff is set to embark on a 20 day mapping expedition by the end of January 2006. An initial 20-day expedition took place in October of 2005, during which the researchers visited 82 creeks and rivers and geo-referenced all coordinates with GPS units and a laptop computer. The new information will provide additional detail about their territory such as previously unrecorded locations of medicinal plants, hunting grounds, and ancestral/sacred sites.

To date, ACT has helped train indigenous communities across the northeast Amazon, in Brazil's vast Xingu Indigenous Park, and in southwestern Colombia to map their own lands. The maps and their products are powerful new tools that have helped increase the level of protection for over 40,000 million acres of the Amazon, and have provided key information to help traditional communities deal with the pressures of the modern world on their own terms. The maps have multiple functions as they inform risk assessments and proposed land-use strategies; aid in conflict resolution/prevention; and in particular, demonstrate the continued strong use of indigenous communities of all their traditional lands. Other mapping techniques typically omit cultural information, the presence of traditional indigenous communities, and their patterns of land use. (Refer to Figure 3 in the gallery.)

Get Involved! Help ACT protect Biodiversity in the Colombian Amazon

ACT needs your help! We are currently seeking to raise $49,500 to purchase a pristine 250-acre property rich in threatened wildlife and medicinal plants, which is also of immediate cultural value to the local indigenous communities of the area. Salt licks are found throughout the Amazon but are decreasing in number as more and more forest is destroyed.

Adjacent to Colombia's Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park - a reserve which ACT helped to establish and which is co-managed by the Ingano communities that reside in and around Indi Wasi - lies one of the few remaining salt licks in the Colombian Amazon. Salt licks, or clay licks as they are often called, are vital to the survival of macaws, parrots, parakeets, and also serve mammals such as deer and peccary. These birds tend to frequent these licks in astonishingly large numbers to consume the outcrops' soil, which is rich in salts and other minerals.

It is now known that minerals found at these locations help neutralize toxins found in certain nuts eaten by birds such as parrots and macaws. This process allows birds to consume nuts in quantities that would otherwise prove harmful to their systems, and enables them to take advantage of a food source that would normally be off-limits in locations where toxin-free nuts can no longer be found.

The clay licks are also sacred to the local indigenous shamans, who collect feathers for ceremonial rituals at these locations and believe that the sites strengthen their healing abilities. Furthermore, at this particular site, the land is rich in medicinal plants that are commonly used by the shamans, healers, and indigenous communities.

ACT needs your support to ensure that biodiversity and traditional sustainable cultures continue to thrive in the Colombian Amazon-please help us advance this cause through the preservation in perpetuity of this rare habitat. Whether you donate online or through the mail, please designate your contribution as "Clay Lick Purchase" so that we can better measure our progress towards our final goal. Thank you as always for your generosity! (Refer to Figure 4 in the gallery.)

To read more about the Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park, please visit our website at: www.amazonteam.org/northwest.html

ACT Sponsors art exhibit in Brazil to promote awareness of indigenous issues

On a more metropolitan note, on December 5th, 2005 the Amazon Conservation Team in Brazil sponsored a photography exhibit on the Avo Canoeiros at the Teatro Nacional in Brasilia D.F. The photo exhibit highlighted the plight of the Avo Canoeiros indigenous people on the Tocantins River by featuring anthropological research and photographs taken by Olivier Böels and Lena Tosta. (Refer to Figure 5 in the gallery.)

Duracell commercial featuring ACT now airs nationwide in Spanish

In reaction to the positive response generated by Duracell's "Trusted Everywhere" commercial featuring ACT's cultural mapping efforts, a Spanish version of the piece is now airing nationwide.