ACT UPDATE   February 2, 2005

Dear Friends,

The Amazon Conservation Team is very pleased to announce the creation of the Union de Kumua de la Cultura del Yurupari (Kumua Yoamara) in the Vaupés region of the Colombian Amazon. Thirty-four tribal elders traveled through the jungle to reach the village of San Francisco de Yapú where they met for 7 days to share knowledge and come to agreement on how best to preserve and strengthen their forests and their cultures. The meeting marked the first-ever gathering of elders of the Yuruparí culture. Afterwards, the elders and participants celebrated the Yuruparí, the famous Amazonian ceremony of the sacred flutes.

The formation of UMIYAC, the Union of Traditional Healers of the Northwest Amazon, which took place in 1999 with the support of ACT, was the inspiration and the model for the Vaupés group. UMIYAC has guided the process of recuperation and strengthening of their medicine, culture and ancestral territory as evidenced in a vast array of successful initiatives which include: the creation of Indi Wasi National Park, a native seeds recovery project, and the creation of Predio UMIYAC, soon to be named a reserve for healing plants. We have similar high hopes for Kumua Yoamara.

On the domestic front, the most recent addition to our growing Board of Advisors is actress Karen Allen. Karen has a deep and abiding interest in Latin America that began when she traveled overland from Mexico to Colombia during her student days. She recently founded Monterey Fiber Arts, a textile and knitwear design company in the Berkshires. Also a yoga teacher, Karen founded Berkshire Mountain Yoga in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. As an actress, she has appeared in over 30 films, with leading roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Starman (her co-star was fellow ACT Advisory Board member Jeff Bridges), and ACT supporter Paul Newman's screen adaptation of The Glass Menagerie.

Mark Plotkin was recently asked by CNN to write an editorial for Fortune magazine about how conservation and economic development can be made complementary instead of contradictory. The essay highlights examples from regions as diverse as Arizona and Samoa, as well as ACT's own work in Suriname. For a sneak peak at what will appear in Fortune, check out the editorial at: http://www.principalvoices.com/voices/mark-plotkin-white-paper.html

ACT has also released three new publications in Colombia. El Sol Tiene Casa, "The Sun has a Home," commemorates the story of the ancestral lands of the Inga, now Indi Wasi National Park. The Spatial Analysis of the Transformation of the Forests of the Colombian Amazonian Piedmont by Iván Sarmiento Combariza and Beatriz Alzáte Atehortúa represents a technical analysis of the land that forms the Indi Wasi National Park. Finally, The Ethnobiological Study of the Liana Paullinia yoco, Indicator of the Status of Biological and Cultural Conservation of the Amazonian Piedmont, by Ignacio Giraldo, Iván Sarmiento, Fabio Quevedo, Silvia Amaya and Germán Zuluaga, was released in January. These publications document the formidable work achieved by ACT Colombia in biocultural conservation in the Bota Caucana region.