ACT UPDATE   September 12 , 2005

Dear Friends,

1. Juan Mayr joins ACT's Board of Directors

2. Release of the 2004 Annual Report

3. Help ACT with the definition of "Indigenous People"

4. Duracell piece promotes ACT's work

5. Traditional Health Clinic at Kwamalasamutu, Suriname, holds its 5th anniversary celebration

6. Shamans and Apprentices from Trio and Wayana communities in Suriname hold inter-tribal gathering at Apetina

7. Further Clarification on Culture and Cultural Protection

1. Juan Mayr, a founding ACT Board member, returned to ACT's Board of Directors on July 27th. A winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, Mr. Mayr has dedicated his professional life to protecting the environment and indigenous peoples.

Following a four-year term as Vice-President of the IUCN, Mr. Mayr was appointed Minister for the Environment of the Republic of Colombia in 1998, serving until 2002. While Minister, Mr. Mayr worked to formulate environmental policies by collaborating with the social and economic sectors to ensure sustainable development; promoted the development and approval of a National Plan for Forestry Development; and promoted mechanisms for participation by communities affected by development projects, as well as mechanisms for conflict resolution through dialogue.

Mr. Mayr has been very active on the international stage, serving as President of the Extraordinary Session of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity held in Cartagena in 1999 and in Montreal in 2000. In 2002, he was invited to be Consultant for the United Nations Environment Programme on the issue of cultural diversity and the environment. He is currently a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel established by the President of the Inter-American Development Bank for the revision of environmental policy, and Advisor to the UN Resident Coordinator and UN Development Programme Humanitarian Coordinator in Colombia.

2. ACT is pleased to announce the release of our 2004 Annual Report. Why is ethnographic mapping so important? What is ACT's five-year vision? How does ACT work combining 21st century technology with ancient cultural knowledge? Find out at http://www.amazonteam.org/annual_reports.html

"An indigenous group typically has its own language (even though, in some cases like the Pataxos tribe of Brazil, it may no longer be spoken) which is different that the "national" language of the country in which they live. They have lived within the boundaries of their country - often in the same locale - since prior to contact with or colonization by the outside world. Indigenous peoples tend to have unique customs, traditions, and/or beliefs. They self-identify as a group different from those found outside their territories. They tend to have some form of self-government. Indigenous peoples tend not to be the dominant culture (this becomes more difficult and less true in places like Malaysia and Nigeria than in Brazil and Mexico) and are typically underprivileged in terms of both politics and economics."

Visit our website for more information and for links to other definitions: www.amazonteam.org/indigenous_people

Please send us your comments so that we can continue to refine and improve our definition. We will post some of the best comments we receive on the website.

4. ACT is pleased to announce an upcoming commercial by Duracell highlighting our indigenous mapping work in the northeast Amazon. The 30-second piece is narrated by ACT Advisory Committee member Jeff Bridges. It will begin airing in the U.S. in late September.

5. In July, ACT's traditional health clinic in the remote Suriname community of Kwamalasamutu, named Katamïimë Ëpipakoro, celebrated its 5th year anniversary. ACT staff members attended the celebration, along with the village's entire Trio community.

6. The Trio shamans and apprentices of the Surinamese villages of Kwamalasamutu, Tepu and Apetina gathered together for a two-day encounter in June. Their goal was to share experiences, methodologies and values related to their healing work. All the shamans and apprentices in attendance work at the traditional health clinics established by ACT in their communities.

The healers began by discussing the ten most common illnesses addressed in the clinics. Later they took a jungle walk and shared knowledge with each other about the medicinal plants found along the path. Shamans from Kwamalasamutu and Tepu took home seedlings of some plants no longer found in their communities. The participants plan to continue meeting, and to draw up guidelines for their practice of traditional medicine. They also plan to form an association of traditional healers in Suriname.

7. We received feedback after the most recent newsletter about Cultural Protection. Abigail Wright writes:

"Edward Hall, the anthropologist, says that 99% of culture is invisible. The visible parts, thus only 1%, of culture are things like food & drink, clothing, dwellings, marriage customs, and politics. The invisible aspects of culture, which may be far more important to understand and preserve, include things like the way individual societies raise children and care for their elderly, the amount of space between two people talking, the rituals involved around eating rather than the food itself, the ways that men and women relate to each other in private -- and in the case of the environment, the ways that people see their roles as humans within the larger world. And don't forget the need of the human being to express her spiritual life, which in traditional cultures can be all-encompassing - so much so that there may be no words for art or music or dance because all these expressions (which we have commercialized) are actually religious practices.

"It's often those invisible things which disappear long before the visible things do, because they are transmitted with some subtlety and are not perceived when outsiders come into a culture and write down recipes and draw pictures of clothes and dwellings. And those invisible things are often mistaken as hostile or arrogant (African-American children are taught to look people in the eye when they are being chastised, rather than to look ashamed as is customary in European cultures), or sleazy (Arabs stand very close to each other when talking), or primitive (just about all Indian cultures because they pray to rocks and winds and don't build churches). But those invisible things often contain valuable concepts such as systems of medicine, respect for nature, law - the Constitution was supposedly influenced by the Iroquois political system - and rituals that conduct youths into adulthood without the need for violence."

(For more information on Hall's theories, read titles such as The Silent Language, The Hidden Dimension, and Beyond Culture).

Do you have an opinion or an idea about the topics discussed above? Send us a note to culture@amazonteam.org. We may use your comments in an upcoming e-newsletter.