Northwest Amazon

In the northwest Amazon, our work focuses on the following areas:

• Protection of isolated indigenous group
• Intercultural education (known to the ACT team as ethnoeducation)
• Preservation of indigenous culture through associations of male and female healers
• Establishment of regional biocultural corridors
• Expansion of indigenous reserves
• Establishment of novel categories of protected areas that provide for indigenous management and/or recognize locations of significant cultural importance
• Sustainable land use through land zoning, management planning and traditional agriculture

In the Colombian Amazon, ACT works in partnership with traditional communities to protect and strengthen the region’s biodiversity, as well as traditional medicine and culture. Our programs originated in 1997 in southwestern Colombia, where we initiated the Shamans and Apprentices program and enabled regional gatherings of indigenous leaders.

Two prominent successes in this region made possible by ACT’s guidance and assistance to indigenous groups have been the founding of the Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park—a protected area designed for joint management by indigenous communities and the Colombian National Park Service—and the creation of the Orito Ingi-Ande Plant Sanctuary, which establishes a new category of reserve that protects plants of high cultural value to indigenous communities.