Posts by Anna Casey
How jaguars lost their connection to the coast, and why it’s critical to bring that back
Thousands of years ago, when jaguar populations were at their peak, they could be found hunting along the coasts across the Americas. After colonization, these apex predators lost access to the sea in much the same way many Indigenous communities did. Today, the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is working to research and restore this natural…
Read MoreTop ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin’s COP30 reflections on Amazon conservation (analysis)
As the world gathers for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Dr. Mark Plotkin, co-founder and president of the Amazon Conservation Team, offers perspective on what thirty years of protecting the Amazon alongside Indigenous communities has taught us. He recently shared his reflections in an article for Mongabay, an independent environmental news organization. Read the full analysis…
Read More‘Our Territory Is Sacred’: Q+A with Ednalva Rondon
Ednalva Rondon grew up in Pakuera village, located within the Kurâ-Bakairi Indigenous Territory in the municipality of Paranatinga, Mato Grosso—one of Brazil’s most ecologically diverse regions, in the central-western part of the country. At 27, she is an active member of the Union of Indigenous Women of the Brazilian Amazon (UMIAB). This year, she is…
Read MoreSolving the problems of the Amazon will require serious commitments at COP30
Carolina Gil, regional director for the Amazon Conservation Team, wrote the following op-ed, published in the Colombian digital news outlet La Silla Vacía (“The Empty Chair”). The original, Spanish version of the piece can be found here. The Amazon is not just a territory that must be preserved, but a vital system that sustains the climatic,…
Read MoreMongabay: Indigenous monitoring project helps protect isolated peoples in Colombia’s Amazon
Mongabay, an independent environmental news organization, recently highlighted two communities in the Colombian Amazon, who are working to protect the rainforest and its peoples. Members of the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve and the community of Manacaro use traditional knowledge and technology alike to monitor threats to their territory and to protect nearby communities living in…
Read MoreWhere the forest meets the sea: connecting Osa to the Amazon
Manuel Sanchez, a field coordinator with the Amazon Conservation Team, remembers the first time he saw a sea turtle growing up on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. He had been fishing one night with his father, and they were walking back along Playa Piro (Piro Beach) on the Pacific Coast. “It was around eight at night…
Read MorePeru Fails to Seize Critical Opportunity to Create World’s Largest Reserve for Isolated Peoples
As the General Secretariat of the International Working Group of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (GTI-PIACI), the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) has worked alongside Indigenous partners to establish more than 7 million acres of reserves and buffer zones for isolated Indigenous peoples across the Amazon. Yesterday, however, Peru’s Multisectoral Commission voted against the…
Read MoreAriadna Gutiérrez Becomes Ambassador for the Amazon Conservation Team
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is proud to announce that actress, model, and humanitarian Ariadna Gutiérrez has joined the organization as an Ambassador, lending her voice and platform to the protection of rainforests, Indigenous cultures, and ancestral wisdom across South America. Gutiérrez, who has long been passionate about environmental and cultural preservation, deepened her commitment…
Read MoreHow to protect isolated Indigenous peoples without harmful contact
Guardians of the Forest: Who are isolated Indigenous peoples? In some of the most pristine and remote forests of the Amazon live Indigenous peoples who have little to no contact with the outside world. They have no cellphones, cars, or computers, but they hold deep knowledge of the forest and an interconnected relationship with the…
Read MoreMusician Cimafunk Teams Up With the Amazon Conservation Team
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is proud to announce Afro-Cuban musician Cimafunk has joined the organization as an official ambassador. In this role, the internationally acclaimed artist will help spotlight the work ACT is doing to protect the Amazon rainforest and support Indigenous and local communities across South America. Cimafunk, a Grammy-nominated musician whose genre-defying…
Read More