Posts by Amazon Conservation Team
A foot injury? Give me your machete!
“What’s wrong with your foot?” asked the medicine man as I ducked into his grass hut to escape the tropical downpour. He could see that I walked with a slight limp. Like many an aging athlete, I had injured myself while training for a hike. I knew I had to condition myself to be able to walk 50 miles carrying a backpack at 9,000 feet.
Read MoreNASCAR, the NBA, Rubber and the Rainforest
As you watch the NBA playoffs this spring, impress your friends with this fact: the idea for those Nikes worn by LeBron James and Kevin Durant was actually born in the rainforests of the northeast Amazon.
In 1775, French botanist Fusee Aublet observed local Indians there coating their feet with rubber tree sap and holding their feet over the fire, creating the first custom-made athletic shoes.
In Honor of the Late Melinda C. “Mo” Maxfield
After several years of failing health, our very dear, longtime friend and mentor Melinda C. “Mo” Maxfield passed away on January 9, 2014. We are profoundly grateful for Mo’s sage counsel and generous support dating nearly back to ACT’s inception, and will miss her company, kindness, and wisdom more than we can adequately express. As…
Read MoreJulian Lennon Joins the ACT Advisory Board
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is pleased to announce that internationally-acclaimed musician and photographer Julian Lennon has agreed to join the ACT Advisory Board. Lennon is a long-time supporter of ACT, whose work he first learned of from his long-time friend (and fellow ACT Advisory Board Member) May Pang. In 2009, Julian Lennon founded The…
Read MoreThe Medicine Man and the Microchip
Diverse tropical ecosystems like rainforests and coral reefs may harbor microorganisms able to produce compounds that — when made less toxic, more effective or used as inspiration to develop new medicines — may give us new antibiotics, new treatments for cancer and new treatments for stress. Western medicine, in spite of the superlative nature of its success, does have its holes.
Read MoreSaving Sacred Sites: First Victory in the Kogi Territory
In December, 2012, the Kogi’s dream to protect Jaba Tañiwashkaka became a reality. The Colombian government designated the site as a National Cultural Monument, a new category of protection that can be declared for other sacred sites in the future.
Read MoreWomen Reclaim Cultural Knowledge in Northwestern Amazonia
An hour before dawn, we landed at a small airstrip deep in the mountains of the Colombian Amazon. This remote forest — ringing with the sounds of frogs, monkeys and parrots –seemed surreal, as did my reason for visiting. Over the next five days, I would photograph the annual conference of the region’s female indigenous healers.
Read MoreRevolutionizing Education in the Colombian Rainforest
While top-of-the-line outdoor gear and insect repellents work well in the Northern California backcountry, they’re next to worthless in the Colombian jungle. This was my first lesson traveling from the West Coast to a region with 100-degree temperatures and 90 percent humidity, where bugs feed on any millimeter of exposed of skin and the humid air dissolved my malaria pills into a sludgy mess before I could take them.
Read MoreColombia establishes giant rainforest park
Next week the Colombian government will officially double the size of its largest national park, reports El Espectador.
Chiribiquete National Park in southern Colombia will expand from 12,990 square kilometers to 27,808 square kilometers, making it one of the biggest protected areas in the Amazon. The expansion will include areas thought to be inhabited by two “uncontacted” or voluntarily isolated tribes. These areas were potentially at risk from oil exploration and mining.
ACT Works With McGill University to Study Indigenous Agriculture and Diet
With funding from the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) of Canada’s McGill University, as part of a larger study of the state of traditional nutrition systems across the globe, from 2004-2007, ACT conducted research with the Inga indigenous people of the Colombian Eastern Andean foothills region to assess the condition of the…
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