News
Celebrating 30 Years: A Path That Began in the Amazon Continues to Expand
This year, the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is celebrating 30 years of biocultural conservation, an approach that recognizes the protection of local and Indigenous knowledge and culture go hand in hand with protecting the Earth’s most critical ecosystems. And the conservation solutions led by these communities are as diverse as the cultures and geographic regions…
Read MoreMongabay: Suriname will not be saved by soybeans (commentary)
In a new commentary for Mongabay, Dr. Mark Plotkin, ethnobotanist and President of the Amazon Conservation Team, argues that large-scale foreign agribusiness — Brazilian, Mennonite, or otherwise — won’t modernize Suriname’s economy and bring shared prosperity, as promised. Instead, drawing on patterns seen throughout tropical America, he argues it will do the opposite: clearing forest,…
Read MoreThe Indigenous women protecting the Colombian Amazon by boat
In the Indigenous community of Manacaro in the Colombian Amazon, women are helping to lead the work of territorial protection. Several times a week, Delia Gittoma, an Indigenous leader of the Carijóna people, sets out in a small, motorized boat to record animal species and human activity, and document threats to the forest. One person operates the motor, and the other collects data in…
Read MoreThe Invisible Pollinators of the Amazon
Written by: Barbara Onkle How stingless bees are helping communities protect forests, preserve knowledge, and build sustainable futures When people think of bees, they usually imagine the common honeybee. But across the Amazon, hundreds of native stingless bee species quietly sustain forests, food systems, and cultural traditions, often without being noticed at all. Hidden inside…
Read MoreDr. Mark Plotkin Speaks to WWLTV on Indigenous Plant Medicine and Psychedelic Research
As a new executive order fast-tracks psychedelic research for veteran mental health treatment, WWLTV turned to Dr. Mark Plotkin, co-founder and president of the Amazon Conservation Team, for perspective. Drawing on nearly four decades of fieldwork with Amazonian community leaders, Dr. Plotkin speaks to the deep traditional roots of these plant-based medicines and the importance…
Read MoreAward-Winning Map Advocates for the Protection of Isolated Indigenous Peoples of South America
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is proud to announce that A Fight for Survival: Isolated Indigenous Peoples of South America, created in partnership with the International Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (GTI-PIACI), has been named the Winner in the Environment category of the 2025 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition, hosted by Esri.…
Read MoreA Message from Indigenous Leadership Fellows
“I don’t have to choose between who I am, and where I am.” The following letter was written and read aloud by recipients of the Amazon Conservation Team’s Indigenous Leadership Fellowship Program — a scholarship program ACT launched in 2017 in partnership with Colombia’s Universidad Externado. The program supports Indigenous university students through mentorship, peer…
Read MoreEsri highlights ACT mapping work with Indigenous communities
The Amazon Conservation Team works closely with Indigenous communities to create cultural maps that record and preserve traditional knowledge and support the conservation of ecosystems. Brian Hettler, Director of Mapping for the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), recently spoke with Esri’s StoryScape magazine about using Esri’s GIS software to build maps with local communities. He also explains more…
Read MoreThe Amazon Conservation Team joins call for academia to support Indigenous science and equitable conservation
In a recent letter published in Earth Stewardship Journal, the Amazon Conservation Team, along with Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues from research institutions and nongovernmental organizations, called on academia to meaningfully support biocultural conservation. “Too often, relationships between academia and Indigenous peoples and nations remain extractive and asymmetrical, and without meaningful recognition or restitution of harm done…
Read MoreOceanography Podcast: Biocultural Coastal Conservation with Ancestral Tides
Juan Carlos Cruz, Manager of Science and Conservation with the Amazon Conservation Team’s Ancestral Tides initiative, recently joined the Oceanography podcast from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He spoke about how conservation on land and sea is connected — including the surprising relationship between jaguars and sea turtles — and how Ancestral Tides combines Indigenous knowledge…
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