News
A 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…
Read MoreFlamingo Conservation on Colombia’s Caribbean Coast
In the brackish marshes of Colombia’s northern Caribbean coast, you’ll find one of the largest and most social bird species – the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) gathered in flocks of hundreds. This wetland system, between the sea and tropical dry forests of the Guajira Peninsula, serves as a vital feeding ground for diverse wildlife, including ducks, herons, hummingbirds,…
Read MoreNew StoryMap Shows the Fight for Survival of Isolated Indigenous Peoples in South America
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) has launched a first-of-its-kind interactive StoryMap, A Fight for Survival, that shows the territorial areas of Isolated Indigenous Peoples in South America—communities who do not maintain regular contact, or have never had contact, with non-Indigenous peoples as an intentional act of self-determination and resistance to colonization. Created in collaboration with the International Working Group…
Read MoreTikuna People Inaugurate Ancestral Museum in the Upper Solimões
On January 24–25, the Tikuna people inaugurated the Tchirugüne Indigenous Museum in the Indigenous Community of Vila Betânia Mecürane, in the Upper Solimões region of Amazonas, Brazil.
Read MoreBetween Body and Territory: Indigenous Women Facing the Climate Crisis
The impacts of the climate crisis on the health and ancestral knowledge of Indigenous women By Rudja Santos from Carta AmazôniaEdited by Méle Dornelas As COP30 brought the Amazon to the center of global discussions on the climate crisis at the end of 2025, the daily lives of Indigenous women reveal a dimension still largely absent from official…
Read MoreCurare: The Amazonian Arrow Poison and Its Role in History and Medicine
Curare is a plant-based arrow poison perfected over centuries by Indigenous peoples of the Amazonia. Applied to the tips of both blowgun darts and arrows, it induces profound muscle relaxation, ultimately stopping breathing by paralyzing the diaphragm. This remarkable botanical technology was central to subsistence hunting in tropical rainforests, where dense canopy and elusive prey…
Read MoreFive conservation stories to celebrate in 2025
From rainforest headwaters to coastal mangroves, 2025 was a year of quiet victories and powerful partnerships. Together with Indigenous and local communities across Central and South America, we helped safeguard forests, rivers, coastlines, and wildlife—while also strengthening the food systems, livelihoods, and cultural knowledge that make those ecosystems thrive. Because in the Amazon and beyond,…
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