News
Julian 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…
Read MoreBruce Babbitt Speaks at ACT Event
Bruce Babbitt, who was Interior secretary during the Clinton administration and is an active conservationist, yesterday praised the work that the newspaper El Comercio has done in spreading the great environmental issues of concern, not only in our country but also throughout the world. Babbitt made that statement during a meeting of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), which took place in the capital of the United States and with the participation of renowned academics, politicians, and conservationists. ACT is chaired by Mark J. Plotkin, a leading ethnobotanist and expert on neotropical flora.
Read MoreThe Kogis Return to the Ocean
Five centuries ago, before the Spanish made their way to the Caribbean on their route to the Indies, a major portion of the communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta lived along the ocean, undertook long journeys in search of fish, and gathered caracuchas, similar to a snail, which they consumed crushed and mixed with coca leaves in order to improve their thinking and communication.
“The sea was our mother”: so says the creation myth of the Kogi.
ACT Helps Establish Indigenous Leadership Fund
An agreement for 1.3 billion pesos to be disbursed from a special government royalty collection fund was signed yesterday between the Governor of Caquetá and indigenous communities in the department.
The signing of this agreement is intended to support the organizational strengthening of at least 12 indigenous groups in the department, a process that will be led by the communities themselves, as related by Wairanina Jacanamejoy Mutumbajoy, coordinator of the Departmental Indigenous Council.