Using Satellite Technology to Protect Isolated Tribes in the Amazon Rainforest
A field team from ACT traveled to the Curare – Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve in the Colombian Amazon in July to assist local communities in the creation of a detailed management plan for their rainforest territories that integrates western and traditional perspectives to achieve sound conservation practices. Amazingly, this remote reserve has spearheaded national efforts…
Read MoreWhat is the correlation between the protection of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and the protection of the Amazon?
Let’s start with a question. If you lived in South America, and had to run away from society, where would you hide? The most remote areas of the Amazon, where thousands of small rivers are born and eventually become giant waterways—which along the way irrigate millions of trees, and in their final destination feed the…
Read MoreConserving the Vast Biodiversity of the Colombian Amazon
The great wealth of biodiversity present in the Amazon is at serious risk of disappearing due to several threats, which must be addressed through the joint work of the various stakeholders in the region. One of the first steps in addressing this problem is to identify which species of flora and fauna are present in…
Read MoreThe Sun through a Lamp: Solar Energy in the Colombian Amazon
For more than seven years, we have worked with the communities of the middle and lower watersheds of Colombia’s Caquetá River, supporting them in the conservation of tropical forests and the strengthening of their local initiatives. Thanks to this common purpose, we have come to understand the needs of the indigenous and small farmer families,…
Read MoreA Green Dawn: Solar Energy and Community Empowerment in the Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest is privileged with rich biological and cultural diversity, natural splendor, and the potential to benefit all humanity by helping to stabilize the climate. Roughly the size of the 48 contiguous United States, it covers some 40 percent of the South American continent and includes parts of nine countries. It is also one…
Read MoreColombian Government Signs Decree Recognizing the Ancestral Territory of the Indigenous Communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
On August 6, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree that recognizes the ancestral territory of the indigenous communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), as defined by the sacred sites of the Linea Negra (Black Line), a ring of sacred sites around the base of the SNSM that forms the boundary…
Read MoreTo Take Care of Your Garden, First Get Your House in Order
Carolina Gil is among the women who have dedicated themselves protecting the forests of the Amazon. The challenge that Colombia has ahead can only be met with many hands. She believes in collective work, for a rainforest without heroes. Before the Amazon became a hot topic in the media because of the 144,417 hectares razed in that region of Colombia, the mining threats and the science that began to explain the Amazon’s importance in the regulation of global climate.
Carolina Gil, program director of the NGO the Amazon Conservation Team, knew the other face of conservation, which few others were emphasizing: to try to conserve a territory without taking into account the people who live in it was a formula for failure.
“It is the communities that can ensure that a forest is healthy, with the means of living that they require.”
Deforestation Hotspots in the Colombian Amazon, Part 3: Chiribiquete – Macarena
This report investigates the Chiribiquete – Macarena deforestation hotspot, where new roads are threatening the expansion of Chiribiquete National Park. (2018, English and Spanish)
Read MoreImpact: Sacred Sites
We know that our partner communities can best safeguard their forests when they have access to their traditional territories, sustainable livelihoods, and intact traditions. But there is often more. The elders frequently tell us that in order for their communities to truly flourish, they need to control lands that are sacred to them. From our…
Read MorePresident Santos Announces a Decision Today
After waiting 27 years, the indigenous governments of non-municipalized areas of the Amazon finally will be able to manage the money from their national government transfers without intermediaries.
In Leticia, the Presidency, the Ministries of the Interior, Finance and Agriculture, DANE (the Colombian national statistics agency and the Colombian National Planning Department recognized the governments of 36 indigenous reserves that occupy 26 million hectares of practically intact territory and that had existed in a state of legal limbo with respect to territorial zoning that prevented them, in effect, from governing what is theirs by law.