ACT is undertaking a significant upgrade to our field data collection efforts—and that of our community partners—by introducing Open Data Kit (ODK) smartphone and tablet data collection forms.

National Geographic explorer, anthropologist, and conservationist, Mireya Mayor, is joining the Amazon Conservation Team to help communicate news of vital…

On November 12, 2015, the 10,181 indigenous inhabitants of the Colombian department (state) of Caquetá compiled all of their needs and their historically violated rights in a single document. After three years of work in this region, a first comprehensive indigenous public policy was approved.

“During a recent visit to rainforests of Suriname, I noticed that a particular problem is increasingly weighing on the minds of the Trio Indians of Kwamalasamutu village: some men are being seduced by the opportunity for pay in distant gold mining ventures, leaving the village for long periods of time and occasionally not returning at all.”

Recently, a comprehensive indigenous public policy was officially signed by the government of Colombia’s Caquetá region. The policy—drafted by seven indigenous groups with technical assistance from ACT—will, for the first time, provide a platform for the indigenous communities to have a say in Caquetá’s future.

In the past several years, the indigenous peoples of the Colombian department of Caquetá have taken enormous steps forward in asserting their rights, creating a representative body and crafting a recently ratified indigenous public policy for the region. ACT guided and assisted the communities through these processes.

The U.S. writer H.L. Mencken famously remarked, “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.” The question of how to protect the Amazon’s isolated tribes certainly falls under this principle.

A newly released report published by the Amazon Conservation Team titled “Amazon Gold Rush: Gold Mining in Suriname” explores the rapid expansion and impacts of gold mining in Suriname through cartography and digital storytelling.