Improving Food Security and Economic Opportunities in the Amazon

On April 22, environmentalists around the world will celebrate Earth Day. Our indigenous partners in the Amazon celebrate their land and its preservation every day as they strive to maintain their cultures and the rainforests in which they live.

Over the last several months, our indigenous colleagues and ACT staff in Colombia have collaborated with more than one hundred community leaders to promote integrated sustainable development in the Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park in the northwestern Amazon. Through training workshops, ACT is encouraging the region's communities - including non-indigenous farmers - to share farming techniques that improve the planting and maintenance of family gardens, as well as pasturing livestock with a sustainable approach that has less impact on the forest.  

As part of our commitment to this important project, ACT Colombia recently delivered seeds, equipment and other materials used in the preparation of organic fertilizers to the communities for the planting  of 124 family gardens and 44 plant nurseries.

Additionally, in Suriname, ACT staff is helping the rainforest community of Kwamalasamutu (Kwah-mah-lah-sah-MOO-too) to develop an immunity-boosting tea for the market. ACT provided training in plant propagation and cultivation, food safety, marketing, business planning, bookkeeping, and project administration. We are happy to report that production facilities are being constructed, and a management plan is under development.

Through these ongoing sustainable development activities, ACT and our indigenous partners in the Amazon are working to ensure the preservation of one of the Earth's most sacred forests--one whose survival may determine how hospitable an Earth we leave for our children and their children. Here's to celebrating Earth Day every day! 

Surui Tribe Launches Carbon Fund

As I return from the United Nations Climate Conference (COP16), I'm happy to share that there is some good news coming out of Cancún despite all the media headlines of stalled conversations. ACT is working on very concrete projects that will have a direct impact on the implementation of policies regarding the reduction of carbon emissions in the rainforests of South America.

ACT has taken the lead in creating coalitions of NGOs and indigenous peoples to design and implement effective land management solutions, and now is working with its partners to ensure that these solutions can be applied broadly - both on the ground, and also to positively impact the policy negotiations and implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and REDD+. ACT is an integral part of the discussions surrounding the design of these methods where the results generated on the ground will help to shape how these solutions can potentially be implemented on an international scale.

I joined Chief Almir of the Surui Tribe in Brazil at COP16 in his announcement of the launch of the Surui Carbon Fund. The Fund-created by the Surui with help from the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO)-will enable the indigenous community to manage the funds derived from the marketing of their carbon credits. The Surui will be responsible for fund financial management as well as implementation of their self-created management plan for their 600,000-acre reserve in Rondônia, Brazil.

The Surui Carbon Project is an initiative led by the Surui and involves expert NGOs including Kanindé, Forest Trends, FUNBIO, and the Institute for Conservation and Sustainable Development in the Amazon. The project uses two forms of carbon offset: avoided deforestation and conservation through carbon stocks, as measured through the REDD mechanism; and carbon sequestration through reforestation. The impact of the project will go far beyond the Surui and will bring new alternatives in the management of indigenous lands to other indigenous groups worldwide. 

Vasco van Roosmalen

Director, Amazon Conservation Team Brazil

Brazilian Drought Continues to Impact Amazonian People

You may have recently read some of the articles in the news about the major drought occurring in the Brazilian Amazon.  Disasters like this make it more challenging for our indigenous partners to protect their ancestral lands.  This months-long drought has eliminated food supplies, basic building materials, and plant-based medicines upon which many of the indigenous groups in the northern and western Amazon depend.

For fifteen years, ACT has been pointing out the clear and unbreakable link between healthy forests and human well-being. In the Amazon, the destruction of the forest itself precipitates both major droughts and fires, with associated human misery and deep economic costs for tens of millions of people.

Despite this news, we continue our innovative community-based approach to conservation--in true partnership with our indigenous colleagues--which not only addresses global issues like climate change, but also helps alleviate poverty and find lasting solutions that work at the local level.

Mark J. Plotkin, Ph.D. 
President, Amazon Conservation Team

Indigenous Culture Lessons for Surinamese Schoolchildren

In Suriname, one of ACT’s focus areas is to bring greater awareness of indigenous culture to the capital city of Paramaribo. To do this, we created the Wapono Pakoro Indigenous Day Project. The project’s focus is on knowledge exchange between the Trio and Wayana tribes and schoolchildren in Paramaribo. The project involved educational, hands-on, and showcase events for the schoolchildren.

The event kicked off in July 2010 with three elementary and technical schools in Paramaribo learning about indigenous culture and building scale models of traditional indigenous houses. This project is a follow-up to a recent publication, Wapono Pakoro: Traditional Indigenous Architecture of the Trio and Wayana in Southern Suriname, and is funded by the Dutch Embassy in Suriname, reflecting the theme “respect for different cultures.”

In partnership with an architecture team, indigenous park guards of Kwamalasamutu (an indigenous village in the remote southern interior of the country), held workshops for the technical schools to share their knowledge about materials used to build houses and the indigenous wave-and-bind construction techniques.

For two months, with assistance from ACT staff, children ranging from 9-12 years old and their teachers worked on building a village model. Simultaneously, children of the technical school tested their architecture skills by building three traditional indigenous houses: a clay house, a wooden house, and a bamboo house. The replicas were built at 50 percent scale by students in the 14-18 year age group.

The event wrapped up in August when the house models were on exhibit during the Indigenous Day weekend for all to see. We also invited local artists to share their work focusing on the indigenous people. Paul Woei, a famous Surinamese visual artist, displayed his sculptures and paintings of the nation’s indigenous peoples. Charles Chang, a local photographer and journalist, displayed pictures of the Trio (Suriname) and Xingu (Brazil) tribes.

To capture such a monumental event, we created a DVD which can be viewed by other schools to promote their own cultures. As I write, one replica, the clay hut, as well as one village model have been adopted by the Villa Zapakara children’s museum in Paramaribo.

It was very special to watch these young children work together with indigenous peoples on such an inspiring project. I’ve included pictures of some of the final pieces of work from the project.

Karin Lachmising

Amazon Conservation Team, Suriname

Communication & Information Coordinator

Backyard Observations – Spiders

Editor’s Note: Author, illustrator, passionate conservationist and all-around cool lady, Janell Cannon is best-known for classic books like Stella Luna and Verdi – works that focus on what some consider “creepy critters,” but Janell uses her unique skill to show us the beauty and wonder of all creatures. ACT is greatly privileged to have Janell as both a friend and member of our Advisory Board — she is a fascinating person with an awesome sense of humor, love of nature and inquisitive mind. She shares her observations of nature and the wonders that we can find in our own homes, if only we paid better attention. We asked Janell for permission to share some of her findings and photographs that document fabulous aspects of common wildlife right in our own backyard, of which many of us are unaware. Enjoy!

I first noticed her yesterday, bundled in a branch of a plum tree. She is just short of an inch long in this bunched-up form, so she's big. I noticed she had a nice big orb-web stretched between the branches nearby, and the main anchor point was attached to the ground near the base of the tree so that her web would be oriented in a vertical plane. The ground anchor seemed a bit vulnerable to disruption, and by this afternoon, I noticed that her web had been destroyed.

I knew come nightfall she'd rebuild, and so I went out to watch. Since she no longer had the ground anchor, she made do with the branches around her--all of which leaned steeply outward, offering no easy way to build a web at the optimum vertical angle. She began to weave the web at a nearly 45 degree angle.

Soon enough, she finished and settled in the center to wait for dinner. I wondered if this oddly slanted trap would be effective. So, I checked back in about two hours and she had a nearly-devoured prey in her clasp. Everything was covered in fine dew and she was sparkling.

Janell Cannon
Author and Illustrator
ACT Advisory Board Member

Inga Education: An Innovative Model Enjoys National Recognition

Through our work at ACT, we see education as a pillar, a powerful tool for change. We usually take for granted education as instruction that one receives within four walls, but for indigenous groups, education is much broader than that, contrasting with western ways of acquiring knowledge.

In Colombia, western education systems have been one of the most aggressive means of acculturation among indigenous groups, in many cases making communities abandon their traditional rituals, dress and language. Nevertheless, Colombian constitutional rights since 1991 and the national compliance with Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization have allowed indigenous communities to develop an educational model that responds to their particular needs, values, and traditions as well as their social, economic and cultural desires.

It has taken many years for national legislation and policies to become effective and for indigenous communities to create their own institutions as well as the means to develop a curriculum appropriate for the Colombian intercultural context.

In this regard, we have some great news to share! Recently, the Colombian government approved the national contracting (funding) of the Yachaicury Ethno-Education School of the Inga indigenous community of the department of Caquetá to continue providing education that meets both national quality standards and indigenous traditional ways of learning. To this development, I wish to say
hallelujah! This certification is of immense importance for the recognition of indigenous rights in our country.

Because of the absence of suitable education for their youth, the Inga community of the Caquetá has developed a curriculum structured to provide coursework embracing traditional knowledge such as traditional medicine and forest stewardship, in addition to standard “western” subject matter. The Inga community has determined that new generations must be educated under the guidance of their traditional authorities, many of whom carry expert knowledge of the surrounding forests and their diversity.

At the School, approximately 80 Inga students, 5 to 18 years old, participate in training courses emphasizing sustainable agriculture, and record ancestral knowledge in their native language. Located on 136 acres, the school grounds include a natural sciences laboratory and an agro-ecological farm where the students learn firsthand the sustainable farming techniques that allow them to grow their own food, contribute to the food resources of the surrounding communities, and provide an economic base for their institution.

The Yachaicury School is the first Inga school in Colombia and the first indigenous school in the Caquetá department to receive this very important political recognition. I’ve included a video clip which highlights some of the School’s educational aspects.

Javier Ortiz Bahamón
Colombia Program Director
Amazon Conservation Team

Biodiversity and Health

The United Nations declared 2010 the "International Year of Biodiversity." We naturally are very gratified that this subject has been given such prominence, since the conservation of rainforest biodiversity has been a primary goal of the Amazon Conservation Team since our founding 15 years ago.

One of the most unique, creative, and passionate experts on the subject of biodiversity is physician Christopher Herndon, a longtime friend and ACT colleague. Chris received his medical training at Yale and Harvard and from the shamans of the northern Amazon – the latter he is quick to cite as particularly formative to his development as a physician and his understanding of healing.

Chris recently teamed up with another leading spokesman for conservation – journalist Rhett Butler, who publishes the extraordinary website www.mongabay.com – to pen a commentary for the influential journal Biotropica. Read the full article here. I think you will find it both insightful and informative.

Mark J. Plotkin, Ph.D.  

President, Amazon Conservation Team