To safeguard the future of our environment and our climate, we need to protect our planet’s original people. Not only do they stand defending some of the last, most biodiverse regions of the globe from exploitation, they are the last people retaining a harmonious connection with the natural world, holding the wisdom we have since lost on how to live sustainably upon our Earth. Right now, we need their help more than ever.
However, just as modernity has disconnected us from Nature, it now threatens to do the same to them. Every day, more of the Amazon is destroyed from logging and oil extraction. Every day, more forest tribes are forced to sell or give-up their lands and become dependent upon money. Every day, more tribal people leave their forest homes to find work in the cities. Every day, more forest people lose connection with their ancient traditions. Right now, they need our help more than ever.
Our Areas of Focus
Health
For the sake of their wellbeing, modern medicine is as important to the original people as their ancient medicine traditions. However, access to a doctor is a human right not being made available to them. Tribes living in the deep forest are often days away – by foot or river – from the nearest medical facility, so anyone seriously ill or injured is much more likely to die. The lives of children and adults are unnecessarily lost each year, impacting deeply upon the future survival of the tribe and their ability to care for the rainforest.
Education
Most forest children are forgotten when it comes to their right to a modern state education. The deepest forest communities have, at most, a few books, one classroom and one teacher serving big classes mixed across six different year groups. With so little resources, few are able to learn well, making their future prospects uncertain in an increasingly modern world. There are also those older young people who are ready to access college or university, but cannot find funds for travel or study. If these young people are to become the future guardians of the rainforest, it’s vital that they grow into the keepers of both modern knowledge and ancient wisdom.
Community Development
Money is now a very real part of forest people’s lives. They can only protect their communities from the economic manipulation of the oil companies by gaining their own financial independence. Many communities have lost their lands in unfair deals, or their children to the cities or the oil-company workforce. Many are still learning to simply understand how money works. Forest people need support in developing income from their own sustainable businesses if they are to keep their families and communities together, and conserve their values and way of life, and remain guardians of the rainforest. They also need recognition of their legal rights as both indigenous and Ecuadorian citizens, and protection of their sovereignty over their lands from force, intimidation, corruption or deception.
Environmental Protection and Regeneration
The impact of the modern world is changing the very nature of the rainforest the original people have guarded for millennia. With the effects of climate change, pollution of lands and rivers from resource exploitation, the introduction of plastics, mass-poaching, and the loss of endangered species and vast habitats, tribal communities need support in combining traditional and modern methods to protect the forest, respond to disasters and find solutions to regenerating ecosytems.
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