Northwest Amazon

Northwest Amazon Program Overview

The Colombian Amazon is widely regarded as the epicenter of biological and cultural diversity in lowland South America. ACT’s Northwest Amazon Program collaborates with the region’s indigenous people on biocultural conservation initiatives that protect both the forests and the cultures that depend on them.

ACT works in partnership with local communities to develop integrated programs known as “life plans” (planes de vida). The comprehensive plans address the five fundamental indigenous rights identified in the International Labor Organization’s Convention No. 169: identity, participation, territory, autonomy, and autonomous development. The work is carried out both with individual tribes organized in associations or tribal councils and with the larger alliance of the Union of Traditional Healers of the Colombian Amazon, best known by its Spanish acronym UMIYAC.

Northwest Amazon Program Portal

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Current Projects

• Protected Area Management and Predio UMIYAC

• ACT is assisting the Kofán Indians in the protection and management of the Predio UMIYAC, an ancestral site whose preservation is deemed crucial in the struggle to conserve rare plants that are sacred to local indigenous groups.
• ACT supports the management of Indi Wasi National Park, the creation of which was featured at the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa in Fall 2003.
• ACT supports sustainable production projects within indigenous reserves aimed at providing basic nutritional needs.
• ACT seeks the expansion or consolidation of existing reserves that are too small to ensure the subsistence of its inhabitants.

• Shamans and Apprentices Program

The Shamans and Apprentices Program continues to represent the spiritual heart of ACT’s mission. In the northwest Amazon, the program is carried out in collaboration with UMIYAC. ACT provides scholarships for 40 apprentices from 6 different tribes. Support is provided for the activities of UMIYAC including health brigades (groups of healers who travel to remote regions), management of medicinal plant gardens, healers’ gatherings, training of apprentices, and the renewal and strengthening of traditional medicinal practice. Stipends are also provided to cover the most basic needs of elderly shamans.

• Gathering of Women Shamans

The first Gathering of Women Shamans was held in Mocoa, Colombia in February 2004. This marked the first time that female shamans of the Colombian Piedmont met to discuss their traditional knowledge systems and considered what they need to continue their essential work. The greatly benefited from the precedent of the 1999 Gathering of Shamans of the Amazonian Piedmont that resulted in the creation of UMIYAC and, eventually, Indi Wasi National Park.

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Selected Achievements

• The Creation of Indi Wasi National Park

Indi Wasi National Park was created in 2002 in the Alto Fragua region of Colombia, near the Ecuadorian border. The park spans 167,960 acres, and is located within what is commonly considered a global priority zone for biodiversity conservation. ACT worked in partnership with Colombia’s Ministry of the Environment and the indigenous community association Tandachiridu Inganokuna to create Indi Wasi, the first Colombian national park to be proposed and co-managed by local indigenous peoples.

• The Gathering of Shamans and the Formation of UMIYAC

In June 1999, in Yurayaco, Colombia, the spiritual leaders of seven tribes of the Colombian Amazon assembled for the first Encuentro de Taitas, or Gathering of Shamans, in order to discuss their collective destiny.

Over forty Amazonian healers attended and conducted ancient traditional ceremonies. A northwest Amazonian Council of Elders was formed, for the first time joining the most powerful shamans of the three most populous tribes of the Northwest Amazon.

The Council of Elders proceeded to guide the writing of the Yurayaco Declaration, a formal document that insisted on respect and acknowledgment for indigenous territories, medicine, science, and worldview. The Union of Traditional Healers of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC) was formed to carry out the Declaration’s stated missions.

The Council has continued to design innovative programs that aim to protect their spiritual knowledge, which they believe is central to their survival and ultimately of great benefit to humanity. Among the eventual fruits of this meeting were the 2001 publication of a Code of Ethics for the use of indigenous medicine in the Colombian Amazon, the 2001 construction of an ethno-education school in Yurayaco, Colombia, and of course the creation of Indi Wasi National Park.