Major developments in the Matsés Indigenous Mapping Initiative, Healing Forest Medicinal Agroforestry and more! Table of Contents An Inauspicious Start Transparency: Questions and Answers Matsés Traditional Medicine Encyclopedia Matsés Indigenous Mapping Initiative Healing Forests: Medicinal Agroforestry Finding Unity Epilogue Donate Today Two elder shamans and Encyclopedia authors incapacitated by snakebite in advance of inter-village meeting […] Continue reading »
Posts Categorized: Field Updates
February 2016 Field Report – Preserving Matsés agricultural heritage
Preserving Matsés Agricultural Heritage The Matsés people of the Amazon are master farmers. Worldwide, inestimable indigenous agricultural knowledge has been lost in the process of acculturation. Forgotten often before it is realized what has been lost, the insidious erosion of traditional farming is a well paved path leading to weakened resiliency, increased dependence on outside […] Continue reading »
January 2016 Field Update – Launch of Matsés Indigenous Mapping Initiative, Healing Forest Agroforestry
Encyclopedia Delivered; Phase II of Traditional Medicine Initiative Begins, Launch of New Project to Map 3 Million Acres of Indigenous Homeland, and more! Dear friends and supporters, With 2015 drawn to a close and a new year ahead of us, we wanted to take a moment to thank our supporters and update you on the […] Continue reading »
November 2015 Field Report – From sterility to abundance through revitalizing eroded land
Small scale agriculture is one of the most important, yet least addressed, drivers of deforestation in the tropics today. In our Sustainable Agriculture Program, Acaté partners with expert Matsés farmers to develop innovative approaches to restore devitalized and eroded lands to abundance. Slash and burn agriculture, once superbly fitted in skilled hands to semi-nomadic existence, […] Continue reading »
June 2015 Field Update – Completion of first traditional medicine encyclopedia written by indigenous healers
Historic Meeting of the Remaining Matsés Elder Shamans Concludes with Completion of First Indigenous Medicine Encyclopedia Deep in the farthest reaches of the Amazon rainforest, the last remaining elder shamans of the Matsés tribe came together from distant villages in a quest to save their ancestral knowledge from the edge of extinction. This meeting concluded […] Continue reading »