Posts Categorized: Field Updates

June 2016 Field Update – Healing Forests Agroforestry, Matsés Indigenous Mapping Initiative and more!

Apprentices with Lucho in Healing Forest in Remoyacu. Healing Forests. Mapping Initiative.

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 »

February 2016 Field Report – Preserving Matsés agricultural heritage

Preserving Matsés agricultural heritage adult siante tapun plant amazon

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 »

November 2015 Field Report – From sterility to abundance through revitalizing eroded land

plantain circle Matsés swidden with plantains, manioc, and papayas, drawn by Matses artist Guillermo Nëcca Pëmen Mënquë

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

sustaining indigenous medicine traditional medicine encyclopedia Matsés shaman

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 »