Amazon Conservation Team
Arlington, Virginia

The Colombian Amazon is widely regarded as the epicenter of biological and cultural diversity in lowland South America. ACT's Northwest Amazon Program, also called the Instituto de Etnobiología, 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.

For more information:
Amazon Conservation Team
4211 N. Fairfax Dr.
Arlington, VA 22203
Phone: 703-522-4684
Fax: 703-522-4464
info@amazonteam.org

Amazon Watch
San Francisco, CA

Amazon Watch's mission is to work with indigenous and environmental organizations in the Amazon Basin to defend the environment and advance indigenous peoples' rights in the face of large-scale industrial development-oil and gas pipelines, power lines, roads, and other mega-projects. Control over Colombia´s lucrative oil reserves has long spurred the country's four decade long civil war and is currently driving U.S. foreign policy for the region. Though indigenous peoples reject war, the fight to control Colombia's natural resources is increasingly putting them directly in the crossfire. For indigenous communities, the militarization that accompanies oil exploitation has brought escalating human rights violations and forced displacement from their ancestral homelands. Evidence indicates that U.S. aid to the Colombian military, particularly for crop fumigation operations, is accelerating the disintegration of indigenous ways of life and fueling a cycle of violence that is killing thousands of innocent civilians every year.

For more information:

1 Haight St. Suite B
San Francisco, CA 94102
P: 415-487-9600
F: 415-487-9601
amazon@amazonwatch.org