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We work with indigenous cultures to provide alternative, income-generating,
activities, such as sustainable harvesting. Sustainable harvesting
activities can be a factor in the conservation of the biological
and cultural diversity of the region.
To preserve the rainforest without recognizing and preserving the
indigenous knowledge of plants in the forest would be to cut ourselves
off from the cures for, and prevention of, present day and future
diseases.
In order to preserve that knowledge, we must promote cultural diversity
to ensure that it is passed on from generation to generation.
Thus, we believe that our company has the dual obligation to provide
compensation for that knowledge.
The needs of the indigenous people with whom we work are often
immediate. We ask the local people with whom we work to identify
needs in the community and in some cases, personal needs whether
it be housing, schooling or food. Some examples of the compensation
we have provided have included:
- Building and donating a 10meter boat and 10 hp motor to a native
community. Its members live far from the center of the community
and could not attend social events or community meetings. Most
families are so poor that they do not even have dug out canoes
in which to travel up and down river, the only form of transportation
in that region.
- Providing medical treatment. A man had been stuck in the leg
with a paca thorn and his leg had become badly infected. He showed
us his swollen leg and we could clearly see the large red line
going up the leg from his foot to above his knee. A "runner"
was sent to the nearest town, some 2 hours drive, to get medicine
for the old man. Two weeks later when we returned the elderly
man was happy to present his healed leg. Since this man did not
have the money to pay for the medicine we paid for the entire
two week treatment.
- Organizing community-based forest conservation workshops, which
provide local people the opportunity to discuss and evaluate options
for forest management and employment opportunities.
- Building a Shaman Healing Center for the treatment and cure
of tropical disease for the local peoples of the area. The center
also provides a place for elder members of the indigenous community
to share their intellectual knowledge with it's younger members
who do not yet have the knowledge of the forest or speak their
native language.
- Providing needed funds to poor families so that the children
can go to secondary school. Children are required by law, in many
poor areas of the Amazon, to buy school uniforms, back-packs,
shoes, and buy all their own books, pencils and paper. Many families
can only dream of having one child go to school when a family
often consists of 5-8 children or more.
- Another method used has been to provide fellowships to scientists
and students working on traditional medicine and/or other conservation
projects.
Our long-term goal would be to continue the partnerships that have
developed with all of the communities and countries in which we
have worked.
The Healing Forest is dedicated to conserving cultural and biological
diversity and to sustain the development and management of the natural
and bio-cultural resources that are a part of the heritage of native
populations.
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