Amazonia Yurahu Alliance

We Are One Family

Together. United. One step. One heartbeat. One project at a time.

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Kenewma Yawanawá

Planting the seeds for the next generation

Preserving traditional knowledge

Supporting the Amazon rainforest and the Yawanawá means preserving the forest way of life, ensuring elders have support to pass down their traditional knowledge practices to new generations so they may continue to uphold their unique identity into the 21st century.

Protecting the Amazon Rainforest

Directly supporting Indigenous communities and economies in the Amazon means that Indigenous people can remain on their land as stewards of the Rainforest, protecting millions of square miles of biodiversity, medicinal plants, food and animal life.

Alliance with female leaders

The advent of female Yawanawá leaders is a new era for Indigenous leadership. By supporting this new generation of female leaders and role models, we are supporting the end of the gender gap in education, participation, and decision-making around the world.

Response-based assistance

Amazonian communities face various challenges, including the emerging threat of COVID-19 and accelerated climate change. We are working together to assist the Yawanawá in times of need, providing funds for emergency supplies, medical expenses, travel, food, resources and whatever else comes into need for the villagers.

The Yawanawá

Guardians of the Rio Gregorio territories in Acre, Brazil

A Thriving Way Of Life In The Forest

The Yawanawá are a bridge between the past and the future of the Amazon rainforest. They live among 9 villages along the Gregorio River in the state of Acre, Brazil, on lands that their Indigenous ancestors have called their home for eons. Theirs is a story of connection to their land, their traditions, and a commitment to passing that connection to the next generations of the Yawanawá.

Traditional Knowledge

The Yawanawá have a deep traditional knowledge of the forest, its plants, and healing properties. They have always passed this knowledge from one generation to the next through their oral tradition. The Yawanawá are at risk of losing their traditional knowledge due to the rapid deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest. The impact of colonization, including being forbidden from teaching their language and culture, has created a generational gap in passing this knowledge from one generation to the next. The elders of the villages, the last keepers of their traditional knowledge, are dying before they can pass it on to the new generations.

Preserving Into The 21st Century

The Yawanawá people are strengthening their traditional knowledge and experience in maintaining the health of their people and their land. The Nipei Garden of Medicines is contributing to this effort. “Nipei” is the Yawanawá word for the Rainforest’s healing plants. The Nipei Garden of Medicines gathers the traditional healing plants of the forest into one accessible garden. This garden provides a learning center where the few remaining elders work with the new generation of students, teaching about the healing plants and traditional treatments.

Yawanawá stewardship by the numbers

200,000

Acres in the Yawanawá territory

95%

Biodiversity Maintained

9

Yawanawá villages

The Amazon Rainforest is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and home to thousands of Indigenous people

Covering over 5.5 million square kilometres, it spans 9 countries in total: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. The Amazon Rainforest moderates local and global weather patterns releasing approximately 20 billion tons of moisture into the atmosphere daily.

One-quarter of all medicinal plants, many from the Amazon, are derived from tropical forests. Many medicinal plants of the Amazon Rainforest have not been documented yet. For the past 10 years, a new species has been discovered every 3 days in the Amazon. It is home to approximately 40,000 plant species and 1,300 bird species and counting.

The Nipei Garden

Donate to support the Indigenous-led project to provide students a traditional education, led by Yawanawa elders.

On behalf of our elders, our children, our youth, on behalf of all the Yawanawá, OUR GRATITUDE!

Chief Naiweni

Leader of Mutum village, Acre, Brazil