#apiwtxa

[sheltiechicago]

The Forest Knows, Life In The Amazon

Il fotografo Nicoló Lanfranchi racconta la storia straordinaria del popolo Asháninka in Amazzonia

The Forest Knows is a photographic project by Nicoló Lanfranchi that tells the extraordinary story of the Asháninka people, inhabitants of the village of Apiwtxa, located in the Acre region of the Amazon (Brazil). At the centre of this visual tale is the figure of Benki Piyãko, a shaman and environmental activist, who together with his brothers led an incredible forest reforestation project, planting millions of trees and regenerating territories once devastated by deforestation.

[lifebuoyjournals]

This Amazonian Indigenous Group Has Lessons in Sustainable Living for All of Us

The Apiwtxa community has designed a way to live with, rather than off, nature

The Apiwtxa community has been threatened by colonisers, rubber plantation workers, and now, loggers. When loggers attempted to enter the Amazon forest, the land of the Apiwtxa people, members of the Apiwtxa community used various non-violent tactics to stop the loggers, including forming a human barrier to physically stop the tractors from entering. NGOs also helped to report these loggers to the authorities. However, the Peruvian government eventually authorised logging companies to cut down trees in the Amazon rainforest.

Today, the Apiwtxa are proposing a social and economic system that prioritise collaboration over competition, where every being has a place and is important to the whole. They propose this system as an alternative to permanent economic growth and extractive industry, dominant and pervasive systems in the world today. They have launched the Yorenka Tasorentsi project that shares Indigenous knowledge and seeks to safeguard parts of the Amazon rainforest.