Defending the Amazon: How indigenous culture protects Colombia’s rainforest
Straits Times
February 4, 2022
MIRITI-PARANA, COLOMBIA (THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION) - Using a machete, Ms Norma Souza Matapi slices a pineapple from its roots and places it into a woven bag slung across her forehead as she tends a family food plot deep in Colombia's Amazon rainforest.
Indigenous communities in this remote corner of south-eastern Amazonas province have preserved largely pristine tracts of forest for millennia based on ancient belief systems and a culture interwoven with nature.