Newsletter February 2008

An anthropologist who has been working with the Ashaninka people of the Peruvian Amazon for 30 years, Dilwyn Jenkins, is helping the indigenous community generate income by exporting the coffee they grow to Wales. As logging and smuggling activities are threatening the delicate Amazonian habitat and the way of life of the indigenous community, Jenkins, who also writes The Rough Guide to Peru, is helping the community develop sustainable farming and ecotourism.

The Ashaninka, who lead a semi-nomadic lifestyle and depend on the natural richness of the jungle, have been under pressure from the outside world seeking to exploit the natural resources of the jungle. According to Jenkins, “Illegal loggers, cocaine smugglers, missionaries, anthropologists and TV documentary production teams all manifest real, if quite different, challenges.” In the high jungle where the Ashaninka live, river traders are entering previously isolated territory to sell their wares. Illegal loggers offer the tribe money for mahogany but Jenkins is hoping that the income from coffee and eco-tourism in the future will be dissuade the community from cutting down the trees that are a resource for the future.

Source: icwales.icnetwork.co.uk

PAST NEWSLETTERS:

• Newsletter January 2008