Month: February 2025

First of all, the person who is writing this story is non-Indigenous, so all the views here reflected are from an outsider. I grew up in a small European town, totally unaware of who were the Indigenous Peoples of this world and, more importantly, what it means to be Indigenous. I ended up getting to know and growing close friendships with Indigenous People because, more than 10 years ago, after I finished my studies in biology, I decided to move to the tropics in Latin America. I ended up working in wildlife conservation in places where a significant part of the local population belonged to one or several Indigenous communities. A journey towards indigenous wisdom My first contact with an Indigenous community happened in the Peruvian Amazon, with the Ese Eja of the Madre de Dios department. I was arriving back then to support some research projects with harpy eagles and jaguars, and I didn’t know much about the rainforest but what I had read in books. So, one thing I constantly did was try to learn from people who had spent a lot of time in the jungle. When listening to dozens of advice, stories, and facts, other researchers and local guides were constantly mentioning one particular Ese Eja old man as a source of wisdom when talking about the ways of the rainforest. I was told he knew how to find harpy eagle’s nests, track jaguars, and imitate the song of dozens of birds. I was told he could even smell the rain coming kilometers away from him. How come? I was so fascinated by this type of knowledge and skills. They seemed supernatural to me, a young man with just books in my head and very little practical experience about how the forest works. I tried to