'The trees are my grandparents': the Ecuador tribe trying to save its culture
Deforestation and climate change threaten the Achuar peoples existence - but a genealogy site is trying to protect its future
Lianne Kolirin
Thu 16 Apr 2020 00.00 EDT
The Amazon rainforest has been home to the Achuar people for thousands of years. Skilled hunters and fishermen, they have a spiritual connection with nature and consider themselves the forests greatest protectors.
Life is governed by their ancestors, with family history passed down orally from generation to generation. Yet traditions are being undermined as the young are tempted away by modernity, while their fragile ecosystem faces man-made destruction.
But now, the same technological developments so often deemed a threat to traditional ways of life, have offered the Achuar people, and other remote tribal people, the opportunity to preserve their legacy and fight back against the eradication of their histories.
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A team from the global genealogy website MyHeritage has been spending time with groups like the Achuar in an attempt to preserve their family heritage.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/16/the-trees-are-my-grandparents-the-ecuador-tribe-trying-to-save-its-culture