Blending ethnography with a fascinating personal story, A Future for Amazonia is an account of a political movement that arose in the early 1990s in response to decades of attacks on the lands and peoples of eastern Ecuador, one of the world’s most culturally and biologically diverse places. After generations of ruin at the hands of colonizing farmers, transnational oil companies, and Colombian armed factions, the indigenous Cofán people and their rain forest territory faced imminent jeopardy. In a surprising turn of events, the Cofán chose Randy Borman, a man of Euro-American descent, to lead their efforts to overcome the crisis that confronted them. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research, A Future for Amazonia begins by tracing the contours of Cofán society and Borman’s place within it. Borman, a blue-eyed, white-skinned child of North American missionary-linguists, was raised in a Cofán community and gradually came to share the identity of his adoptive nation. He became a global media phenomenon and forged creative partnerships between Cofán communities, conservationist organizations, Western scientists, and the Ecuadorian state. The result was a collective mobilization that transformed the Cofán nation in unprecedented ways, providing them with political power, scientific expertise, and a new role as ambitious caretakers of more than one million acres of forest. Challenging simplistic notions of identity, indigeneity, and inevitable ecological destruction, A Future for Amazonia charts an inspiring course for environmental politics in the twenty-first century.

Blending ethnography with a fascinating personal story, A Future for Amazonia is an account of a political movement that arose in the early 1990s in response to decades of attacks on the lands and peoples of eastern Ecuador, one of the world’s most culturally and biologically diverse places. After generations of ruin at the hands of colonizing farmers, transnational oil companies, and Colombian armed factions, the indigenous Cofán people and their rain forest territory faced imminent jeopardy. In a surprising turn of events, the Cofán chose Randy Borman, a man of Euro-American descent, to lead their efforts to overcome the crisis that confronted them. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research, A Future for Amazonia begins by tracing the contours of Cofán society and Borman’s place within it. Borman, a blue-eyed, white-skinned child of North American missionary-linguists, was raised in a Cofán community and gradually came to share the identity of his adoptive nation. He became a global media phenomenon and forged creative partnerships between Cofán communities, conservationist organizations, Western scientists, and the Ecuadorian state. The result was a collective mobilization that transformed the Cofán nation in unprecedented ways, providing them with political power, scientific expertise, and a new role as ambitious caretakers of more than one million acres of forest. Challenging simplistic notions of identity, indigeneity, and inevitable ecological destruction, A Future for Amazonia charts an inspiring course for environmental politics in the twenty-first century.

The future of Brazilian Amazonia, the world's largest remaining tropical rainforest, hangs in the balance. Two decades of destructive development have provoked violent struggles for control over the region's resources, with disastrous social and environmental consequences. This multi-disciplinary collection reviews past experience but focusses on the latest phase of Amazonian settlement. Chapters by leading authorities examine such issues as colonisation in the most recent frontier areas, multinational mining projects, hydro-electric schemes, and the military occupation of Brazil's borders. After demonstrating how new government and business activities have exacerbated social tensions and ecological destruction, the volume considers alternative, more sustainable strategies.

The Amazon region is the largest river basin and rainforest ecosystem in the world. It contains billions of trees, which are a vital carbon store to slow down global warming. Amazonia is home to one million indigenous people and some three million species of plants and animals. The future of the world’s largest forest is critical to South America and the planet. However, nine owner nations—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela—have encouraged agriculture, logging, and mining activities, causing a dangerous setback in the effort to protect “the lungs of the world." Due to global importance, the protection of Amazonia is vital. This book includes six chapters that describe the past and present situation of the Amazon region and present positive examples of sustainable development possibilities.

This timely book provides the first examination of the relationship between cultural and environmental variation in the Amazon, with special reference to the survival and welfare of indigenous societies. The particular strength of this collection is that it emphasizes ongoing changing elements rather than static ones in Amazonian human ecology in the context of colonization. Leslie Sponsel and twelve other contributors, including archaeologists, biological anthropologists, cultural ecologists, and nutritionists, review traditional and changing adaptations of indigenous societies to Amazonian ecosystems; they analyze the challenges presented to indigenes by the massive cultural and environmental impact of Westernization. They also discuss the applications of research results to the needs, interests, and priorities of indigenous societies. In his concluding chapter, Sponsel calls for anthropologists to contribute through their research to the empowerment of indigenous communities and organizations. "In the Amazon the only people who already know and practice ecologically sound economies are most indigenous societies. Documenting their ecologically sound values, knowledge, and technology is one of the most important tasks for cultural ecology".