Mongabay.com is considered a leading source of information on tropical forests by some of the world's top ecologists and conservationists. TROPICAL RAINFORESTS: Human Inhabitants
Satellite view of Deforestation in Brazil (courtesy of DigitalEarth)

Forest People Today

By Rhett Butler  |  Last updated July 31, 2012

Tropical rainforests have supported humans since ancient times. Although forest life cannot be described as easy, these peoples have built their lives around the surrounding forest and its systems. Consequently, they are a great storehouse of the knowledge about the forest. They know the medicinal properties of plants and understand the value of the forest as an intact ecosystem. As forests fall, these indigenous peoples lose their homes and culture. Conflicts with settlers, who also bring disease and domestic animals, has resulted in the decline of the native population in many areas.

In the past, commercial firms, settlers, and governments developed forest lands without the permission of the original indigenous inhabitants. Even today, in countries like Brazil and Bolivia, private interests illegally encroach on the lands of native peoples.

Sometimes, tribal groups are given the choice whether to allow their lands to be developed or left in a natural state. If developed, indigenous people generally expect that they will receive some of the benefits of "civilized" life, including better education for their children, access to health care, and infrastructure like roads and electricity. Other times, the group may choose to keep their more familiar, natural lifestyle in the forest by rejecting development. More often, an indigenous group is split between the two choices and a bitter rift forms within the community. Sometimes a development firm will sign an agreement with those who support development while ignoring the demands of those who want to keep the status quo.

For example, in Papua New Guinea, some Bahineimo tribesmen chose to sell off their land to logging firms in the 1990s. After the agreement was signed, it emerged that many of the signatures were forged and the government suspended the deal. Similarly, in Ecuador, oil companies have worked to influence high-ranking members of indigenous organizations to permit oil development on native lands while ignoring those who oppose development.

"Divide and conquer" tactics are frequently used to factionalize indigenous organizations, weakening their power and capitalizing on the traditional animosity between tribal groups. Indigenous groups end up battling one another instead of developers.

Amazonian Home, Brazil 1999

Colonists' homes in the Brazilian Amazon
Sometimes indigenous elders are tricked into signing contracts that grant their lands as concessions to developers. For elders it can be difficult to understand the "sale" of land, since within their traditional community, land, along with other material objects, are considered communal property and responsibility. Likewise, children who lose a parent or are abandoned are usually adopted and raised by the group as a communal responsibility.

Historically the governments of tropical countries have sided with economic development over the interests of "marginal" native peoples. Thus, the government often encourages native peoples to yield to firms, emphasizing the incentives that development will bring over the potential costs. Though less frequent in today's increasingly democratized society, some governments still unilaterally grant indigenous lands to firms for development. Several countries still refuse to recognize indigenous land rights, no matter how small or legitimate their lands claims are.

Today many indigenous peoples choose to be slowly assimilated into the outside society. They seek the apparent conveniences of cotton T-shirts, metal pots, and Tupperware. They are impressed with the dugouts fitted with outboard motors and the wrap-around sunglasses that visiting tourists wear. As they turn towards this culture, elements of their own are lost. As youths increasingly leave the forest, native ways are forgotten and considerable knowledge about the interwoven fabric and complexity of the rainforest is lost forever. Gone is knowledge of medicinal plants. Gone are the unique methods of cultivation in the rainforest which could be useful today. Gone is the understanding of the ecological value of the rainforest along with the acknowledgement that forests can be sustained and used for human benefit. Gone are the unique cultures that have dwelled in the forest for thousands of generations.

Indigenous participation in rainforest conservation

Amazon tribe establishes first indigenous forest carbon fund

(12/04/2010) A half-century ago, Brazil's Suruí people knew little of the world beyond their cluster of villages – and nothing of the European settlers who dominated their continent. By 2006, that world beyond had engulfed them – a fact their young chief, Almir Narayamoga Suruí, saw all too clearly the first time he logged onto Google Earth.


Losing nature's medicine cabinet

(10/04/2010) In all the discussions of saving the world's biodiversity from extinction, one point is often and surprisingly forgotten: the importance of the world's species in providing humankind with a multitude of life-saving medicines so far, as well as the certainty that more vital medications are out there if only we save the unheralded animals and plants that contain cures unknown. Already, species have provided humankind everything from quinine to aspirin, from morphine to numerous cancer and HIV-fighting drugs. "As the ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin commented, the history of medicine can be written in terms of its reliance on and utilization of natural products," physician Christopher Herndon told mongabay.com. Herndon is co-author of a recent paper in the journal Biotropica, which calls for policy-makers and the public to recognize how biodiversity underpins not only ecosystems, but medicine.


Whether these indigenous people find what they are seeking when they leave the forest can only be known to them. Sadly it seems that many indigenous people harbor misconceptions about life outside the rainforest. As they move into cities or government agricultural projects, they enter an unfamiliar environment where they are often shunned. Lacking the skills valued by society and adequate Western education, indigenous peoples are often destined for a life of poverty as part of the lowest rung of the wage-earning class. Very few people leaving the forest for the city successfully make the transition on their own and many find themselves returning to their native lands in one capacity or another.

Increasingly, instead of being encouraged to migrate into cities or agricultural plots, native peoples are being incorporated into community management schemes and multiple-use reserves. Under this system, tribal groups can remain living in a traditional manner should they desire, but still earn an income. Several NGOs have initiated projects that encourage native peoples to keep some ties to their past so that their knowledge of the forest ecosystem does not die along with their culture.

It is important to note that conservation initiatives have not always benefitted forest people, whether they are traditional indigenous groups or settlers. People have been forcefully displaced from their traditional lands and communal forests for the purpose of establishing protected areas.

The new rainforest dwellers


Amazonian girl



Amazonian colonist children



Amazonian children

Amazon boy



Amazonian colonist children



Amazonian colonist children
Increasingly "rainforest people" describes colonists who have recently emigrated to rainforest areas. In the process, they have displaced indigenous forest people and conducted activities that are not in sync with the rainforest environment. Not knowing the best way to cultivate rainforest lands, they rely on slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture while introducing domesticated animals and foreign disease. While their presence is tough on indigenous groups and their surrounding ecosystem, these colonists also suffer at the hands of large-scale forest developers and land speculators.

Violence between small farmers and large landholders is commonplace in the Amazon. The Pastoral Land Commission, a nongovernmental group working in the Amazon Basin, found that in 2004 land battles in Brazil's countryside reached the highest level in at least 20 years. According to the annual report by the organization, documented conflicts over land among peasants, farmers, and land speculators rose to 1,801 in 2004 from 1,690 conflicts in 2003 and 925 recorded in 2002.

Such conflicts made international headlines in 2005 with the slaying of Dorothy Stang, an American nun who worked to protect the rights and interests of small farmers in the Brazilian state of Para. Her murder sparked an international outcry to stop death-squad activities and deforestation in the Amazon, and moved the Brazilian government to establish new protected areas and send thousands of troops to the region. Stang's killers, allegedly hired by local landowners, were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms in December 2005.

More on Stang: Comment from Stang's brother | Sentence

Suggested reading
  • The Lost Amazon: The Photographic Journey Of Richard Evans Schultes by Andrew Weil, Chris Murray, and Wade Davis
  • Light at the Edge of the World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures by Wade Davis
  • Last Place on Earth by Mike Fay and Michael Nichols
  • One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest by Wade Davis by Wade Davis




  • Review questions:

    • What is happening to traditional indigenous cultures of rainforest peoples?
    • Who are the new "people of the rainforest"?

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    Continued / Next:

    Deforestation




    Other pages in this section:

    Forest People
    African Forest People
    Asian Forest People
    American Forest People
    Forest People Overview
    Incas - Wade Davis
    Incan Achievements
    Dyaks
    - - - - -
    References
    References
    Indigenous Health
    Lessons from the Maya
    Forest people plant knowledge
    A Brief Social History of Borneo
    Forest people today
    Tri-country Amerindian summit
    Indigenous people estimates
    Varzea vs Terra settlements

    - - - - -
    Kids version of this section
    - Who lives in the rainforest?
    - Great rainforest civilizations
    - Medicinal plants and native people
    - What happened to the people of the Amazon?
    - Kids in the rainforest





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    Copyright Rhett Butler 1994-2011

    "Rainforest" is used interchangeably with "rain forest" on this site. "Jungle" is generally not used.