The Amazon rainforest is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, and protecting the rainforest is key to preserving the biodiversity of the planet. Because rainforests around the world lose an area the size of New Jersey every year, it is important to do everything possible to protect them. The Chaikuni Institute attempts to preserve the rainforest by teaching indigenous Amazonian tribes that live in the rainforest how to become advocates for the rainforest.

The Chaikuni Institute

The Chaikuni Institute was founded by the Temple of the Way of Light, a Peruvian shamanic healing center. Its goal is to help protect the culture of the indigenous Amazonian tribes that live in the rainforest and to help prevent the destruction of the rainforest. The Chaikuni Institute helps members of the tribes that live in the rainforest get an education, helps tribe members protect their lands from destruction and teaches people how to sustainably grow the medicinal plants that are used by the tribes.

The Chaikuni Institute creates films to highlight human rights abuses that native people living in the Amazon face, and the institute also helps natives decide what is important to their tribe’s development and helps the tribes get what they need.

Educating Members of Indigenous Amazonian Tribes

Without a proper education, foreigners could deceive tribal members, and they would not have the knowledge and skills needed to protect themselves from abuses and their tribal lands from misappropriation. The Chaikuni Institute works hard to remove the barriers to education so that anyone in the tribe can become educated if they choose to go to school and learn.

As a solution to the racism that tribal members face in schools, the Chaikuni Institute has proposed the creation of a school specifically made for tribal members so that tribal members can learn in an environment that is free of discrimination.

Protecting Amazonian Resources

In 2011, the Temple of the Way of Light founded Alianza Arkana, a Peruvian nonprofit organization that fights for environmental justice and human rights for the tribes that live in the Peruvian rainforest. Now operated independently, Alianza Arkana helps to improve the health of the people who live in the rainforest by improving access to sanitation and nutritional foods. The organization also helps to ensure that the knowledge held by the tribes that live in the rainforest is preserved so that it will not be lost.

The Chaikuni Institute is also helping members of the tribes that live in the rainforest fight against polluted water that resulted from oil spills, and the institute also teaches people who live in the rainforest fishing methods so that they can become financially independent.

The Chaikuni Institute and Alianza Arkana are good examples of corporate stewardship and should serve as an example to other businesses that decide to operate in an improvised area. By giving back to the environment and to the people that call that environment home, the Temple of the Way of Light is ensuring that the rainforest will survive and the medicinal plants that the tribes depend on will not be destroyed because of the deforestation of the rainforest.

– Michael Israel

Photo: Flickr