Native peoples have a great deal to teach us, not only on the spiritual level but also about practical issues about the environment in which they live. Native peoples have great knowledge about medicines, wild and domesticated food plants, dyes, insect repellents, resins, perfumes and other practical uses of plants. Not only do native peoples have tremendous knowledge about individual plant species, they also know the plant communities, habitats and local forest types better than scientists. In a three-month survey of Machiguenga knowledge of the forest, I was able to document some 45 different kinds of forest recognized by the

Machiguenga in the immediate area of their village. Scientists working in the Manu are currently able to distinguish just ten or twelve types of forest. By interviewing native people and studying tree plots on the ground, and by looking at satellite images, I hope to better understand Amazonian forest diversity. In this process, I hope that native people, typically looked upon as backwards and uncivilized, can be seen instead as sophisticated naturalists in their own right, able to teach us a great deal about the environment in which they live.

THE NATIVE PEOPLE OF MANU: TODAY, TOMORROW AND THE FUTURE

The native people of the Manu and surrounding regions face a number of challenges in the coming years and the coming century. As the rain forest is cut down elsewhere, lumber companies continue to move into more and more remote areas. Ironically, as native people escaped the atrocities of the rubber boom at the end of the last century, they moved into precisely those rugged, remote areas of the Andean foothills where petroleum deposits would be exploited at the end of this century.

Will the "oil boom" in the Manu region cause the same kind of disastrous consequences for native people as the "rubber boom" did? Oil companies working in native territories throughout the Amazon of Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Brazil in the 1970's and 1980's left behind a legacy of disease, social conflicts and environmental contamination that native groups are still struggling with. But native groups in the 1990's have significantly more political voice, and global environmental awareness has forced oil companies to think more carefully about the social and environmental impacts of their activities.

The Machiguenga living within Manu are somewhat more protected from petroleum exploration than those living outside the park, if nothing else than from the worldwide reputation of this "Living Eden" (though technically, Peruvian environmental law permits oil exploration even in national parks such as Manu). But just as the park protects its native people from outside interference, it also limits them in their choice of economic activities.

Tourism has been a big business in Manu since the late 1970's, but the Machiguenga have so far not been allowed to benefit from this economic option. Recently, the Machiguenga of Manu received international funding for a project of ecotourism, and they have begun constructing their own lodge for tourists at Cocha Salvador along the Manu river. Yet before they can succesfully operate such a project, they need a great deal of help and guidance to improve their level of health, literacy and education. This in turn implies significant cultural changes.

There is no doubt that the next decade and the next century will see major changes in the landscape and culture of indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon. I hope that the Machiguenga and other native groups are permitted to retain sufficient autonomy so as to adapt themselves to a changing world while at the same time maintaining a solid sense of pride about what makes them special as a people. As an anthropologist, I hope that my work in documenting and advocating these cultures will advance this goal.

Click here to read a selected bibliography on the Machiguenga, the Manu and the ethnobotany of the Amazon.

You may send the author an email message at GoNativ@aol.com