Natives of the Amazon Rainforest

Natives of the Amazon Rainforest.

Tropical rainforests are home to tribal people who rely on their surroundings for food, shelter, and medicines. Today very few forest people live in traditional ways; most have been displaced by outside settlers or have been forced to give up their lifestyles by governments.

Of the remaining forest people, the Amazon supports the largest populations, though these people too, have been impacted on by the modern world. While they still rely on the forest for traditional hunting and gathering, most Amerindians, as these people are called, grow crops (like bananas, manioc, and rice), and they use western goods (like metal pots, pans, and utensils). Their knowledge of medicinal plants used for treating illness is unmatched and they have a great understanding of the ecology of the Amazon rainforest.

Europeans carried diseases that killed millions of Amerindians and within 100 years of the arrival of these outsiders, Amerindian population was reduced by 90%. Most of the surviving native people lived in the interior of the forest: either pushed there by the Europeans, or traditionally living there in smaller groups.

In the last 15 years, 243,000 square kilometres have been deforested, the equivalent of 5% of the Brazilian Amazon.