Amazon Conservation Team: Uncontacted and Isolated Tribes

Event: Uncontacted and Isolated Tribes: Protecting Indigenous Peoples Living in Voluntary Isolation

Date: October 29, 2025

Location: Amsterdam, Restaurant TBD

Includes: Dinner!

Speakers:

• Daniel Aristizábal, Regional Director, Amazon Conservation Team

Daniel Aristizabal directs the Amazon Conservation Team’s regional program to protect Indigenous peoples living in isolation and initial contact (PIACI). ACT also serves as the General Secretariat of the International Working Group for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (GTI PIACI), a coalition of 21 Indigenous organizations and NGOs across South America. In Colombia, Daniel worked closely with neighboring Indigenous communities to advance a landmark decree establishing a national protection system for peoples in isolation, ensuring that local voices were central to the process. With ACT since 2013, he holds a degree in sociology and a master’s in sustainable development and environment.

• Dr. Mark Plotkin, Co-Founder, Amazon Conservation Team

Dr. Mark J. Plotkin has led ACT and guided its vision since 1996, when he co-founded the organization with his fellow conservationist, Liliana Madrigal. He is a renowned ethnobotanist who has spent almost three decades studying traditional plant use with traditional healers of tropical America.

Across the Amazon, self-determined Indigenous communities who choose to live in isolation inhabit some of the world’s most intact tropical forests — safeguarding biodiversity and playing a vital role in nature and climate protection.

For decades, the Amazon Conservation Team has worked alongside Indigenous and local partners to secure legal protections, strengthen Indigenous leadership, and promote respectful no-contact policies across millions of hectares. Together, we are building a powerful movement that defends cultural survival while protecting the planet.

Defending the rights of Indigenous peoples living in isolation is essential not only for the future of the Amazon’s forests but also as a profound affirmation of Indigenous self-determination.

We hope you will join us for this impactful conversation and shared commitment to stand with us in advancing Indigenous rights and climate protection.

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