Indigenous healers from Guyana, Suriname and Brazil form a regional traditional knowledge network

From 8 to 11 September 2026, Indigenous traditional healers and knowledge holders from Guyana, Suriname and Brazil met at the Iwokrama River Lodge, in the heart of Guyana's Iwokrama Forest, to create a regional network of traditional knowledge and healers.

The meeting was supported by the Amazon Conservation Team Guianas (ACT Guianas) and the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development. Participants agreed to build an Indigenous knowledge-sharing platform across the region, exchange good practices, strengthen the ethics and credibility of traditional healing, and advocate for Indigenous medicinal knowledge to be integrated into national health systems.

Brazil offers a reference point: its public health system (SUS) has recognised Indigenous medicinal practices since 1999, through the Indigenous Health Subsystem and complementary medicine policies. Guyana and Suriname will study this experience as part of a three-year roadmap.

The initiative shows that ancestral knowledge is not a relic of the past but living wisdom, capable of caring for people and territories and of dialoguing on equal terms with modern medicine.

Source: Demerara Waves – Guyana, Suriname, Brazil form regional traditional knowledge and healers network