The green blanket of rain forest seemed never ending until our small, fiveperson airplane landed in the middle of nowhere, a place full of stilted wooden huts, covered with thatch leaves, playfully situated. The place was called Kwamalasamutu, an indigenous village named after the many bamboo bushes and sandy heaps near an elegantly flowing river. It was my first time so deep in the Amazon rain forest. My mission was to prepare medicines from forest plants together with the nature- dependent group of indigenous peoples called the Trio. After learning a few words of the local language, discussions about my sustainable development project started— with goals, activities, outcomes and indicators. When I explained that they had to collect plants from the forest and cook them into a bottled end product, the Trios were sitting around me, listening attentively and nodding their heads without saying too much.

Trading bottles of herbal medicine to markets outside the village suggested that the Trios could enjoy a steady income, which would also provide precious jobs for the next generation of Trios. A few weeks after my initial explanation about the project, I noticed the Trios hesitating to collect any medicinal plants. I tried to explain the goal and activities once more in my attempt to be clearer than before in my communication with them. Untiringly I kept explaining without receiving a positive response, until I realized there was a discrepancy between my view of sustainability and that of the Trios. And then it struck me: what was I going to teach these people about sustainability in their own journey? The truth was that I could only learn from them.

The Trios have been living in the Amazonian rain forest for an estimated period of 4,900 years. Generations of Trios have been known for their ingenuity in adaptation to and caretaking of their surrounding environment. Resource strategies have always been developed out of past experiences. Failure dictates which strategies these indigenous peoples will choose going forward. Their most important goal is to transfer the useful knowledge to future generations so they can nourish and sustain the forest that supplies their livelihood. Only trading herbal medicines does not fit within this Trio goal.