Guyana, South America
 As part of our conservation mission, Save Your World is protecting a 200,000 acre rainforest area located in Southern Guyana. Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America and thus one of the easiest places for many visitors to vacation without having to learn a new language. At the time of the first European arrival in Guyana, in the early sixteenth century, the area was home to Amerindians, a name for the descendants of the indigenous people of Guyana, not to be confused with your typical American Indian tribes that we think of in the United States, but were named this mistakenly by Christopher Columbus as he thought he had disembarked in the East Indies.
These tribes are formed, named and classified for cultural and linguistic purposes  and according to the land areas that they inhabit. The Arawak, Warao, Carib live along the coastal areas; the interior Amerindians classified into seven tribes: Akawaio, Arekuna, Barama River Carib, Macusi, Patamona, Waiwai, and Wapisiana and the Barama River Carib, Akawaio, Arekuna, and Patamona live in river valleys in western Guyana. Two Amerindian groups live in the Rupununi Savannah region: the Macusi in the northern half and the Wapisiana in the southern half. The Wai Wai live in the far south of the country, near the headwaters of the Essequibo River.
This relatively undisturbed landscape rests on an ancient geological formation, the Guyana Shield, an area that includes all of Suriname and French Guiana and extends into western and southern Venezuela and northern Brazil. These forests are the source of 20 percent of the world’s fresh water and represent 18 percent of the world’s tropical forest carbon. They serve as a remarkable global-scale utility that benefits not just Guyanese but people all over the world.
The Government of Guyana, under the leadership of President Bharrat Jagdeo, is taking major steps to protect its natural resources. In 2002, the government granted Conservation International the world’s first "conservation concession" to protect 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares) of primary rain forest in the Upper Essequibo watershed. This is the conservation concession that Save Your World is helping to fund through your product purchases.
In 2006, Guyana's government took a further step by granting land title for 1.5 million acres (607,000 hectares) of forest to the Wai Wai indigenous community, which has lived in harmony with the land for many years. In 2007, the Wai Wai worked with the government and CI to declare their land a protected area, the Konashen Community- Owned Conservation Area. Guyana’s first community-owned protected area and the country’s largest protected area to date, Konashen conserves the headwaters of the Essequibo River, Guyana’s largest source of fresh water.
Two other protected areas have also been established: Iwokrama and Kaieteur National Park. However, Guyana remains the only country in the Western Hemisphere without a national protected area system. While the country is now drafting protected areas legislation – including the creation of new protected areas comprising more than 1.5 million acres (607,000 hectares) – wildlife poaching, legal and illegal mining, and unsustainable logging are growing threats. There is a government and community focus to continue to protect and preserve this "land of many waters" as the word Guyana means in the native Ameridian language.
Indigenous Life
 The Ameridian tribes live primarily in the interior of the country among the unspoiled, naturalistic wonderlands of the rainforest. These people have at times in the recent past, been forced to make their living by mining, farming (through clear-cutting the forest), or by working for logging companies to cut down the trees, but now they are learning a new way of life through the help of the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession to be able to preserve their natural habitat and maintain their indigenous lifestyle within their communities. As part of the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession there are community funded projects such as the community run Eco Lodge at Rewa village, which provides jobs in the form of tour guides, cooks and grounds keepers. The conservation concession also trains and employs conservation officers to ensure that the conservation concession remains pristine and there are no intruders encrouching upon these boundaries in the form of mining or deforestation. 
Macushi and Wapishani idigenous villager, also within the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession, rely upon the areas natural resources such as the river to provide transportation and even food to support their age old traditions and lifestyle. Preserving the rainforest is now also a part of their life as they learn more about the impact that maintaining this area has on the rest of the world.
Indigenous lifestyles are built on the principles of maintaining a balance between nature and man and living harmoneously off of the natural resources available to them locally. This even includes the knowledge of use of local plantlife to treat medical conditions and while fishing is a foodsource it is within a healthy balance to maintain the health of the rivers and the river species living within them. (shown right, a village boy returns home with his catch of the day to help feed the household).
Guyana is home to one of the largest, unspoiled rainforest on Earth. Learn more about how this rainforest impacts YOUR world.
References:
http://www.geographia.com/guyana/geninfo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/20guyana.htm
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