ACT Colombia works with indigenous communities to integrate their traditional knowledge in environmental conservation activities, demonstrating the value of their traditional lands  in terms of both cultural and biological diversity. 

ACT’s work began from an ethnobotanical perspective.  Dr. Mark Plotkin, previously a well-known botanical researcher of the Smithsonian Institution, observed a lack of organizations that worked directly with indigenous communities toward biological conservation. 

Dr. Plotkin and his wife, the environmentalist Liliana Madrigal, were convinced that conservation was most easily achieved by working with those who best understood their native environments.  They sought to create a methodology that achieved environmental conservation in partnership with the indigenous communities.  The methodology gave birth to a non-profit organization, The Amazon Conservation Team.