Wounaan Indigenous people have opposed illegal rosewood logging and centuries of exploitation with wisdom and beauty

Cut rosewood logs sit in a large pile. These logs, the exact species of which are unknown, are in Madagascar, one of the hot spots of global rosewood trade. Maky via Wikimedia Commons

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For millennia, the Wounaan people, who live in parts of what is now Panama and Colombia, have hewn and sculpted various woods. Cocobolo rosewood, Dalbergia retusa, is particularly favored for carving ceremonial staffs used in traditional medicine and commercial art depicting tropical plants and animals.