A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Wade Davis travels the globe to live alongside indigenous people, and document their cultural practices in books, photographs, and film. He's a passionate advocate for preserving what he's dubbed the "ethnosphere."
Why you should listen to him:
Anthropologist Wade Davis is perhaps the most articulate and influential western advocate for the world's indigenous cultures. His stunning photographs and evocative stories capture the viewer's imagination. As a speaker, he parlays that sense of wonder into passionate concern over the rate at which cultures and languages are disappearing -- 50 percent of the world's 6,000 languages, he says, are no longer taught to children. He argues, in the most beautiful terms, that language isn't just a collection of vocabulary and grammatical rules. In fact, "Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind."
Davis, a Harvard-educated ethnobotanist, believes humanity's greatest legacy is the "ethnosphere," the cultural counterpart to the biosphere, and "the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness." He beautifully articulates the intellectual, emotional and moral reasons why it's in everyone's best interest to preserve the world's cultures.
To this end, Davis serves on the councils of Ecotrust and other NGOs working to protect diversity. He also co-founded Cultures on the Edge, a quarterly online magazine designed to raise awareness of threatened communities. Perhaps his best-known work is The Serpent and the Rainbow, an international bestseller about zombification practices in Haiti. Wes Craven adapted the book into a 1988 film, which Davis denounced as a betrayal of the book's spirit. His latest book is The Clouded Leopard: A Book of Travels.
"His work with indigenous cultures has given him a truly unique view of the world. He is able to slip off the map for awhile, to live with the voodoo priests in Haiti, the Penan in Borneo, or the Quechuen of Chinchero."CBC-TV
Blog Posts on TED
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The worldwide web of belief and ritual: Wade Davis on TED.com – June 10, 2008
Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada Indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 19:12.)
Watch Wade Davis's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Wade Davis on TED.com.
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Wade Davis reports from the Dreamtime – September 30, 2008
Wade Davis recently spent time in the Northern Territory of Australia, working on a film with the Aboriginees on Dreamtime and the Songlines. He reports from his time there:
I must tell you of the Dreaming. Spent a month in the Northern Territory. Here's a copy of the note that I sent back in week three, from a sat phone at a waterhole 200 miles east of the road in Arnhem Land.
These are and were a people with no notion of linear time. Theirs was one of the great experiments in human thought. The notion that the world existed as a perfect whole, and that the singular duty of humanity was to maintain through ritual activity the land precisely as it existed when the Rainbow Serpent embarked on the journey of creation. The logos of the Dreaming was constancy, balance, symmetry. In the moment there is deductive logic, on a hunt for example, when the men pay attention to signs with a perspicacity that would put Sherlock Holmes to shame. But in life there is only the Dreaming, in which every thought, every plant and animal, are inextricably linked as a single impulse, the inspiration of the first dawning. Had humanity followed this track, it is true that we would have never placed a man on the moon. But we would most certainly not be speaking of our capacity to compromise the life support of the planet. I have never in all of my travels been so moved by a vision of another possibility, born literally 55,000 years ago.
This world is so amazing. The realm of the modern is just the floss. The ancient rhythms resonate in ways we can only imagine.
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UPDATED: Photo of one of the world's last "uncontacted" tribes – May 30, 2008
If you've seen Wade Davis's unforgettable 2004 TED Talk -- where he evokes the magic of the world's cultural diversity, and speaks so eloquently about the alarming rate with which cultures and languages are dying -- then you might find this photo as heart-stopping as I did.
It's so surreal, I thought at first it must be a hoax. But Reuters just picked the story up, and I'm going to assume they did my fact-checking for me. The photo shows members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, who were spotted and photographed from the air in a remote corner of the Amazon rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border.
Survival International, an advocacy group for tribal people, released the photos on their website and quotes Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, who works for the Brazilian government’s Indian affairs department: "We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist ...This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence."
"What is happening in this region is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilized' ones, treat the world," Meirelles said.
Apparently, more than 100 uncontacted tribes remain worldwide, with half living in Brazil or Peru. Extraordinary.
UPDATE: Meirelles has admitted that while the tribe is not "uncontacted" -- it's been known since 1910 -- the direct threat it faces from loggers drew him to be part of this photo. The group's rainforest home, on the border between Brazil and Peru, is under pressure from logging, and Meirelles hoped the dramatic photo would convince people in the industry to protect the tribe's habitat.
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Archive: Wade Davis' 2003 talk on TED.com – August 11, 2008
For the next week, we're presenting some of our favorite TEDTalks from among the 270+ talks and performances we've posted since June 2006. Look for brand-new TEDTalks starting August 18. Until then, enjoy these gems -- and suggest your own by writing to contact@ted.com or joining the conversation on TED.com.
With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, which are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate, in this 2003 talk. This is many viewers' favorite TEDTalk of all time -- including a TED staffer or two. As one commenter says, "I was pinned to my seat by a tour de force of new ideas, brilliantly presented and illustrated in full color." (Recorded February 2003 in Monterey, California. Duration: 22:13)
Watch Wade Davis' 2003 talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances -- including Davis' equally amazing 2008 talk.
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