Taita Querubin Queta Alvarado
Taita Querubin Queta Alvarado is the most respected native healer in Colombia and the highest authority among the Cofán Indians of Colombia. He has served as the spiritual guide of this community for many years and created the Foundation Zio-A’I, Wisdom Union.
He has travelled extensively to share his knowledge and experience of spiritual development and medicinal plants (the Amazon’s traditional medicine) with others throughout the world. He is also a key figure in the fight for the human and intellectual property rights of his people and the indigenous peoples and caretakers of Amazonian rainforest.
As a formal representative of the indigenous people of the Amazon Rainforest, during 1997 Taita Querubin traveled to Verona, Italy to share his knowledge of Amazon Medicinal Plants at the Congress Hervora. The same year, he traveled to Seattle to participate in an International Conference on Human Rights. In 1999, he traveled to Bolivia to advise the Indigenous Aimara Communities on organizational strengthening and traveled to Nairobi to participate in the CBD meeting.
He attended the UN Meeting in Seville, Spain on Article 8-J of the Convention on Biological Diversity. He has participated in several consultation workshops in Geneva one on Health Policies organised by the World Health Organization in 1999 and was a special guest of an Expert Meeting on Traditional Knowledge UNCTAD in 2000.
He also participated in an International Conference on Peace, Human Rights, and International Humanitarian Right for Colombia in San Jose, Costa Rica. In 2001 he participated in the seminar on intellectual property rights and biological and genetic resources in Latin America in Cusco, Peru. He is the main contributor of the book presenting the Life Plan of the Cofán people.