News

A University of Sussex PhD candidate has travelled to Peru to record an album with an Amazonian Indigenous people to raise money and awareness to support the preservation of their globally important rainforest territory, under threat from escalating illegal mining. 

PhD candidate Ben Kelly previously spent a month living in the Amazon forest in Peru with the indigenous Wampís Nation. During his time in Peru, Kelly and the Wampís recorded traditional Nampets, ancient songs sung from the perspective of rainforest animals, as well as environmental field recordings and improvised performances. These were woven together into an album titled Los Bosquesinos (People of the Forests), which has now been released worldwide.  

100% of revenue from the album funds Wampís-led eco-initiatives, including preservation of rainforest territory, cultural education and support for the Sharian leadership school, which teaches Indigenous governance, ancestral ecological knowledge and music, arts & crafts. 

Ben is due to go back for 6 months in 2026 to undertake new extended collaborative fieldwork to co-map an “Ecomusical Cartography”– recording and GPS mapping environmental soundscapes, traditional song and ethnography, to collaboratively explore Wampís ancestral methods of conservation and their unique relationship with the non-human residents of their territory – animals, plants and spirits, who are essential to achieving ecological harmony, known in Wampís as “TarimatPujut”. 

The Wampís govern 1.3 million hectares of Amazonian rainforest, a vital ecological region under constant threat from illegal gold mining. The destructive mining process contaminates rivers with toxic methylmercury, strips biodiversity and causes severe human health impacts, including neurological damage and birth defects. 

This Ecomusical Cartography, alongside simple ecological methods(paraecology), will examine the impact of acts of ecocide such as illegal gold mining, as a way of supporting new ecological protections in the Wampís territory, such as Rights of Nature (RoN). 

This new PhD project is distinctive for embedding the Wampís as co-creators and leaders throughout the research process. 

“I studied sonic art and music previously and had no background in social sciences, however when I spoke to the University about this research project blending multiple disciplines, they were really supportive and outlined the potential impact it could have – to not only continue my ongoing creative work with the Wampís, but to place them and their needs centrally in all stages of a new co-produced research project, that could support the Wampís with new ecological protections though Sussex cross-departmental collaboration between Anthropology, Life Sciences, Law, Anthropology and Arts & Humanities. This, in combination with my music background and platform, has the potential to transcend academic privilege and raise wider global awareness of their unique eco-culture and their ongoing fight against illegal mining,vital to our global ecological wellbeing," said Ben Kelly. 

“Through this one-of-a-kind research, we hope to raise awareness and determine the ecocultural impact of acts of ecocide happening in the Amazon Rainforest, and its consequences on all human and non-human actors within it, so that we can best protect it."

This research project was funded by the South-East Doctoral Arc (SEDarc) Training partnership. This SEDarc Award PhD Doctoral project is supervised by Evan Killick from the University’s School of Global Studies, and Alice Eldridge from the School of Media, Arts & Humanities. 

The album, Los Bosquesinos, is available here.