Social and technological development has had a negative impact on the indigenous populations of the Amazon rainforest. Challenges such as population growth, climate change and global warming, market and trade integration, deforestation, the price of development and the resurgence of protectionists pose social and ecological threats to Amazonian life and culture. Their ability to resist these changes requires cooperation, organization, adaptation and ultimately conformation. Before the exponential increase in the Amazonian indigenous population, a regime of common property existed. The Huaorani are a group of native Ecuadorian Amazonians who live and enjoy all that the rainforest has to offer. Their home in the Amazon provided them with all the necessities of life. They had a common property regime which was "not an every man for himself system but a structured property agreement within which management rules are developed, the size of the group is known and enforced, incentives exist for the co-owners follow accepted institutional arrangements and sanctions operate. to ensure compliance” (Bromley and Cernea, 1989: iii). Everything in the rainforest, plants, animals and resources, is common property within their group. Due to their small population size, social boundaries were easy to establish and respect, but due to the dramatic increase in the Huaorani population, their regime of common property slowly faded, as "the freedom of to reproduce will bring ruin to all” (Hardin 1968: 1245). . The Prisoner's Dilemma describes a psychological problem that demonstrates how two people can drive themselves to their own destruction out of self-interest, even though success can be achieved if they work together. There is no incentive for people who help create a public middle of paper......surrounding areas similar to the functions of a dam, but with less damage to the environment and indigenous inhabitants. Ultimately, climate change and global warming must be addressed first. There is no point in helping indigenous groups if the rainforest risks destroying itself in the next hundred years. There is little we can do other than educate ourselves and others and take action on issues related to the physical and chemical environment to stop climate change and global warming. Amazon rainforest. Works Cited “Climate Change in the Amazon”. WWF. World Wildlife Federation, nd Web. March 16, 2011. “The greenhouse effect”. United States Environmental Protection Agency, October 23, 2006. Web. March 16 2011. .