Living Documents

Transcription

Living Documents

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Living Documents
WWF
DGIS-TMF Programme
Turning Turtles
Reconciling Conservation and Development in
the Pastaza Basin
• Quarrels about a waterfall
• How the Kandozi conquer
the market
• Oil, the black poison
• Turtle-eggs behind
a fence
• A new toy:
hydro-electricity
Running from the high peaks of the Andes in Ecuador to the steamy Amazon lowlands
of Peru, the Pastaza River connects different peoples and stories. Mestizos try to make a
living by luring tourists to the waterfalls in the upper part of the basin.The indigenous
Kandozi, living in isolated communities, try to connect to the market and stop
overfishing in the lower part.Will the Pastaza programme connect these people? And
will it connect development and conservation?
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LIVING DOCUMENTS WWF DGIS-TMF Programme
An ambitious effort
At the end of 2004, World Watch magazine published an
alarming article* on the relationship between big
conservationist NGOs and indigenous peoples. After
years of executing programmes in and around protected
areas, the organisations would run out of patience with
the indigenous peoples because of their unwillingness to
cooperate and their indifference towards biodiversity.
different agendas. Indigenous peoples are basically
preoccupied with the need to protect and legalise
their lands for their own use, while NGOs want to
establish protected areas that are off-limits to people.
If they include indigenous peoples in their plans, they
tend to see them more ‘as a possible means to an end
rather than as ends in themselves’.
The programme described here directly addresses
this tension. People involved in the programme even
get a little irritated when confronted with this
criticism. ‘It is totally false to say that development
and conservation cannot be combined,’ Fred Prins of
WWF Peru says. ‘What we are doing at the moment
in the Pastaza region, is a fine blend of the two.’
Few attempts to reconcile development and
conservation were so ambitious as the Pastaza
programme. It is a (long-term) programme instead of
a (short-term) project. Comprising a
river basin, it exceeds communal and
even national boundaries. Its goals are
set not only on a local or regional, but
also on a national and international
level. And the programme is not
executed in a national park, but in an
area full of communities and economic
activities.
Of course, the tensions will not
disappear at once. The Kandozi in Peru
still tend to catch too many fish and
turtles in Lake Rimachi. And there is no
immediate solution to the fact that only
a few people make a profit from the
popular waterfall Pailón del Diablo in
Ecuador.
But at least there is a dialogue going
on between the NGOs involved and the
communities.
The Pastaza programme is an
experiment that deserves close
observation. If it works out well, it can
help to create the common agenda that
is needed for NGOs and indigenous
peoples who want to bring sustainable
development into practice. If it doesn’t
work, World Watch will have new
ammunition for a critical article on the
relationship between conservationist
NGOs and indigenous peoples.
▲
* A challenge to conservationists, by
Mac Chapin. World Watch magazine
November/December 2004.
t’s better to go on without them,’ would become
the predominant attitude, according to the
magazine. The article described a tension recognised
by everybody who is familiar with conservationist
activities in and around protected areas. The main
problem, according to the magazine, is that
indigenous peoples and conservationist NGOs have
‘I
Breeding
turtles in
Charapacocha
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RECONCILING CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PASTAZANA BASIN
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Kandozi community Charapacocha
The Kandozi go to market
The Kandozi are an indigenous people in the Peruvian
Pastaza region. In the past they chose to live in voluntary
isolation, later, they clashed with the racially mixed
mestizos. Now they are about to make a serious entry into
the mestizo markets.
Beneath us looms the small jungle town of San
Lorenzo, a mixture of traditional pile-dwellings and
brick houses. Here begins our journey into a world
without roads, tourists, electricity or waterworks,
inhabited by people living in voluntary isolation.
After a hot night, captain Mauro takes us in his
deslizador, a fast aluminium boat, to the Pastaza. For
six hours, we bounce over rapids and whirlpools,
carefully avoiding trunks and sandbanks. Sometimes
we pass a peke-peke (wooden boats named after the
strident sound of their almost horizontally mounted
outboard motors) or a community.
hrough slight drizzle, our little Cessna aircraft
offers us a majestic view of the river Marañon, a
tributary of the Amazon. In the distance, we can see a
smaller river, flowing northward, deep into the
jungle. It is the Pastaza, our destination.
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objected, but guards from the Ministry of
Agriculture, who were based in Musa Karushi,
protected the mestizos. Officially their job was to
regulate fishing on the lake in order to prevent stocks
from being exhausted.
However, the guards themselves were also taking
many fish from the lake. The situation came to a head
in a dramatic confrontation in August 1991, when a
large group of Kandozi kicked out the guards.
But this did not resolve all the problems.
Traditionally, the Kandozi used fishing rods, spears
and barbasco, a vegetable poison that is thrown into
the water to stupefy the fish. They had noticed that by
using nets the mestizos made bigger catches, so they
too began to use nets. They also started to take over
the regulatory role of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Every mestizo who went fishing on Lake Rimachi,
had to pay a fee in Musa Karushi. This led to quarrels
among the Kandozi. The families living in Musa
Karushi kept the fees for themselves instead of
sharing the money with the other families, creating
jealousy and discontent.
Then we arrive at Musa Karushi, a small
indigenous community, consisting of a dozen of piledwellings, situated high on the riverbank. Like a
stronghold, Musa Karushi overlooks Lago Rimachi,
the biggest lake of the Amazon region. The area
resembles a large delta, with narrow passages, river
branches and islands everywhere. Geographers call
this kind of landscape a flooded forest. Its
appearance changes according to the seasons. In the
dry season, the water level drops and the land
becomes dry, in the rainy season the lake and the
rivers inundate the riverbanks and islands. It then acts
as a delivery room for a variety of fish species. There
is a vivid water-world here, with caimen, turtles and
manatees (sea cows). Many of the hundreds of bird
and fish species in the region are endemic.
This is the territory of the Kandozi, a little known
indigenous fisher folk. An estimated 3000 Kandozi more than half of their total number - inhabit 27
communities in the Pastaza region. Although they
started wearing western clothes some years ago, for
the most part the Kandozi have maintained their
traditional way of life, and have hardly mingled with
mestizos or other peoples.
Over recent decades, things started to change for
the Kandozi. Mestizos from San Lorenzo and Iquitos
started fishing on Lake Rimachi. The Kandozi
TURNING TURTLES
Establishing a Ramsar site
This was the situation that WWF Peru encountered
when it began its activities in the Pastaza region in
2001. WWF had to start from scratch: no other
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Weighing the
catch of this
morning
conservation NGO had ever entered the region.
It was very hard to gain the confidence of the
Kandozi, recalls Mariana Montoya, who is in charge
of the freshwater programme at WWF Peru. In fact it
would probably have been impossible without the
contacts of Lily de la Torre, a Peruvian lawyer who
assists indigenous peoples in their legal struggles
through her organisation Racimos de Ungurahui.
The first thing to do was to decide on the status of
the area. WWF itself wanted it to be legally
protected, but the indigenous peoples living in the
region were divided on the issue. The Achuar simply
resisted, the Quechua wanted to collaborate under
the condition that their territory would be extended,
and the Kandozi first wanted to know more about it.
The basic question for the Kandozi was: can we keep
on fishing? Peruvian law prohibits or restricts almost
all economic activities in national parks and other
protected areas. But doing nothing would also bring
problems for the indigenous peoples, as unprotected
areas are open to exploitation by oil companies and
other entities that threaten the indigenous way of life.
After lengthy consultation it was decided to
compromise on applying for Ramsar status.
‘Ramsar’, named after the Iranian town where it was
signed, is a 34 years old intergovernmental treaty,
aiming at the conservation and wise use of wetlands.
TURNING TURTLES
It protects against oil drilling while allowing smallscale economic activities. However, it has one big
weakness: Ramsar does not set out any rules, it
provides only guidelines.
WWF convinced the Kandozi that they had to
regulate their own fishing activities to protect their
future interests. Because of the use of nets by the
Kandozi, and the continuing presence of mestizo
fishermen, the pressure on the fish stock remained
high. This resulted in the decision to abandon fishing
during the rainy season in order to permit the fish to
breed and grow. There is even a total ban on fishing
the popular paiche (the biggest freshwater fish in the
world) until its stock recovers. The Kandozi also
decided to use nets with wider meshes, to prevent
immature fish from being caught. A final measure
was to regulate all the catches.
Although all these measures were adopted
voluntarily, there was a big and effective stick
involved: the ministry would return to Lake Rimachi
if the parties didn’t solve the problem of over-fishing
themselves. That is why the Kandozi agreed, after
long and arduous debate. They even accepted
technical assistance from the ministry. Time heals all
wounds, it seems.
Complicated relations
A fishing committee and several committees of
vigilance, established by the Kandozi themselves,
now monitor the agreements. One of their
responsibilities is to ensure that the mestizos stay out
of their zone. However, the Kandozi with their
paddles and excavated tree-trunk boats have no
chance against the outboard motors and larger boats
of the mestizos. ‘There are fewer mestizos coming in
than before, but they still try to,’ says Ihuaqui
Tanchima, the president of the fishing committee.
‘We use words and patience to persuade them. If we
don’t succeed, we can confiscate their fishing tackle.
But we have only had to do that once.’
Another important task of the committee is to
educate and assist the families involved. Depending
on their size, every family is allowed to catch a
certain amount of fish annually. That is why the catch
is recorded. When somebody isn’t able to do the
administration himself, the committee comes in to
offer its services.
The committee also checks whether the
communities comply with the self-imposed regime.
The problem is, Tanchima says, that by the time you
know somebody has caught a paiche, it is already too
late; it is no use throwing dead fish back into the
water.
The committee doesn’t impose any penalties. ‘We
just talk with them to persuade them’, Tanchima
says. ‘Only if it happens again, we report it to the
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Kandozi federation. They will then warn the apu of
the community involved. This proves effective most
of the time.’
The relation between the Kandozi and the
mestizos is a complicated one. The Kandozi depend
heavily on the mestizos, because the latter provide
them with salt. There is no electricity in this region,
so there are no refrigerators. Salting the fish is the
only way to prevent it from decaying, and to be sure
of having stock all the year round. The money to buy
the salt comes from selling fish to the mestizos.
But the mestizos that go to Lake Rimachi use (or
abuse, according to the Kandozi) their monopolistic
position. They pay under the market price for the
fish. At the same time, they overprice their salt.
Normally, a sack costs about 5 or 6 soles, but on Lake
Rimachi the mestizos charge 20 soles. All this
stimulates over-fishing, because the Kandozi thus
need a bigger catch to buy salt and equipment.
The Kandozi are very much aware of this
disadvantageous situation, but up till now they have
not been able to change it. ‘We have no boat to go to
San Lorenzo’, Venancio Okama Simon, the apu
(chief) of Puerto Belen declares. ‘And they take
advantage of it.’
The Kandozi’s boats made of excavated treetrunks without motors are perfect for fishing, but
wouldn’t make the trip to San Lorenzo, even less
with a load of fish. So the dream of the Kandozi is to
have a big communal boat with a motor, to be able to
sell fish and buy salt in San Lorenzo at market prices.
Prices would be better in that case, and the Kandozi
would become less dependent on the mestizos
visiting Lake Rimachi.
people and fuel as well. So I think we need a boat of
at least 60 to 80 tonnes.’
Hernan Flores, who represents WWF in the
Pastaza region, thinks Zundi Simon is
overestimating. ‘You have seen with your own eyes
that they catch at best 300 kilos per island,’ he says.
‘There are about ten islands, so there is no way that
the catch reaches 10,000 kilos a night. And with a
boat that is too big, you spend too much money on
fuel and maintenance.’
The second reason to aspire to a bigger boat,
according to Montoya as well as Flores, is status. ‘An
Achuar group in the region received a boat of 120
tonnes from another NGO,’ Flores says. ‘The
Kandozi are simply jealous.’
Another point of debate between the Kandozi and
WWF is under what conditions the boat would be
handed over. The Achuar got their boat for free, but
WWF is not willing to follow this example. ‘We
don’t give presents,’ Montoya says. ‘From the outset,
we try to avoid any form of aid addiction.’
Probably, the size issue and the conditions under
which the boat will be handed over, will be solved.
The Kandozi know perfectly well that a small boat is
better than no boat. But then the real debate begins.
The boat will firmly link the still partly self-sufficient
Kandozi to the market. More money will flow into
their pockets. This will undoubtedly change their
way of living. How are they going to cope with this?
‘We are debating that now,’ says Zundi Simon
Kamarampe of Corpi. ‘Look, we don’t want to
depend on gifts. That is paternalistic. It forces you to
keep on asking, asking, asking. We must use our
income to be independent in the long term. That
means educating our youngsters, among other
things.’
The Kandozi’s idea is that the fishing committee
will administer their income. Part of it will be
assigned to the families, according to the quantity of
fish they have caught. Another part will be reserved
for the fuel and the maintenance of the boat. What’s
left can be spent on the long-term goals mentioned by
Zundi Simon. One of the plans is to send bilingual
teachers to the villages. But... isn’t that replacing the
role of the state? Hernan Flores laughs. ‘You can’t
replace something that isn’t there.’
Does Flores think the Kandozi are prepared for
this new step towards western society, and that they
will benefit from it? ‘Many times, it didn’t turn out
well when indigenous people entered the market,’ he
admits. ‘You have to be educated for it. The Kandozi
are learning about the administrative and commercial
aspects now. But there is always a risk that they will
enter the wrong markets.’
Indigenous jealousies
During our stay in the Peruvian Pastaza region, it
seemed as though the communal boat was the only
topic the Kandozi could think and talk about.
Everybody had their own opinion, and almost
everyone wished it bigger: 50 tonnes, 100 tonnes,
even 500 tonnes was mentioned, although most
people had a 120 ton version in mind.
‘In fact, according to a specialised consultant, 12
tonnes is enough,’ says Mariana Montoya of WWF
Peru. Why do the Kandozi want so much more then?
Montoya has two explanations. The first one is
miscalculation. ‘They still don’t know exactly how
much fish they are catching.’ This is denied by the
Kandozi. ‘On average, some 1000 Kandozi are
fishing every night’, Zundi Simon Kamarampe says.
He is the coordinator of the programmes run by
Corpi, the powerful regional body of indigenous
peoples. ‘Each person catches about 10 kilos of fish,’
Zundi Simon continues. ‘So we are talking about
some 10,000 kilos per night. And you have to carry
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Breeding turtles
Sweating under the burning sun, with the aid of wooden poles, we push our boat forward through the
dense reed. Our outboard motor is useless here, in the backwaters of Lake Rimachi. After half an
hour’s toil, we arrive at the lovely little community of Charapacocha. It consists of a beach with some
boats, and a pile-dwelling, home to a single extended family.
The apu of Charapacocha, Oruzpa Hernando Cepina, leads us to an artificial beach that has been
recently constructed. After some digging, he proudly presents us with an egg of the tarikaya, a turtle
specie.
Together with the paiche, the tarikayas and their eggs are among the favourite foods of the Kandozi.
They like them so much, that they eat too many of them. Consequently, to prevent the tarikaya from
becoming extinct, and ensuring the Kandozi can continue to enjoy their delicacy, WWF Peru has set
up a tarikaya breeding project. It is also meant as a (commercial) alternative to fishing.
With the help of Augustin Sanchez, a WWF assistant, the Kandozi have made artificial beaches in five
villages. Each beach is a heap of sand, some 50 centimetres high, covering between 10 and 15
square metres, surrounded by a fence to protect the eggs from predators. Each beach contains
between 50 and 80 nests with about 30 eggs each. The eggs are collected on the river banks, where
they are less likely to survive, because of the many lovers of tarikaya eggs among the local fauna.
The Kandozi are used to eating a lot of eggs, up to 12 kilos per family in a year. If the project
succeeds, they will be able to keep on doing so, under the condition that they leave the first 30 nests in
peace. The tarikayas from these nests will be released. The rest are for the own use of the Kandozi.
They can eat them, or they can sell the eggs, which can could prove attractive as the mestizos pay up
to 10 soles a kilo for them.
‘We hadn’t thought of breeding tarikayas ourselves,’ apu Oruzpa Hernando Cepina declares.‘We are
very happy with this project, especially for our children, because it ensures them a better future.’
Alberto Pisango Chota, the general coordinator of Corpi, is also satisfied.‘The tarikaya project proves
that economic development and conservation can go hand in hand,’ he says.
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The liberation of a manatee
‘But to whom are you going to sell them?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
Flores asks the man to release them, supporting his
plea with a biological argument: the animals are too
young and small to sell them. In fact, catching
manatees is prohibited under the Peruvian law, but
legal arguments are not always the most effective in
the heart of Amazonia, where policemen and judges
are as scarce as polar bears.
The man is clearly not convinced, but doesn’t
resist either. It gives Jacqueline Becker,
communications officer of WWF Peru, the chance to
fulfil a role she has dreamt of since she was a small
child: the one of animal liberator. Carefully she
unties the manatees. One has a wound on its tail.
Strangely enough, the animals stay close to the island
for a while, as if they can’t believe what just
happened. Then they disappear.
Apparently moved by a sense of guilt, Becker
suggests to Flores that they compensate the Kandozi.
Flores hesitates, but then resists. ‘No, that doesn’t
seem a good idea to me.’ It must be made clear to the
Kandozi that the WWF doesn’t reward bad
behaviour.
▲
The manatee (a river sea-cow) is a protected animal, so
catching it is an offence. But when you have run out of salt
and money, it is tempting to sell one. How to solve this
problem?
he island to which we are heading resembles the
site of a rock festival, with colourful tents, fires,
people and music everywhere. Earlier this morning,
the men went out fishing, and now they are filleting
the fish in their boats. Later the women will salt the
fish on the island.
Once we have arrived, two wooden poles catch our
attention. They have been stuck into the ground, with
ropes leading to the lake. In the water, we distinguish
the contours of two big animals with dark grey skins.
‘Manatees,’ says Hernán Flores of WWF Peru. He
jumps on shore and starts debating earnestly with one
of the men from the community of Domingo Coche
that have settled here temporarily for fishing.
‘Why have you caught these manatees?’, Flores
Jacqueline
Becker of WWF asks.
Peru acting
‘We ran out of salt, so we could not go on fishing.
as animal
If we sell these manatees, we are able to buy extra
liberator
salt,’ the man answers.
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The programme
Reconciling development and conservation
isn’t easy. But doing it in a region that until
recently was heavily disputed between
Ecuador and Peru, and now forms a
battlefield for oil companies and indigenous
peoples, could be called a challenge. And
when you know that the challenge is to be
met by a small staff disposing of limited
funds which has to reach not only local but
also national and international goals, it
seems appropriate to speak of courage.
Its main executors are WWF Peru and Fundación
Natura, Ecuador’s largest environmental NGO. But
there are other parties involved as well, like
EcoCiencia and biologists from the University of
Kent. The programme is financially supported by
WWF Switzerland, DGIS (Dutch development
cooperation) and the MacArthur Foundation.
An important strategy of the programme is to build
partnerships. Fundación Natura for example signed
an agreement with EcoCiencia and the municipality
of Baños at the beginning of 2005, aiming at
environmental cooperation. WWF Peru has contracts
with Corpi, a regional body of indigenous peoples.
Corpi is paid to deliver ‘products’ like establishing a
committee that regulates fishing activities on Lake
Rimachi.
A difficulty is the cultural gap between
programme staff (all mestizos) and the indigenous
peoples. Many of the Kandozi, Quechua and Shuar
speak no Spanish and have had few - or bad experiences with mestizos. But also between and
even within the indigenous communities there are
slumbering tensions and conflicts. This results in
much misinformation and rumour, which sometimes
frustrates the execution of the programme.
he programme Poverty reduction through
improved natural resources management in the
Pastaza river basin runs from 2004 to 2007. It aims at
• empowering local communities, giving them
control over natural resources and access to
markets
• balancing ecological, economic and social needs
• creating integrated river basin and watershed
management and mainstreaming it in national
development strategies and international
processes.
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By trying to establish a river basin committee with
indigenous participation, and training local people to
act as monitors, WWF Peru and Fundación Natura
are trying to tackle this problem. Another instrument
to promote sustainable development and prevent the
basin from harmful activities is the elaboration of
integrated management plans, in partnership with
other public and private organisations.
▲
A problem that relates to the former, is the
vastness and impenetrability of the region.
Fundación Natura operates two field workers (and a
volunteer), and WWF Peru just one - they have to
cover approximately 40,000 square kilometres of
tropical rainforest! Consequently, at the start of the
programme, there were still large white spots on the
map, like the Amazon region in Ecuador.
The Sangay Llanganates-corridor in Ecuador is rich in orchids
The Pastaza river basin
he Pastaza river is 500 kilometres long and runs
from the Chimborazo volcano (at 6310 metres
above sea level in the Ecuadorian Andes) to the
Marañon river (at 180 metres in the Peruvian
Amazon region). Its catchment area is 40,000 square
kilometres, most of it tropical rainforest with
indigenous community settlements. The population
consists mainly of Achuar (65 communities, 13,000
inhabitants), Quechua (18 communities, 6000
inhabitants) and Kandozi (27 communities, 3000
inhabitants). There are smaller groups of Cocama,
Comillas and Urarinas. They depend basically on
fishing, hunting and gathering. The major threat to
their way of life comes from oil companies.
The river basin is very rich in biodiversity. Best
documented is the Abanico del Pastaza Ramsar site, a
protected area of 3.8 million hectares in the Peruvian
Loreto department. This wetlands complex is of
tremendous conservation value. The Pastaza carries
volcanic ash from the Andean highlands and deposits
it in seasonally flooded forests and swamps, thus
creating the largest fan shaped alluvial system with
tropical moist forest vegetation in the world. The
Ramsar site is relatively well conserved and is the
home of rare species like the razor-billed curassow
(mitu tuberosa). It also lodges 45 palm species, 292
fish species, 265 bird species, 66 mammal species,
57 amphibian species and 38 reptile species.
In Ecuador, the Pastaza runs through the
ecological corridor that links Sangay National Park
with Llanganates National Park. The corridor is also
of great (scientific) value. It hosts, among other
things, 190 endemic plant species; more than are
found on the Galápagos Islands. The influence area
of the corridor is highly diverse in mammals, with a
total of 101 species, among them many bats.
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The Pastaza basin’s
Name: Marecera Kamarande Okama
(35)
Occupation: housewife, mother of 11
children
Living in: Puerto Belén
Country: Peru
What do you consider the biggest
problem of your region?
‘The lack of wood for the construction
of houses.’
How can it be solved?
‘By growing palm trees. We need seed,
but we have no money to buy it. I tried
to grow cedars, but they were eaten by
Name: Juan Alban Ramirez (66)
Occupation: hamlet president
Living in: Viscaya
Country: Ecuador
What do you consider the biggest problem of
your region?
‘The poor water quality.’
‘By examining the water. And by pumping
clean water from the river Valencia. But we
need equipment for that, and money.’
What do you expect from Fundación Natura?
‘That they support us in developing economic
activities like tourism. But it should be
sustainable, to serve us in the future as well.’
Name: Oruzpa Hernando Cepina (50)
Occupation: apu (chief)
Living in: Charapacocha
Country: Peru
What do you consider the biggest problem of your
region?
‘Hepatitis. It has spread all over the region. Last
year there were 25 cases, one of them in my
community.’
‘The medical post can vaccinate the people. Our
medicine-man uses herbs, but these only take
away the symptoms.’
What do you expect from WWF Peru?
‘That they will buy us a peke peke (boat with
outboard motor) to transport the fish we catch.’
Do you expect anything from people in Ecuador?
‘We don’t have problems with the Ecuadorians,
they live far away from here.’
What is your dream?
‘That we’ll have clean water.’
What are you going to do to realize this?
‘There should be more coordination between our
people, the Kandozi. We have to speak with one
mouth.’
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Do you expect anything from people
in Peru?
‘It is far away from here. The only
Peruvians I know are merchants who
come to sell things to us that are
cheaper over there.’
What is your dream?
‘To have a higher income from
tourism. A guest-house would be a
great help.’
‘Help to construct a road to the nearby
lagoon. We are willing to do the first
part, the digging, but we expect the
municipality to do the rest.’
Name: Balbina Sundi (30)
Occupation: housewife
Living in: San Lorenzo
Country: Peru
‘Hepatitis. In the last few years two of
my sisters died from it and now my
brother suffers from it.’
‘Herbs don’t work, so we need
medicines. But there are not enough of
them.’
‘They should collaborate with Corpi
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Pagina 13
astaza basin’s people
blem of
mping
ut we
Natura?
conomic
e
s well.’
Name: Marecera Kamarande Okama
(35)
Occupation: housewife, mother of 11
children
Living in: Puerto Belén
Country: Peru
‘The lack of wood for the construction
of houses.’
‘By growing palm trees. We need seed,
but we have no money to buy it. I tried
to grow cedars, but they were eaten by
worms.’
‘We need a boat to go fishing, but they don’t
keep their promises. There is also a lack of
salt. And we need to learn Spanish.’
Do you expect anything from people in
Ecuador?
(Laughing) ‘They live very far from here and
they speak Quechua, how should we
understand them?’
What is your dream?
(Laughing) ‘To have more children.’
Do you expect anything from people
in Peru?
‘It is far away from here. The only
Peruvians I know are merchants who
come to sell things to us that are
cheaper over there.’
What is your dream?
‘To have a higher income from
tourism. A guest-house would be a
great help.’
‘Help to construct a road to the nearby
lagoon. We are willing to do the first
part, the digging, but we expect the
municipality to do the rest.’
Name: Balbina Sundi (30)
Occupation: housewife
Living in: San Lorenzo
Country: Peru
‘Hepatitis. In the last few years two of
my sisters died from it and now my
brother suffers from it.’
‘Herbs don’t work, so we need
medicines. But there are not enough of
them.’
‘They should collaborate with Corpi
Name:
Paul Malo (36)
Occupation: manager of ecological estate ‘The
other side’
Living in: Baños
Country: Ecuador
What do you consider the biggest problem of your
region?
‘The deforestation and the construction of roads.’
‘By providing economic alternatives to the
people, like sustainable forestry or ecotourism.
When you make a living out of the forest, you
won’t destroy it.’
What do you expect from Fundación Natura?
‘That they supply us with a network of radios, to
be able to warn each other in case of invasions or
a fire.’
Do you expect anything from people in Peru?
‘An exchange of information. There are Shuar,
Achuar and Quechua living over there, just like in
Ecuador. They could exchange ancestral data, for
example.’
What is your dream?
‘Earning money while protecting biodiversity. I
am now eating up my savings. My opinion is that
people who protect the nature deserve a salary,
just like guards of national parks or researchers.’
‘I have constructed cottages on my estate, and we
are growing vegetables to serve to our guests.’
(the regional body of indigenous peoples).
If they don’t, they will fail to discover the
local needs.’
Do you expect anything from people in
Ecuador?
‘I don’t know any Ecuadorians, and I don’t
know if contacts with them would benefit
us.’
What is your dream?
‘A big meeting where everybody can say
what he needs.’
‘Help to prepare it. A secretary of Corpi is
teaching me how to do that.’
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Quarrels about a waterfall
Water, in the form of a spectacular waterfall
that attracts thousands of tourists, can make
you a living. But what if a person owning the
land in front of this waterfall exploits the
beautiful view on his own?
The waterfall we are admiring is the Pailón del
Diablo, or devil’s cauldron. The name is related to
the form of the pool as well as to the rock-faces along
the sides, which are believed to resemble a devil’s
face.
A swindler
As natural and unspoiled as it may seem, the
waterfall has nevertheless become the focal point of
envy, squabbles and anger in nearby La Delicia. This
hamlet belongs to Rio Verde, a parish of the Andean
town of Baños. Tourism is the primary source of
income here. And the Pailón del Diablo is
undoubtedly one of the main attractions of Baños and
its surroundings. It is the most spectacular of the
dozens of waterfalls that can be found here. On
holidays hundreds of tourists form queues up to the
viewpoint, causing serious congestion on the
footpath.
The question that divides the parties involved is:
can a waterfall be exploited as if it were a private
enterprise? On the property issue, Ecuadorian law is
crystal clear. Waterfalls belong to the state. But the
elcome to the eighth wonder of the world’,
reads the sign above the entrance of the
restaurant. We have just descended a steep rock-path,
preceded by a warning that we were about to enter a
‘private ecological area’. In the distance, the noise of
the waterfall is already noticeable.
Before we can see our wonder of the world in the
heart of Ecuador, we are urged to pay 50 cents to a
boy guarding a chain that closes an upward leading
path. A few minutes later we arrive on a platform
carved out of the rocks. The scenery unfolding itself
in front of us is impressive. Coming from a height of
about 60 meters, the Rio Verde plunges
perpendicular into a small pool surrounded by steep
rock-faces. A roaring thunder and a vaporous haze
add to the spectacle.
‘W
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Don Coco, who
wants the
community to
benefit more
from the
waterfall
Shelter
Don Coco’s complaint is that the money Wilo gains
with the waterfall is not being invested in the
community. The conflict rose to such a degree, that
Don Coco, together with some other inhabitants of La
Delicia, tried to expropriate Wilo - without success.
Don Coco grabs a drawing from a shelf in his
shop. ‘Draft for a shelter giving access to the Pailón
del Diablo’, it reads. It was issued by the
municipality of Baños in September 2004. The
drawing includes a ticket shop, a viewpoint and
public toilets. ‘This is a good plan’, Don Coco
declares. ‘The municipality should levy an entrance
fee and invest part of it in the community. But we
have not heard anything about it anymore.’
There is one little problem with the plan, and Don
Coco knows it: the shelter is projected at the
beginning of the footpath leading to the Pailón del
Diablo. Tourists wanting to see the waterfall from
nearby, will face two ticket-shops in the future: the
one of the municipality and Wilo’s.
But still further raids on the tourist’s purse are
being undertaken. Walking from Don Coco’s place
towards the waterfall, a sign catches the attention.
‘Pailón del Diablo’, it reads, although the waterfall is
still quite far from here. A path leads us to a beautiful
garden overlooking the Rio Verde and its rapids. Jens
Wüller, a German who settled down here eight years
ago, receives us while instructing some workmen
who are doing up the garden. He looks tired. ‘I’m fed
up with all the tourists, some days there are hundreds
of them coming in’, he says. ‘So I’m going to move
to a quieter place. I’m selling my property to a
Canadian guy. I heard him saying that he wants to
charge an entrance fee of two dollars.’
That would be the third ticket office in La Delicia.
One tends to become a little philosophical: how
many ticket offices can a waterfall stand before it
runs dry?
Time to eat, we decide. While we are having our
lunch in the open air, suddenly a jeep stops in front of
the restaurant. Antonio Cadena, environment director
of the Baños municipality, jumps out. ‘Yesterday
some congressmen visited Baños’, he tells us visibly
excited. ‘They told us that between 200,000 and
300,000 dollars are available for the development of
ecotourism in Baños. We immediately discussed it,
and decided to build the shelter with that money,
together with improving the footpath to the waterfall.
We also want to construct an elevator for elderly
people and to install public toilets at the foot of the
path. If we use only local materials, no nails for
example, and contract local guides, I am sure this plan
complies with the official definition of ecotourism.’
As quickly as he arrived, Cadena leaves again.
Considering ourselves as part of a living story by
law stays silent on the rights of owners of land lying
close to a waterfall. So the owner of the restaurant
and the nearby viewpoint, Wilfrido Guevara, locally
known as Wilo, never got into legal trouble when he
decided to start collecting an entrance-fee.
In fact, nobody disputes the fact that tourists have
to pay to see the Pailón del Diablo. The real debate is
not on whether the waterfall should be exploited, but
on who should exploit it. Wilo? Wilo together with
the community? The community? The municipality?
The municipality together with Wilo? And this
debate refers only to the spot we just visited, right in
front of the Pailón del Diablo. Other inhabitants of
La Delicia, with properties overlooking the river, are
considering the exploitation of their views as well, as
we discover later.
To understand a bit better whose interests are
exactly at stake, we take a little stroll through La
Delicia, a humble hamlet that is literally divided by
the Rio Verde. First, we meet Don Coco. He owns a
small shop in front of the public garden, where
cigarettes and canned beans are being sold, among
other things. ‘When I was a child, there were already
tourists coming in, although they were very few
those days’, Don Coco says, while his wife serves us
a cup of coffee at the only table in the shop.’The
waterfall was called “the hidden treasure” then.’
Wilo bought the land next to the waterfall, which
belonged to his in-laws, in 1997. After improving the
footpath and constructing the viewpoint, he started
asking money from the tourists. A well-maintained
tourist attraction - shouldn’t that benefit everybody in
La Delicia? ‘Wilo’s title is false and he doesn’t pay
taxes’, grumbles Don Coco. ‘He is a swindler! And
he steals money from the community!’
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Pailón del
Diablo, seen
from Wilo´s
platform
12:00
Pagina 16
now, we walk to the parking lot where the path to the
waterfall begins. It is here that the municipality has
planned to build the shelter. Amador Ramos, owner
of the parking lot, is busy with the enlargement of his
restaurant, so he greets us with his wrist instead of
his dusty hand. What does he think of the project? ‘I
agree. The whole community should benefit from the
waterfall. The money that comes from it, should be
dedicated to the improvement of ecological footpaths
and to social goals. Last week, a man died in La
Delicia, and his family could not afford a funeral.
There should be a fund for occasions like those.’
Just like Don Coco, Amador Ramos thinks that
tourists will be scared off by two ticket offices. In his
view, only the municipality should charge a fee, not
Wilo.
So, does Ramos himself charge anything to the
tourists that park their cars here? ‘I only ask them a
voluntary contribution’, he answers. But according to
Jens Wüller this is not true: ‘He charges them 50
cents.’
runs deep down. The other side offers another
restaurant, belonging to an estate called El otro lado
(the other side). It is run by Paul Malo. The entrance
is free, but it remains to be seen if this will be the case
in the near future. ‘I have to pay 80 percent of the
maintenance of the bridge and Wilo 20 percent’,
Malo says. ‘But look, during carnival the bridge
lowered about 30 centimetres because people were
jumping up and down on it. If nobody is going to
support us, I have to charge visitors a fee for it.’Are
we seeing the first signs of ticket office number five?
That evening, we meet Wilo and his wife Zoila at
their home in La Delicia. After all the rumours we
heard, they seem terribly normal - although it can’t
be denied that their house is bigger and more
luxurious than most of the houses in this hamlet.
‘For four years I have been carrying stones and
carving rocks’, Wilo says. ‘The people declared me a
fool. And now, although everybody makes a profit
from it, they want to take this away from me. But I
am not going to share this with people who didn’t
contribute to it. I pay my taxes, I am registered with
the chamber of commerce and the ministry, I think
that is enough...’
‘The project of the municipality is illegal’, Zoila
adds, after having served us a big fruit juice. ‘They
didn’t invest anything, so if they go ahead with the
construction of a shelter, they will have to
compensate us.’
Before the municipality came up with the shelter
plan, it proposed that Wilo and his wife should share
the proceeds of the waterfall. ‘They wanted to keep
70 percent, the rest would be for us’, Zoila
remembers with a voice full of indignation. ‘But our
lawyers advised us not to do it. It is like letting in the
corruption.’
Ambitious
At last, we descend towards the source of all this
argument: the Pailón del Diablo. We pass several
wooden signs. ‘Don’t touch the plants, flowers and
insects, and don’t carve trees’, they urge us. Every
hundred meters there is a garbage can. The path is
tidy, but it remains unclear what the self-declared
‘ecological’ status of this property is based on. What
we do understand, is that Wilo does everything he
can to conserve the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Starting from Wilo’s restaurant, there are two
paths: the one to the viewpoint, and another one,
leading to a 60 year old suspension bridge that offers
astonishing views on the waterfall and the river that
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Sign above the
footpath to the
waterfall
other waterfalls as well. I suggested this to the parish
council, but they did nothing. They only want our
success. This community is not ready for tourism.’
He disapproves the idea of admitting market-stalls on
the footpath to the waterfall. But he is willing to
provide financial support to members of the
community, in order to let them develop ecotourism
activities or produce handicrafts that could be sold to
the tourists.
The next day, tourist director Edwin Vieira and
environment director Antonio Cadena meet. Because
of its sensitvity, they decide to cancel the shelter
project. Instead, the long neglected footpaths near La
Delicia will be repaired.
The story is to be continued.
▲
The couple encourages others to add to the tourist
development of La Delicia. ‘A hotel would be great’,
Wilo says. ‘And there should be public footpaths to
Paying for environmental services
Conservation is a productive activity. So people
that conserve, should be paid. That is the
philosophy behind payments for environmental
services. Fundación Natura and EcoCiencia
want to practise this philosophy in the
Ecuadorian part of the Pastaza basin. Their first
goal: the Pailón del Diablo.
‘Our idea is to charge the tourists an extra fee for
the conservation of the spot’, says Andres
Garzón, an environmental economist working for
EcoCiencia.‘With the fee they are paying now,
the tourists contribute only to the cleaning and
maintenance of the site. But money is also
needed to prevent the inhabitants from cutting
trees and contaminating the water.’
The Contingency Valuation Method will be used
to establish a fair price. Visitors to the waterfall
will be interviewed to know what they think the
conservation of the site is worth. Garzón wants to
hire students for this job, because they are
neutral.‘The inhabitants would tend to push the
visitors to fill in a higher amount.’
Once a price is fixed, the municipality, the local
council (representing the community) and Wilo
should sign an agreement. In exchange for a part
of the entrance fee, the community would oblige
itself to keep the river clean and conserve its
surroundings. Garzón thinks it’s best if Wilo
charges the (extra) fee.‘I want to leave the
question of the ownership aside. It is much too
sensitive. There is a risk of creating a precedent:
if you expropriate Wilo, nobody will want to start a
tourist attraction ever again.’
If this case proves successful, the principle of
paying for environmental services can be applied
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on a broader scale, Garzón says. The money
tourists spend in Baños now ends up in great
part in the pockets of urban tour-operators. But
most trips are organised to spots in the
countryside. It would be fair if tourists pay a bit
more. The tour-operators or the municipality
should transfer the surplus to the rural
population, in exchange for conservation
activities.You can apply this mechanism to the
whole Pastaza basin, Garzón adds.‘Frontiers do
not matter, everyone understands the language
of money. It is time to stop treating conservation
in a moralistic way: we should treat it in terms of
profit.’
But he admits that there are some serious
obstacles. In the upper part of the Pastaza basin,
near Latacunga and Ambato, textile and agrarian
industry are heavy polluters. It is not easy to
involve such powerful and remote parties in
forms of river management, particularly when
they are situated upstream, which makes them
less dependent on the other parties involved.
Do Fundación Natura and EcoCiencia have other
things in mind to help solve the conflict around
the Pailón del Diablo? ‘We are not going to
mediate,’ says Dania Quirola, who coordinates
the Pastaza project for Fundación Natura.‘The
conflict is too complicated for that. We would risk
being blamed by one or more of the parties
involved. But what we can do is to try to find an
external mediator. And we can provide the
community with technical advice about how to
develop local tourism. A similar project in the
nearby Sangay National Park has given us a lot
of expertise in this field.’
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Hydro-electricity, the newest toy in Ecuador
The impressive billboard is attached to a wall diagonally
opposite the town hall in Baños. It promises to make
Ecuador ‘greater’and to ‘stimulate progress’in the
country. Besides, it says, the San Francisco hydroelectricity project will create 1500 new jobs.
‘Why did the dam in the Pastaza have to be built
there? There were far better places available. These
are all national political decisions, and unfortunately
we cannot influence them.’
The mayor of Baños feels his city has been
cheated. ‘They said that electricity would become
cheaper because of the dams. But it got more
expensive! Baños would become the bestilluminated city in the world. Lies!’According to
Acosta, the inhabitants of Baños are very
disappointed about hydro-electricity. ‘The people
say: they come, they fill their pockets and then they
are gone.’ He produces a document: ‘Look, these are
all requests for more lights in the streets. How is that
possible in a municipality with so much hydroelectricity?’
ifteen hundred jobs? That’s a lie!’ Fausto
Acosta, the mayor of Baños, sits up in his chair
when he is informed about the text on the board at the
other side of the street, which he hadn’t known about.
‘Maybe they will create that number of jobs
throughout the country with hydro-electricity
projects, but not in Baños.’
Baños has two storage lakes with power stations:
Agoyan (with a capacity of 156 megawatts) and
Pucará (73 megawatts). There are plans for two other
storage lakes. San Francisco, the project announced
on the bill-board, will use new technology. A tube
with a length of 11 kilometres and a diameter of 7
metres will transport 116 cubic metres of water per
second from the Agoyan hydro-electric power plant
to an engine-room with two turbines which will
deliver 230 megawatts of energy. The project, under
construction since 2004, will double the hydroelectric capacity in Baños once it is finished in 2007.
The problem with hydro-electricity is that while
Baños is closely acquainted with its disadvantages, it
has experienced few of the promised advantages. ‘I
loved the village of Agoyan,’says Fausto Acosta.
‘F
The Agoyan
dam
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The dangers of dams
Acosta is not the only politician who thinks in this
way. His opponent in the recent elections, Patricia
Guevara, is even more vehemently opposed to the
projects. ‘A government toy ... an absurd fashion’, is
how she describes them. She points out the
disadvantages: the construction of the storage lakes
and the tube damage the nature, the withdrawal of
water from the rivers promotes deforestation and
erosion, the dams bring safety problems (people have
even drowned because of sudden floods), and the
insects and pollution cause health problems. ‘The
deforestation and erosion make it more than just a
local problem, because this contributes to global
warming,’ she says. ‘But the people in charge only
look at the short term advantages.’
Guevara and her family were forced to leave the
village of Agoyan because of the construction of the
dam. ‘We had 45 hectares of land there, but with the
money they offered us, we couldn’t even buy a new
house.’ That is one of the reasons she participated in
the protests of the inhabitants of Rio Verde against
the San Francisco project. This time, the population
won: the water of the Rio Verde will not be used in
the project.
Fundación Natura aims to monitor the impact of
hydro-electricity. By gathering and analysing data on
the projects, FN wants to influence the debate on
future hydro-electricity projects. ‘The plans for
another two storage lakes near Baños will be debated
in the National electrification counsel, Conelec,’
Dania Quirola says. ‘That is an important advisor of
the government, so we try to provide them with
information and influence them.’
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Patricia Guevara in front of her election slogan
Monitoring the river
Far below us we can see the swirling water of the Pastaza,
which is still a little stream here. Our viewpoint is a
temporary bridge called San Francisco. It connects Baños
with a hilltop supporting the city’s antennae. The bridge
and the upward leading dirt road serve as an escape route
in case the Tungurahua erupts again. Steam and gas from
this impressive volcano caused several casualties in 1999
and obliged the authorities to evacuate the whole town for
four months.
But this unsustainable practice, which moves the
problem to downstream municipalities, is set to
change. At our feet, on the river bank, is one of the
16 monitoring points Fundación Natura has
assigned together with the municipality. The idea is
that local committees, consisting of about ten
inhabitants and technicians, will examine the
quality of the water on a regular basis, using these
points. The committees will be supplied with
simple measuring-instruments that can detect
different kinds of biological and chemical
contamination. The project, set up by the three
organisations with the help of the municipality, has
two goals: improved knowledge of the levels and
sorts of contamination, and engaging the
population as a co-owner of the environmental
problem. The hope is that by increasing popular
pressure, the municipality will change its waste
policy.
ania Quirola of Fundación Natura points at two
waterfalls. ‘That is all untreated effluent that is
drained into the river. The municipality doesn’t do
anything about it. Tackling the wastewater problem
has no priority as long as 40 percent of the drinkingwater is spoilt because of leakages and poor
maintenance of the waterworks.’
D
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Monitoring the water quality of the Valencia river
Relatively untouched
A century ago Baños was a sleepy village without
hotels. Today it is the fourth most important tourist
attraction in Ecuador, attracting more tourists than
the Galápagos Islands. During the season, the tourists
outnumber the 20,000 inhabitants, and although the
troubles with the volcano have deterred the less
adventurous, still some 140,000 foreigners visit the
town annually. Ninety-five percent of the city’s
income is from tourism.
Visitors are particularly attracted by the natural
variety of Baños, which is situated right on the edge
of the Andes and Amazonia. Therefore, it offers chilly
mountain peaks as well as steamy forests, with wild
rivers and spectacular waterfalls in-between. You can
go hiking, climbing, rafting, canyoning, kayaking, go
on a rainforest tour, visit an indigenous village or take
a thermal bath. Two national parks (Sangay and
Llanganates) are close, and in-between is the Pastaza
Ecological Corridor, declared a Gift to the Earth by
the WWF in 2002. With 85 percent of the vegetation
in its original state, nature around Baños is relatively
untouched. The biggest threats are from tourism and
hydro-electric development. There is also some
logging, and a growing number of greenhouses.
With our 4 wheel-drive, we take a dirt road to
Viscaya, an agrarian hamlet belonging to Baños.
Here, 117 families make a frugal living growing
maize, potatoes and fruit, and keeping a few cows,
chickens and goats. Recently, the water quality has
become a serious problem. A lot of cattle have died,
probably because of drinking polluted water from the
Patate, a branch of the Pastaza. Along the Patate are
many greenhouses, which use large quantities of
herbicides. But the river also carries industrial waste
from the Ambato region. Another river flowing close
to Viscaya, the Valencia, probably has cleaner water,
but this was never investigated.
Seated in blue plastic chairs outside the only
shop of Viscaya, eating a piece of locally
produced cheese, we converse with hamlet
president Juan Alban Ramirez. Fundación
Natura tries to convince him that monitoring the
water could help solve the problems of Viscaya.
With data that prove the good quality of the
Valencia, the municipality could earmark money
for a strong pump, to transport water from the
Valencia to Viscaya. Or maybe, even better, it
will try to prevent the rivers from being
contaminated, although this will be hard to
achieve with part of the pollution coming from
elsewhere.
‘We want to turn around the traditional scheme,’
Dania Quirola says. ‘People are used to get things
Cross-border cooperation
Reconciling the interests of people living upstream and
downstream would be best guaranteed by an international
body charged with the entire Pastaza basin, according to
Dania Quirola of Fundación Natura. She suggests that this
body should be put under the jurisdiction of the Organization
of the Treaty of the Amazonian Cooperation, which unifies all
eight Amazon countries.‘That is a political forum, treating
matters like cross-border pollution. Water management has
political aspects, so this subject would be best in their hands.’
Although the idea provokes a smile at first, Fausto Acosta,
mayor of Baños, says he welcomes the idea of Peruvians
visiting Baños to talk about the problems in their part of the
Pastaza basin.‘No, we don’t consider the Peruvians our
enemies. People don’t want war, only politicians do...’
‘Biodiversity unifies people,’ former local politician Patricia
Guevara adds.‘I think it’s a good idea to establish contacts
with people living in the Peruvian part of the Pastaza basin.
The Pastaza doesn’t end here. We, the people of Ecuador
and Peru, must all be Pastazeñas!’
But before it gets to the point of international cooperation,
committees for both the Ecuadorian and the Peruvian part of
the Pastaza basin should be installed, Mariana Montoya of
WWF Peru suggests. Local groups can join forces by
exchanging information and experiences within these
committees. Once the committees function well, the
international cooperation should start.
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from the municipality. Now we ask them to collect
data and hand it over to the municipality.’
According to Juan Alban Ramirez, this change of
roles seems to have perspective. ‘It would be
interesting to know how much water runs through the
Valencia, and what the quality is,’ he says. ‘I think
there will be sufficient volunteers to participate in
this activity.’
conservation, our best investment’ failed to convince
the electorate. Running for mayor, she was crushed
by Fausto Acosta, who wants to narrow the recently
broadened pavements again, to make space for the
exapnding fleet of vehicles.
Still, there are signs that things are going to
change. At the beginning of 2005, Fundación Natura
and EcoCiencia signed an agreement with the
municipality, aiming at environmental cooperation.
This resulted in a kick-off meeting with key players
in February, and workshops in March, in which the
inhabitants were able to participate. Tourism is
among the main issues to be tackled. Although the
process has just started, Dania Quirola has high
hopes that her organization can influence the
municipality. ‘They seem very open to the technical
assistance we offer. But they need more focus in their
policy. We think the population can help us to
achieve that.’▲
Three wheel motor-bikes
Regardless the political background of its leadership,
the municipality has always paid more attention to
the revenues from tourism than to its ecological
impact. This has led to relatively unsustainable forms
of tourism. For example, noisy and polluting three
wheel motor-bikes now jam the streets of Baños. A
movement led by Patricia Guevara opposes this
development. She wants Baños to be a stylish and
quiet spa resort. But her election slogan ‘Tourism and
Black poison
Pastaza region, while for Ecuador oil is the main export
product). It is David against Goliath (small Amazonian
communities versus foreign oil companies like
Occidental and Agip). It is also about having access to
natural resources, the right of self-determination, land
property, indigenous rights, and so on.
Both the Ecuadorian and the Peruvian part of the
Pastaza basin are rich in oil. But most of the violent
confrontations between indigenous people and oil
companies occurred in Ecuador. After the kidnapping
of several oil workers, the Ecuadorian government
had to intervene at the request of the oil companies.
Some companies left or stopped drilling because of
the hostile environment, but the tension remains.
Contaminated
rainforest in
the Pastaza
region in Peru
A new battlefield
Jorge Rivas of Fundación Natura relates the strong
resistance in Ecuador to the fact that the indigenous
peoples in this country are traditionally well
organised and act as one - unlike, for example, the
Achuar in Peru. Ecuador has a strong joint
organization of Amazon peoples, Opip, and
indigenous peoples have found their way into
national politics easier than in the case of
neighbouring Peru.
In recent years, the number of violent incidents
Broken pipe-lines, jungle rivers with thick
oil slicks, massive fish mortality,
communities living on river-banks that have
to walk for hours to get clean water, violent
confrontations between indigenous people
and oil-workers, an outbreak of the most
dangerous variant of hepatitis B.*
he story of oil drilling in the Pastaza basin makes
grim reading. ‘I consider it the region’s biggest
problem,’says Mariana Montoya of WWF Peru. It is
also a story with well-known ingredients. It is about
cultural tradition and biodiversity versus economic
interests (two thirds of the Peruvian oil comes from the
T
TURNING TURTLES
* The indigenous peoples attribute the outbreak of the
disease to the arrival of oil workers, claiming that
hepatitis wasn’t endemic in the Pastaza basin, but this is
not confirmed by other sources.
•
21
•
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12:00
Pagina 22
has diminished. Money and lawyers are the main
weapons nowadays, and courtyards the new
battlefield. Both in Peru and Ecuador, the inhabitants
have to be consulted when an oil company is about to
drill in an area. That is, if the inhabitants possess
legal rights over the land they are living on. This,
however, is where the problems start. Especially in
the Peruvian part of the Pastaza basin, many
communities don’t have titles, even when they have
been living there for centuries.
Most of the efforts of the indigenous organizations
are therefore directed towards obtaining titles. ‘We
have been fighting for titles since 1980,’Alberto
Pisango Chota, general coordinator of the Peruvian
regional indigenous organization Corpi, says. ‘But
the problem is that the state wants to issue private
titles, while we are after communal titles.’ But even
communal titles carry a risk, according to Mariana
Montoya of WWF Peru. ‘With communal titles, you
are still divided. To be powerful, it would be best if
indigenous peoples were entitled as a whole. But the
law doesn’t make a provision for this.’
The importance of the land for the nine peoples
unified under Corpi can hardly be overestimated,
insists Alberto Pisango: ‘The land is not a father or a
mother to us, it is more: it is a holy cause.’According
to Mashingachi Yandari Kamarampi, president of the
Kandozi federation, Feconacadip, without land, a
people doesn’t even exist. ‘The earth is our life, the
forest is our lungs, the lake is our bank. In this
respect, we are millionaires.’WWF Peru helps the
indigenous peoples in their legal struggle to obtain
titles by supporting the special land entitling project
(Pett) of the Ministry of Agriculture.
So being consulted isn’t a panacea either. One of
the problems is that the indigenous peoples don’t
have anything to say about the oil itself. According to
the law, the rights of landowners are limited to the
upper 30 centimetres of the soil. Everything below
that belongs to the state. So while the activities on the
ground, such as the manner of drilling, can be
discussed, this doesn’t apply to the extraction of the
oil.
For all these reasons, the indigenous peoples want
a total moratorium on oil drilling. They feel that this
claim is justified by a report from the Ministry of
Energy which says that oil drilling has had a negative
impact on the life of indigenous peoples. ‘We don’t
benefit from it, it has only brought us death and
disease,’ Corpi coordinator Pisango concludes.
What can the NGOs do, and what do they actually
undertake, to assist the indigenous peoples in their oil
disputes? ‘Basically we provide them with
information,’ says Jorge Rivas of Fundación Natura.
‘It is not possible for us to change the attitude of an
Argentine oil company. And we can’t stop the
companies from entering the region either. Apart from
that, the indigenous peoples hardly allow us to play a
part in this field.’ He sighs. ‘It’s a difficult subject, oil.’
‘On an international level, we try to maintain
contact with the oil companies,’ Fred Prins of WWF
Peru adds. ‘Often they try to put on a green face at the
global level. That is a starting point for a
conversation. But at the national level, it is up to the
indigenous organizations to talk with them. We don’t
want to get into that, it’s a very delicate process. We
only do so if the indigenous peoples themselves ask
us. In general we think it’s better if we inform them
about their rights and teach them how to negotiate,
but let them do the negotiating themselves.’
Since the end of 2004, a fierce debate has been
raging, initiated by the World Watch Institute, about
the relationship between conservationist
organizations and indigenous peoples. According to
an article by Mac Chapin, ‘A challenge to
conservationists’ (World Watch Magazine,
November/December 2004), large NGOs like WWF
depend more and more on corporate money. This
could affect their critical attitude towards the
destructive and contaminating activities of these
multinationals.
Is this the case in the Pastaza basin? Fred Prins
denies it. ‘WWF doesn’t accept money from oil
companies anymore, precisely to avoid this possible
conflict of interests.’According to Prins, a big mistake
that is often made in this debate, is that people expect
too much of the conservationist NGOs. ‘They make us
out to be more powerful than we are. But oil companies
are much bigger. People tend to forget that.’
▲
A delicate process
But, to make things even more complicated: holding
a title isn’t a guarantee either. In the past, many
communities possessing titles simply weren’t
consulted. After the violent clashes, most oil
companies changed their attitude. Now they try to
establish contact most of the time, even when a
community is not entitled. But a common strategy is
to talk only with separate communities, not with the
representative organizations of the indigenous
peoples. This makes it easier for the oil companies to
divide and rule.
With great regret the indigenous organizations
admit that this proves a successful strategy. Several
communities permitted drilling activities in
exchange for money or gifts. ‘They come and say
that oil will bring development and prosperity, that
our children will be able to go to university. Or they
promise to build hospitals. Unfortunately, some
people believe this. But where are the hospitals? And
where is our clean water?’, Alberto Pisango asks.
TURNING TURTLES
•
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Conclusion
And a river runs through it
One of the dreams of the people behind the Pastaza basin
programme is to bring together the Ecuadorian and
Peruvian inhabitants of the river basin. The idea is
simple: they depend on the same river, and live close to
each other, so why shouldn’t they meet each other, to be
able to talk about their common life-line, the Pastaza?
e thought it was easy: you just take a boat and
cross the border. We can tell you now that it is
far from easy. There is no regular service, there is no
customs house, there are no repair shops, there is
only a very turbulent river and lots of rainforest. You
can only visit both sides of the basin by taking a
plane from Lima to Tarapoto, than a smaller plane
from Tarapoto to San Lorenzo, and finally, a boat
from San Lorenzo to the Pastaza. Then you turn
around to travel all the way back, take an
international flight from Lima to Quito and travel by
Landrover to the Ecuadorian part of the basin. Once
there, you are exhausted after covering only 400
kilometres in three days.
So that’s one difficulty. The gap between the
programme assistants (mestizos) and the inhabitants
(indigenous) is another one. The mutual conflicts of
the indigenous peoples don’t make things easier
either, not to mention their different expectations.
The Peruvian part of the basin is suffering from an
outbreak of hepatitis, so the Kandozi, Achuar and
Quechua living there want WWF to cure them. But
WWF doesn’t cure people. It is not easy to explain
that to people with dying relatives.
In the end, it is all a question of building trust. You
W
have to invest in people (but don’t give them
presents), you have to make them responsible (but
don’t expect too much). And always remember that
reality in the rainforest is not like at home. ‘A
permanent balancing between flexibility and
uncertainty’, is how Mariana Montoya of WWF Peru
describes it.
At its start, the Pastaza basin programme basically
pursues local goals, like establishing water and
fishing committees and local management plans. The
good news is that this is not the only focus. The bad
news is that the national and international goals aren’t
the easiest part, even less because of the restricted
personal and financial capacity of the programme.
But sometimes, when you are sitting in the sun,
thinking of how to cross the border by boat, a golden
idea emerges. This is how the tarikaya (turtle)
breeding project was born. This simple but ingenious
project proves the viability of sustainable
development: you can increase the turtle population
and generate an income at the same time. That is
turning turtles!
Maybe we can say that the Poverty reduction
through improved natural resources management in
the Pastaza river basin programme
will be a success when in the end
more than one Ecuadorian
inhabitant of the basin has
visited Lake Rimachi in
Peru to see the turtles
with his own eyes.
▲
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Pagina 24
Acknowledgements
All text written by Menno Bosma/Bureau M&O
Environment & Development Productions
© WWF June 2005
Published by the DGIS-TMF Programme based at WWF International.
For further copies contact Chantal Page, DGIS-TMF Programme
WWF International, Avenue de Mont Blanc 27, 1196 Gland, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 364 90 34, Fax +41 22 364 0640, E-mail: cpage@wwfint.org
All pictures by Ellen Verheul/Bureau M&O
Layout and design: MMS Grafisch Werk, Amsterdam,The Netherlands
Production: Bureau M&O, Amsterdam,The Netherlands
This publication receives outside financing. Citation is encouraged. Shorts excerpts may be
translated and/or reproduced without prior permission, on the condition that the source is
indicated. For translation and/or reproduction in whole,WWF International should be notified in
advance. Responsibility for the contents and for the opinions expressed rest solely with the
author; this publication does not constitute an endorsement by WWF International or the
financier.The material and the geograpical designations in this magazine do not imply the
expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WWF concerning the legal status of any
country, territory, or area, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
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