Living Documents

Transcription

Living Documents

EquadorDef 06-03-2001 12:08 Pagina 1
Living Documents
DGIS-WWF
Tropical Forest Portfolio
Finding Defenders for a Tropical Fortress
People and Conservation in Ecuador's Sangay National Park
• ' E c u a d o r ' s b e s t - m a n ag e d n a t i o n a l p a r k '
• A w a t e rs h e d o f p a r a m o i m p o r t a n c e
• Tu r n i n g ch a i n s aw s i n t o p l o u g h s h a r e s
• Losing game
• ' We h a d n o t h i n g bu t o u r a xe s a n d m a ch e t e s '
From heights more wuthering than you would expect so close to the Equator, down to
steamy lowlands, Sangay National Park covers the eastern side of the Ecuadorian
Andes and the western extreme of the Amazon basin. 'A wilderness in its truest sense',
the Lonely Planet guidebook says.To keep it that way, Fundacion Natura,WWF’s
associate organisation in Ecuador, is seeking alliances with highland peasants and
lowlanders - settlers and Indians - just outside the park. But what will happen, some
day soon, when a fine new road crosses the area?
LIVING DOCUMENTS DGIS-WWF Tropical Forest Portfolio
A fair chance for conservation
Few countries have a higher number of
endemic species than Ecuador.
5,400 metres high; its eastern limit is tropical, at a
height of around 800 metres above sea-level. Sangay
is a special park. It is not just conservationists who
say so - conservationists, after all, are tempted to call
any area ‘special’ that they can lay their hands on.
Here is what an unbiased source, the well-known
Lonely Planet guidebook to Ecuador, says about
Sangay: it is ‘one of the most remote and
inaccessible areas in Ecuador’, which ‘provides an
incredible variety of terrain’. Some of ‘its terrain is
so steep, rugged and wet (over 400 cm of annual
rainfall in some eastern areas) that it remains a
wilderness in the truest sense’. These ‘thickly
vegetated slopes east of the mountains are the haunt
of very rarely seen mammals such as Andean
spectacled bears, mountain tapirs, pumas, ocelots,
jaguarunis and porcupines.’ (The guidebook is not
up-to-date regarding the park’s size, which it puts at
just a quarter of a million hectares.)
Sangay is also special because, protected as it is by
mountains, rivers and dense forests, it is a natural
fortress of sorts. Therefore, it is under no immediate
threat, or no immediate severe threat anyway.
Limited numbers of people regularly enter it and
even fewer live inside its boundaries. This means
conservation has a fairer chance than in many other
places. Fundación Natura, WWF’s Ecuadorian
associate organisation, is trying to seize on that
chance. The following stories report on their attempt.
▲
ts number of species not found anywhere else in the
world is 26 in mammals, 37 in birds, 106 in reptiles
and 138 in amphibians. For that reason, as well as for
its general abundance of animal and plant species,
this modest-sized republic - bigger than Britain, but
smaller than Italy - ranks among the countries of socalled ‘megadiversity’.
A disproportionate share of this is concentrated in
two regions: the famous Galápagos islands, which
will not be dealt with here, and the eastern rainforest
region. The latter is under threat: at 200,000 hectares
a year, deforestation is fast-paced. This is caused
partly by agricultural development, which extends
the cultivated area by 3 per cent a year - the second
highest rate in South America. Logging and oildrilling do the rest.
Part of Ecuador’s natural riches has been granted a
certain degree of official protection. Again,
Galápagos are the best known example, but also on
the mainland, an increasing number of national parks
and other forms of protection have been established.
At the moment, they number twenty-four, covering
some 20 percent of the national territory.
One of these is Sangay National Park, an area of
just over half a million hectares situated on the
eastern flank of the Andes mountains. Its highest
point is the volcano of the same name, which is over
I
Mountain tapir
WWF-CANON/JUAN PRATGINESTOS
FINDING DEFENDERS FOR A TROPICAL FORTRESS
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PEOPLE AND CONSERVATION IN ECUADOR'S SANGAY NATIONAL PARK
WWF-CANON/KEVIN SCHAFER
‘This is Ecuador’s bestmanaged national park’
Atillo valley is cold and barren. People keep
themselves warm by wearing several layers
of clothes. Their small houses are thatched
with bundles of long straw all the way down
to the ground, a form of insulation which
makes them look like heads with wigs. While
biologists disagree whether this was a
wooded area in the past, it is as good as
treeless nowadays. And cropless, since the
frequent frosts will not even let potatoes
grow, not to mention cereals or fruits.
Welcome to one of WWF’s tropical
rainforest conservation projects.
get the sort of budget it takes for proper park
management. Therefore, local allies have to be
found.’
He speaks while we are winding our way towards
a group of people that Natura hopes will become
such allies: the community of Atillo, in the
easternmost part of the Andes mountains. When we
enter the valley, the windscreen of our vehicle seems
to turn into a television screen. An impressively
wide, brownish green landscape unfolds, bounded on
both sides by mountains that are higher than their
gentle slopes suggest and overarched by a blue sky
with some large very white clouds. The smooth
emptiness of the hill-sides is only occasionally
interrupted by herds of seemingly tiny cattle,
accompanied by colourful speckles on horseback.
The comfortable warmth and pleasant music in the
car add to the sensation of being a mere spectator,
admiring a recorded scene.
When we reach the group of villagers that have
been waiting for us, the spell is broken by car doors
swinging open and letting in the cold. The company
here is little political support in Ecuador for
conservation’, says Jorge Rivas. He is in charge
at the Riobamba office of Fundación Natura, a Quitobased foundation that is associated with WWF
International. ‘Inefan, the government agency
responsible for forestry and natural areas, does not
‘T
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BUREAU M & O
inside, into the narrow passage where two occasional
vets, bending astride over the agitated animals, give
them a jab in the neck. Some recalcitrant bulls have
to be lassoed - vaguely unsettling to see Indians cast
for that part - and tugged into the passage. The
strongest of them manage to drag their owners into
the opposite direction, which earns them roars of
laughter. While the men do this rough job, a group of
women shoos and waves back animals that try to
escape through the gate. Only one or two women
bring a small herd of their own for vaccination.
When all the animals near the corral have had their
injection and the owners have paid their dues to
Olmedo (since an amazing number of Atilleños have
Chacha as their family name, only first names will be
used from here on), several villagers vie with each
other to offer their horses to the vaccinators. That
settled, the company sets off for the next herd.
Debating the
vaccination
campaign
that welcomes us with numerous hand-shakes looks
worried. An untypically tall man with a deep voice
called Olmedo Chacha, the treasurer of the local
cattle-raisers’ association, explains why. ‘We know
you asked us to collect all the cattle near the corral,
so you could make a quick job of vaccinating them’,
he says. ‘But we think some of them have caught
foot-and-mouth disease already. So we thought, we
had better keep the herds separate, to stop them
infecting each other.’
Rivas and his colleague Óscar Yepes agree. The
question now is how to vaccinate some eight hundred
animals spread over a wide area, with only two
vaccination sets available. (Earlier on, the
community claimed they only had some two
hundred. One of the aims of Natura’s vaccination
campaign is to find out the real number.) They decide
first to do the few dozen heads that have been
brought down to the agreed venue and then let two of
the Natura team move from one herd to the next,
starting from the highest part of the valley.
The cattle are driven into the corral and, once
Fiercely guarding their independence
What is all this to do with protected area
management? Obviously, there must be some
connection with Sangay, a national park and Unesco
World Natural Heritage Site, a bit further east. But
how does preventing foot-and-mouth disease in Atillo
help Sangay’s main endangered species, the tapir and
the spectacled bear, neither of which can get infected?
The answer lies in the fine new road that passes
through Atillo. While he drives up the valley, Rivas
says, ‘When it’s ready, it will connect Guamote, west
of here, to Macas, in the Oriente. There’s thirteen
kilometres missing at the moment and construction
has recently been suspended for lack of funds. But I
think we should expect it to be finished within a few
years. There have been plans to build it since early
this century. Some pioneers then settled along the old
colonial bridle trail, expecting the road to follow
soon. But for a long time, nothing came of it. Still,
when Sangay National Park was proclaimed in 1976,
the planners took care not to touch the trail. Then, in
1990, the government started building the road after
all. Unfortunately, it has been designed in such a way
that it runs a bit north of the old trail in some places.
As a result, some eight kilometres of it actually do
cross a tip of the park after all. We are getting there in
a little while.’
But first, we get to a barrier across the road. Upon
Rivas’s hooting, a young soldier comes running out
to open it. Then, we pass two small lakes, one of
which has a bump-shaped island all covered in forest,
like a camouflaged helmet. Soon after, we cross the
pass, and at once Atillo’s grim beauty is left behind.
It feels like getting off a long-distance flight:
suddenly, the sun is shining, the air is pleasantly
warm and the valley we look down on is as lush and
deep-green as any tropical forest.
BUREAU M & O
Atillo valley
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Sangay National Park
Seen from the air, Sangay National Park resembles nothing so much as a huge green slide. From the
Andes mountain range in the west to the Amazon basin in the east, it plunges from over 5,000 metres
above sea-level to just 800. The average temperature range traces the same curve, from refrigerator
to greenhouse values. The wide variety of natural conditions makes for a stunning diversity of plant
and animal species. In the whole of eastern Ecuador, 1,662 different orchids have been described at
altitudes between 300 and 3,000 metres, a good number of which are thought to occur in Sangay. An
estimated 500 bird species live in this area, as well as several endangered mammal species,
including the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque) and the Andean spectacled bear (Tremarctus
ornatus).
The Sangay National Park also plays a crucial role in watershed conservation. Theoretically, the park
could provide most of Ecuador with clean drinking water, while the hydropower plant on the Río Paute
is already one of the country’s main sources of electricity.
Politically, the park extends across
five provinces: Chimborazo,
Tungurahua, Cañar and Azuay in
the west and Morona Santiago in
the east. Within the park, there
are hardly any human
settlements, with the exception
of a small colonisation zone in
the south. Just west of the park,
population pressure has
traditionally been high. This area
is inhabited by Quechua (or
Quichua) Indians, most of whom
are peasants. Until the 1960s,
population density in the
Amazon basin was extremely
low. Outside a small number of
old colonial towns, the
inhabitants belonged to several
indigenous ethnic groups, such
as the Shuar. In recent decades,
colonisation from the west has
brought in mestizos and
Quechua Indians, resulting in a
certain degree of modernisation
which extends even to Shuar
communities.
BUREAU M & O
The eight kilometres of road that cut through the
park are not the main problem, Rivas continues. In
1992, the Ecuadorian government extended the park
southwards. This may sound like good news for
conservationists, but it was a dubious gain: while the
park’s size nearly doubled, problems and
controversies multiplied. All of a sudden, forty
kilometres of the road were within its boundaries.
Local communities had not previously been
informed, much less had they had a say in the matter.
They reacted furiously. The people of Playas, the
persevering heirs to the pioneers that settled the area
Landscape
between
Atillo and
Sangay NP
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BUREAU M & O
Park guard and Playas resident Gonzalo Llerena an elderly, wiry man sporting a martial white
moustache, who declares he will ‘defend Sangay like
a lion, till the bitter end’ - has experienced just that in
the flesh. ‘I’ve been treated with hostility there many
times. And on two occasions, they were really out to
get me. What I remember most was the time when I
crossed Atillo on my motorcycle and I was stopped
by a crowd on the road. They meant to keep me there,
as a hostage I guess. But my bike saved me. I had put
her into first, so she wouldn’t stop moving. They
hadn’t a clue what to do about it. After a while they
got sort of fed up with the situation and returned her
to me. They just told me to go to hell.’
Admittedly, as a clash, it didn’t amount to much.
In two other villages around Sangay, Alao and Nueve
de Octubre, disgruntled peasants succeeded in
kidnapping Inefan officials, high officials even. They
were both beaten up and one of them was nearly
killed by drowning. But Llerena’s adventures do
show how tense the relationship between Atillo and
Inefan is.
Or was, rather. To Álvarez’s mind, everything in
the park is lovely nowadays. ‘We really co-operate
well now, Atillo and us.’ He and Llerena pass through
the community waving and greeting. And the
wooden lodge along the road inside the park, which
is the operating base for Llerena and some other
guards, has been built with Atillo’s consent; they
wouldn’t have let them a few years ago.
All of which has come about thanks to two
changes. One: an agreement signed in 1995, in which
Inefan guarantees that private property along the new
road will be respected. The road and its southern
fringe will be converted into a buffer zone, as will the
densely populated patch in the south. ‘And of course,
we’ll keep to our word’, Álvarez assures. ‘If not, I
will have to move abroad!’ The agreement,
incidentally, was signed after a meeting of all parties
involved, attended by hundreds of exasperated
villagers. ‘That put a lot of pressure on Inefan’, Rivas
says. ‘Not a very good negotiating strategy.’ But he
in anticipation of the road, suddenly found
themselves back in the midst of a protected area, with
all the constraints on exploitation that that entails. In
the southernmost part, the park now comprised a
densely settled patch of limited natural value - why
the planners should have wished to include it was
anybody’s guess. In two villages, whose communal
areas had remained outside the new limits, people
feared that some of their private land might have
been swallowed up by the park. By the time the
confusion was cleared - the state did not even
properly inform its citizens after the deed - their fears
proved well-founded. One of these villages was
Atillo. People must have remembered the fate of
those pioneers in Sangay’s Palora valley, years ago,
who had been allotted plots by the state land reform
and colonisation agency, Ierac, and who were
waiting for their official titles. Then, from one day to
the next, they were told their new land belonged to a
protected natural area. They were forced to leave
without compensation. As it happens, Atillo is unlike
many other rural communities in the Ecuadorian
Andes. Before the land reform of the 1970s, most of
the mountain peasants led miserable lives as socalled huasipungueros (‘wasseepoongayros’), nearserfs bound to an hacienda. Not so the people of
Atillo, who led difficult lives as independent
herdsmen. They have a long tradition of jealously
and fiercely guarding their independence.
Predictably enough, being deprived of land that was
legally theirs did not go down well with them. A
clash with the national parks authority, Inefan, was a
mere matter of time.
‘But it wasn’t just us they fought’, emphasises
Inefan’s Vicente Álvarez, a middle-aged man of
winning manners who is in charge of the western half
of Sangay. ‘Atillo would not let anyone enter the
community. No state agency, no scientists, not even
the Catholic Church.’
BUREAU M & O
Road in
construction
through the
Park
Park guard and Playas resident Gonzalo Llerena
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management and the local communities have a
common interest there: keeping the settlers out. Atillo
does not have the right to do that, but no-one can enter
the park from the west without their noticing. Inefan,
on the other hand, which is entitled to summon and
even force people to leave, doesn’t have the numbers
of personnel to keep a sufficiently close watch on the
park. (Much to Álvarez’s frustration. ‘In Quito, the
government employs advisers to advisers and pays
them two or three thousand dollars a month’, he
complains. ‘But in 1993, our guards, who earn just
over a hundred dollars, were offered a premium to
quit. We were left with only sixteen of them, out of
over thirty. This was a year after the Ministry doubled
the protected area’s size!’ If the local population is at
the mercy of government whims, they may find
comfort in not being the only ones.)
So Atillo and Inefan could mean a lot to each
other, if only Atillo could be persuaded that they may
stand to gain, not lose, by co-operating. But for
persuasion, a minimum of trust is required. And the
1995 agreement may have laid to rest the
community’s most tormenting fears, it takes more for
trust to be built.
This is where today’s vaccination campaign comes
in, as well as other support activities. With foot-andmouth disease raging in nearby provinces, anyone
helping Atillo to save their cattle will be welcomed.
‘We are donating it to the cattle-raisers’ association’,
Rivas explains. ‘They sell it to their members. The
revenue goes into a fund from which they can finance
in advance the cost of a new round of vaccination
when some other epidemic looms.’ Still, Natura
usually stresses the point that giving gifts is not the
name of their game.
Cattle grazing on cleared land that was once cloud forest, Cosanga Valley
too thinks that the agreement should be observed.
Two: the participatory approach to conservation
that has been proclaimed official Inefan policy in
Sangay. It must be the origin of Álvarez’s pet phrase,
‘the decisive role of the community’. But the
participation thing does not seem to sit easily with
him. However genial his way of dealing with people,
he also perceives a ‘need for control measures’ in
settled parts of the park. He has, after all, been
working in Sangay right from the start in 1976, and
until recently, this was a conventional gazette-andguard conservation effort. Not for Natura to mock it
either - it has been supporting Inefan since 1989, most
of the time through a debt-for-nature swap scheme.
Only under the current project, local people’s rights
and demands are being considered more seriously, the
better to protect nature - remember Rivas’s words that
the park ‘needs allies’.
The Atilleños potentially make most useful allies.
The new road is bound to attract settlers, who will
grab land, cut trees and hunt for game. So the park
Making it illegal
So let’s assume Inefan, Atillo and neighbouring local
communities will succeed in keeping new-comers
from settling, logging and hunting. Next problem:
who will keep these communities from damaging the
park themselves?
Surely, one of the aims of the project’s support
activities is to make Atillo’s economy both more
productive and more sustainable, alleviating the
community’s poverty without impoverishing their
natural resources. But at the same time, thanks to the
road, it will be more tempting than ever to enter the
forest and take its products to market. In the bufferzone, it would not even be illegal.
‘Well, that depends’, Álvarez says. ‘We may make
it illegal.’And he proceeds to explain the subtleties of
Ecuadorian forestry legislation. It amounts to a
general ban on felling trees unless two legal
requirements have been met: a land management
plan, approved by the National Agricultural
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A watershed of paramo importance
Few of the communities on Sangay’s western side rely as exclusively on cattle-raising as Atillo does. Growing
potatoes and cereals are at least as important in valleys such as Alao and Guargallá. Their major problem is low
agricultural production. Therefore, Natura, together with other organisations, offers advice on how to boost
productivity as an alternative to opening up ever more marginal fields, ever higher up the mountains. Keeping the
best rather than the puniest potatoes for next season’s planting, planting bushes to protect fields from wind and frost
and constructing so-called ‘slow-formation terraces’ are among the suggestions. Moreover, Natura has organised
trips to peasant communities elsewhere in the Andes where certain productive innovations have been successful.
‘Seeing that something works in practice convinces them much more than any agronomist’s explanation’, Natura
official Óscar Yepes says.‘At the same time, it helps to build trust between us and them.’
As in Atillo, the question is, what’s it to do with the forest? Nothing, this time. But part of Sangay National Park is
made up of a different ecosystem, called paramo. Though high, cold and seemingly poor in biodiversity, this is a
unique habitat, threatened in many parts of the Andes, but relatively safe in Sangay.
Relatively, because the cattle of Alao en Guargallá might be, or become, a problem for the paramo. That, again,
depends on the way the cattle-raisers manage the paramo. Experts have strong reason to think that with better
management, their herds can increase without serious damage to the ecosystem. But to persuade the herdsmen to
change their ways, especially to quit their counterproductive habit of burning patches of land to stimulate regrowth,
will take a lot of patience and trust.
Interestingly, the Riobamba power company has decided to finance some small projects in Alao quite similar to
Natura’s activities. Healthy paramo has an extremely high water-absorbing capacity. If the Alao paramo were to fall
victim to overgrazing and degradation, the important hydroelectric plant situated further downstream in the same
valley, might grind to a halt in a few years’ time.
But even if the worst comes to the worst, Sangay
National Park need not be given up as a bad job. It
has two important assets which have always come to
its rescue: size and roughness of terrain. ‘Of its total
surface area, which is over half a million hectares,
three quarters to 80 per cent are perfectly safe’, says
Álvarez. ‘In spite of the road, in spite of the settled
bits in the South. I even think, as far as the original,
northern half of the park is concerned, humans have
never set foot on 90 per cent of it. In the sixties, an
aeroplane crashed a bit further east. The approximate
location was known, but the wreckage wasn’t found
until fifteen years later.’
‘This park is a model’, agrees Günther Reck, a
teacher in natural resource management at one of
Ecuador’s leading universities, who happens to pass
with a group of students. ‘Even the road does not
affect more than 20,000 hectares, I think. Unesco has
classified Sangay as a World Natural Heritage Site at
Risk. Rubbish, I call that. It will just lead journalists
in their usual ignorance to write alarmist stories
about ‘a park on the brink of disaster’. Or some
journalists anyway. ‘Actually, this is the bestmanaged national park of all Ecuador.’
Development Institute (Inda) and a permit issued by
Inefan. ‘In the corridor along the road, we will try to
co-ordinate with Inda in such a way that rational,
sustainable exploitation is ensured’, Álvarez
announces. What he fails to mention is that the Inefan
that issues logging permits is not the green-at-heart
national parks branch, but the hard-nosed moneymaking forestry department, which has a solid
tradition of laissez faire. Convincing his forestry
counterparts to step up inspections will be as
strenuous a job as talking Inda into requiring
management plans based on a modicum of respect
for nature. There is a hopeful sign, though: the
current government, which has reasonable
environmental credentials, has appointed a
conservationist as Inefan’s executive director, rather
than a forester as tradition would have it.
Alvarez has also placed some hope in the military.
Ecuador’s armed forces have been looking for new roles
since the country’s 1998 peace treaty with its
archenemy, Peru. Protecting national parks is one of the
new tasks they have found themselves. In recent years,
an increasing number of tourists have been robbed in
these natural areas. More relevant to Sangay, which has
attracted few tourists so far, is the generals’ intention of
cracking down on illegal logging. The military post we
passed before was built for a different reason, but may
come in handy. What remains to be seen is whether the
forces’ rank and file will decide to inspect and enforce
or prefer to track down and cash in.
A sudden downpour
Atillo valley looks less hospitable than ever when we
get back. The sky has become overcast and the wind
has risen. We have just passed the two lakes, when
we are stopped by a small group of ill-tempered men,
•
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Florencio, Atillo’s president among them. In bitter
and barely polite words, they complain they have
been waiting all day for the vaccinators. Rivas and
Yepes promise we’ll go down, pick them up and
bring them.
It takes a while to find them in the vastness of the
hill-sides. Most of the all-male company - the two
vaccinators, treasurer Olmedo with his note-book in
one hand and a bottle of liquor in the other, and
several herdsmen, some on horseback, others on
bright-coloured mountain bikes - are in high spirits,
with the work being nearly done and the bottle nearly
empty. Rivas tells them they have forgotten the herds
at the top of the valley, which leads to some confused
bickering as to who is to blame.
When the company finally reaches the men they
forgot earlier today, the bickering flares up again and
turns into a more heated argument between Olmedo
and Florencio. ‘Come on, there’s work to be done,
let’s get it over with’, Yepes tries to make himself
heard, but only when the vaccinators pick up their
tools and set off for the pasture do the owners of the
cattle grudgingly follow them.
When they return, emotions seem to have settled
into shape. The treasurer brings out another bottle
from heaven knows what hidden pocket. Other men
do likewise and in no time at all, cups of liquor are
handed about at a good rate. The drink sets the men’s
tongues wagging. All of a sudden, the Natura team,
the visiting reporter included, find themselves
bombarded with questions.
‘Excuse me, señor’ - the speaker, named Eulogio
and more than a little drunk, spits the word out ‘allow me to ask you, is it true that this land across
the hill that we have bought, this land that we have
scrimped and saved for in our poverty, for you have
seen for yourself that we have very, very little here,
just a few cattle, no fields, nothing - no, don’t you
interrupt me’, he snaps to a younger man, ‘ I want to
tell this ingeniero something he may not know yet.’
Meanwhile, a sudden downpour forces us to stand
close together so as to be all sheltered by the eaves of
Florencio’s house. Turning to the supposed ingeniero
again, Eulogio continues, ‘Is it true, and do you think
it’s fair, that the park will deprive us of our hard-won
pieces of land? Pardon me saying so, mister’ - he
makes it sound even worse than señor - ‘I should
think that the land that we’ve paid for, that is ours by
rights, as we can demonstrate with official titles, that
it is up to us what we shall do with such land. Not up
to Inefan, not up to Natura, not up to the armed
forces, but up to us!’And without waiting for an
answer, he turns away. After the manner of oldfashioned literature, a roll of thunder underlines the
last words of his tirade.
The young man, Estuardo, seizes on the
opportunity to take the floor. While frequent flashes
of lightning render the whole scene somewhat
surreal, his worries are real enough. ‘Why are we no
longer allowed to gather firewood from our own land
across the hill?’
‘As far as I know, you are’, the reporter answers
truthfully.
‘If that’s so, then why do the soldiers at the checkpoint stop us from bringing the wood home?’
Of all the guys here, the reporter’s interviewer has
to be sober. Time to call for reinforcement. Yepes
turns up.
‘The soldiers shouldn’t do that’, he says. ‘They
have no right to. As long as the wood or timber you
bring is for your own use, that’s allowed. If you want
to market it, that’s different. I will have a word with
the commander at the check-point to sort this out.’
‘But you see’, Estuardo resumes, ‘sometimes we
have somebody ill, or there is some other family
calamity. That means we need money. More money
than the little we have. So we go out, cut a tree and
take the timber to market. Not to destroy the forest,
but to cure the ill person. Surely the park can’t forbid
that.’
‘You’re right’, Yepes says. ‘And the park doesn’t
forbid that. That’s in the agreement we signed a
couple of years ago, remember? All you have to do is
make a management plan for your land, have it
approved by Inefan and then ask a permit to cut some
trees.’
Estuardo asks no more, but his thoughts are easy to
read.
Asking for favours
‘We’re leaving’, Rivas announces. Another round of
drinks, some more chatting.
‘Let’s go’, Yepes says, and he starts moving
towards the vehicle. The whole company moves
along, offering cups, insisting they be emptied.
After ten minutes or so, the Natura team are all
seated, together with some villagers who will be
taken back home. The windows are opened to discuss
some last arrangements. Still, we can’t leave: several
men, all drunk now, lean on the open window, their
crossed arms inside the car, and start to ask for
favours. They want to keep the vaccination sets. ‘The
sets aren’t ours’, Rivas explains. They want a vet to
come and see whether their cattle may have some
other disease. ‘I’ll see what I can do’, Yepes
promises. If necessary, they want another vaccination
campaign. ‘Yeah, if necessary.’ Rivas makes the
engine roar every now and again, but the small crowd
around the car are not impressed. They hand in
another cup of liquor, ask for yet other favours. Rivas
inches the car forwards. Yepes inches the windows
▲
up. Finally, the crowd splits. We’re off.
•
9
•
Turning
chainsaws
into
ploughshares
Colonisation has cut a wide swathe through the forest
between Puyo and Macas. All along the metalled road
between the two Ecuadorean Amazon cities, pasture
dominates the landscape. Cattle chew their cud in the
shade of low trees and bushes. On both sides, only in the
distance is there a hint of closed forest. Dirt tracks fork
off, apparently to nowhere at all, but wooden signposts in
roughly painted lettering suggest otherwise: Juan Pablo,
Séptima Cooperativa, Sinaí.
he forest east of the road stretches all the way to
the Peruvian border and from there down to
Brazil. Not without its threats and disturbances, for
sure, but still part of the world’s largest surviving
chunk of tropical rainforest.
Not so the thin green line on the hazy western
horizon. In the past thirty years, this area has become
something of an ‘island ecosystem’. Bordered by the
densely inhabited Andes mountains on one side, the
Puyo-Macas strip on the other and main roads on the
narrow far ends, it will in biological terms have to
T
•
10
•
manner of exploitation that was misguided: illinformed and self-defeating. Like most tropical
rainforests, this was a rich ecosystem sustained by a
poor soil. In the course of dozens or maybe
hundreds of generations, the indigenous
inhabitants, such as the Shuar, had found out how to
cope with this paradox. The development planners
however, unaware or heedless of it, brought in from
the Andes large numbers of settlers and advised
them to clear the forest. The national development
bank - which had money to burn, thanks to
Ecuador’s newly-won oil wealth - through much of
the 1970s and 1980s easily gave credit for the
purchase of cattle.
But then, two things happened, one dramatically,
the other creepingly. One: interest rates went up.
Many borrowers defaulted, went bust, sold their
land and left to try their fortune in Macas, the
United States or Spain. Two: pastures gradually
degraded, so that ever fewer cattle could be
sustained by one hectare. More land had to be
opened up to maintain the size of the herds, more
yet to increase them. Farming too, while less
important here than cattle-raising, continuously
needed fresh soil. And after cattle-raising had lost
much of its appeal, logging became an important
cash-cow. As a result, the Puyo-Macas corridor
became wider and wider, even though the stream of
new settlers had dried up. On its western side, the
deforested land has moved very close to the national
park, touching it in some places.
The Shuar, meanwhile, after discovering there was
no way of keeping the settlers out, had to change
their lifestyle, because of shrinking land and forest
resources. Their traditional form of agriculture, in
which a mixture of crops and trees was grown in
small plots, has largely given way to standard
modern practice. They have also adopted cattleraising. They have clung to hunting though, albeit to
a lesser extent than in the old days - for lack of time.
Not a very glitzy job
To a conservationist’s mind, Sangay’s east side is a
promising place to work. The people living here do
not really want to enter the forest (except for the
Shuar hunters). They find it too far from the road, too
far from the market, especially for timber. They
would prefer to make a living around their homes,
growing some crops, tending their cattle. If only they
knew how.
Which is exactly what Fundación Natura, WWF’s
associate organisation in Ecuador, is trying to find
out. Development for the sake of conservation, some
may conclude, with a frown or without. But they
would only be half right. It is also conservation for
the sake of development: if Sangay cannot be saved
fend for itself. Another road, which is nearing its
completion, cuts it in two bits of roughly equal size.
The name of the area is Sangay National Park.
The Puyo-Macas strip, which has been opened up
since the mid-sixties, is the result of a classical
misguided development effort. Not necessarily
misguided because a natural area was sacrificed.
Ecuador needed land for its growing population, so
it made sense to turn to the eastern one third of its
territory, whose population was very small - mainly
a number of scattered indigenous tribes. It was the
•
11
•
Losing game
Hunting and fishing used to be part and parcel of the Shuar life-style. Though this must have affected the forest fauna
somewhat when they started these practices upon their arrival, several thousand years ago, their numbers were too
small to threaten the ecosystem seriously. Moreover, they developed certain patterns, such as not fishing with
barbasco poison in certain seasons, which further reduced the impact of their exploitation. None of this could hold
after the settlers arrived from the late 1960s on. Though they never really took to hunting, they did destroy much of
the natural habitat. The wildlife population dwindled accordingly. At the same time, the Shuar became cattle-raisers
and spent more time on agriculture, so that on balance hunting and fishing grew less important. It is significant that
Pedro Tiwi, the síndico or chosen leader of the community of Saar-Entsa, says that his father knew how to hunt for
deer, tapir, armadillos, pacas and all sorts of birds, but he himself - in his thirties now - has never learnt it from him,
‘neither with a blowpipe and poisoned arrows, not with a shotgun’.
Others have, and continue the practice. Mostly for the family table, but in some cases the bush-meat will be taken to
the market in Macas. Reducing the hunting and fishing pressure is among the Sangay project’s objectives.Tapir and
maybe some other mammals could be bred in captivity or semi-captivity. Fish-ponds are an obvious option. But while
the settlers may seize on these opportunities, the Shuar are less likely to.‘The urge to hunt is not just rooted in a need
for protein, but in their very culture’, Natura’s Robert Samaniego says. On the other hand, Shuar culture is far from
static - they are probably among the best of South America’s indigenous groups that have achieved a balance between
tradition and adaptation. And of course, they are well aware that there is much less game than before.‘I have heard
several of them say, ‘We should make sure that wildlife can recover’’, Natura’s Martha Núñez says hopefully.
how to introduce home-gardening, how to improve
guinea pig breeding and how to get a better price
for products. Development organisations have long
known how hard it all is. So how does a
conservation-minded group such as Natura go
about it? There is a real enough risk of repeating
the mistakes that development organisations have
made in the past: speaking to and working for
rather than with people, always knowing better,
making too optimistic cost-benefit analyses,
assuming everybody to have the same interests,
regardless of age, sex and income, paying people
for their participation - the list of potential errors is
endless.
In one respect, Natura is lucky. In areas where
development organisations have repeatedly
blundered, the intended ‘beneficiaries’ have grown
suspicious and weary of interference. On the other
hand, in much of the Oriente and certainly in this
part, people are relatively keen on any assistance and
advice they can get, especially from private groups.
For as a man in Sexta Cooperativa put it, ‘We don’t
matter to the government.’
from degradation and eventual deforestation, the
whole surrounding region’s resource-base (water,
soil fertility, game, even its mild climate) will go to
waste. Therefore, this project, is financed by the
Dutch government - not by its conservation
department, but from development co-operation
funds.
Finding out how poor villagers in a remote area
can make a more comfortable living is not an easy
task. If it were easy, they would not be so poor. Nor
is it a very glitzy job. It comes down to patiently
discussing and considering all the crucial
trivialities about questions such as whether and
BUREAU M & O
Woodworms
‘This is turnip, these are gherkins, that’s radish.’
Robert Samaniego’s forefinger points from one bed
to the next. ‘I suppose you know cabbage, over there.
Then we have soya beans and frijoles. And do you
grow groundnuts in Europe?’ (No, we don’t.)
A lot of work must have gone into this vegetable
garden. It is fairly large at 200 square metres,
protected against poultry by a good fence and
Sexta Cooperativa
•
12
•
Squatters could settle along the new road through Sangay NP
put everything else into the back seat. A number of
families still grow some vegetables, but few of the
youth do. When this garden was first suggested, five
families participated. We’re at thirteen now. And you
can see it’s well-kept.’ ‘Of course it is’, contributes
Juan Tigre, one of the villagers. ‘We want a good
harvest. It’s a nonsense to buy vegetables at the going
price if you can grow them for yourself.’
What else has Natura done here? ‘The garden has
been the main thing so far’, Tigre replies. ‘But they
have also looked into this matter of how to fertilise
the soil and the possibilities of planting trees on our
private land. And they have given some advice
related to cattle and pasture. The park? I don’t think
it’s anything to do with the park. But they do say we
had better exploit natural areas with some
moderation. We should log with moderation. They
give us suggestions on how to log better. No, we
perfectly tidy. Quite something for a communal
enterprise. Samaniego, an agronomist on the Natura
team for the eastern half of Sangay, gives advice,
pulls out a weed or two, demonstrates how to set
seeds along with a handful of guinea pig manure and
shows his guest around. In the meantime, the group
of men and women working the garden grows from
three to about a dozen. This is Sexta Cooperativa, a
village - only formally a co-operative - of twenty
families between Sangay National Park and the
Puyo-Macas road.
‘They are mostly cattle-raisers’, says Samaniego.
‘They also grow some crops, but not in a big way some plantains, sugar cane, yucca, camote, a little bit
of coffee, too. But unfortunately, they have sort of
given up home-gardening. They used to do that back
where they came from, in the sierra, but down here
the development bank insisted on cattle so much it
•
13
•
settler folks don’t go fishing or hunting, that’s for the
Shuar. We are real woodworms, we are!’
Research in the forest
The Natura team are served lunch in the community
centre, a one-room wooden building on the village
square-cum-football pitch. ‘We don’t have an
elaborate plan for this community, or for any other’,
Samaniego says when we are alone. ‘We have a
general idea, of course. We would like to introduce
agroforestry systems. But what those systems should
look like depends on what each community wants
and what the natural conditions are like in different
places. And we will consider entirely different
things, too. We assume that the people we work with
are capable of telling us what they need and want. We
will then see if their ideas are likely to improve their
incomes or their diet, and if it’s sustainable.’
After lunch, a group of about twenty gather in the
community centre. Some of the women are busy
keeping their children quiet; others are dozing. Most
of the men listen attentively to the Natura people.
Samaniego explains, as he has done during
previous visits, what his organisation can offer them:
agroforestry systems, improved pasture management
and other things the village may come up with. ‘You
know how desperate things are in [the nearby village
of] Sinaí. The soil has impoverished so badly that
people are leaving. As we have told you before, that’s
what happens when all of the forest disappears and is
replaced by pasture. On the coast and in the
mountains, it’s not like that. But the soil in the
Oriente is fragile. It needs better care. Let’s hope we
can stop Sexta from going Sinaí’s way.’
Most of the company nod or mutter words of
approval. Samaniego continues, ‘Another reason we
are here is for the protected area, Sangay. Eighteen
members of this co-operative are the owners of Selva
Alegre, also known as Ambusha, which borders on
Sangay. That’s your property, and it’s up to you what
you do with it. But we would like to talk about the
way it had best be exploited. Maybe we can make a
deal about that.’
Samaniego’s colleague Ángel Chiundia, a forester,
takes over. ‘With your help and permission, we
would like to do some research in Ambusha forest.
Not to stop you from doing what you see fit, but to
see what valuable products it contains. Because
there’s more to a forest than just timber. You can pick
fruits, medicinal plants and a load of other things.
Long-term resources. And if you harvest the timber
in a well-planned, cautious way, it will benefit not
just you, but also your children and grandchildren.
As long as the forest is there, the rivers will not dry
up, the cattle will stay healthier, the climate will not
turn hotter. You’ll remember, when you first came
here, the temperature was usually some 22 tot 26
degrees centigrade. Now, 30 degrees is common.
That’s because in those days, there was more forest
left. Now, what do you think?’
‘Well, let’s discuss it’, one villager says hesitantly.
Upon which everyone remains silent for a while.
‘We would like to breed trout’, another man finally
says. Samaniego is quick to respond. ‘Well, trout
need water that’s cool and rich in oxygen. But we
could try and find out for you whether other fish
might be more suitable for this area.’
‘Can we have both trees and pasture at the same
time?’ another one asks.
Chiundia explains how it all depends on the tree
species whether they survive outside the forest,
where the soil is drier, poorer and more compact.
‘Yeah, I’ve noticed’, somebody observes. ‘Some
trees die right away when there’s no more forest
around them. But the laurel survives for some nine
years.’
The discussion gets going now. Some would like
to master the technique of grafting, which is needed
for fruits such as avocado and tomate de árbol [sweet
‘tree tomato’]. ‘That is quite difficult’, Samaniego
warns. ‘I have done it before’, somebody remarks,
‘though I wouldn’t describe myself as an expert.’
•
14
•
Landslides along the Guamote / Macas Road
elbow-on-the-car discussion with him and some
other men. When he hops back in, he says, ‘Yep,
we’ll pay them a visit next week. See what we can do
here. They seem quite eager.’
Boycott the middlemen
Next day. The rain is pouring down, but the Natura
team stay dry on the veranda of Luz Suscal’s wooden
house in Quinta Cooperativa. Time for a laid-back
chat about how things are going.
‘I was kicked by a horse the other day’, Suscal
says, and she shows an impressive black spot on her
upper arm.
‘Ay, Dios mío’, says Martha Núñez, an
anthropologist who is in charge of the eastern part of
Natura’s Sangay project. ‘Were you hauling timber
when it happened?’
‘No, I wasn’t. My husband, Hugo, does that. But
you’re right in that there’s always that risk. One day
the horses will kick you, the next day, they will bolt.
It’s a hard job, hauling timber is. And the most
infuriating thing about it is the pittance we get for it
from the gran señor who comes to buy it. While he
doesn’t as much as dirty his shoes.’
‘You sell too cheap.’
‘I know. We know we get cheated all the time. But
every week, the children need money for this or that
at school. Where else do I find the cash?’
‘In [the northern province of] Esmeraldas, they
have set up a network of communities to take a stand
against the middlemen’, Núñez says. ‘We know a
lawyer there that we could ask to come to Macas. We
could have a meeting of all the communities in this
area and let him explain how they did it in
Esmeraldas.’
‘If you boycott the middlemen for a couple of
months, they’ll get the message’, Chiundia adds in.
‘If we find an alternative source of income, you can
afford not to sell for a while’, Núñez agrees. That’s
how it went in Esmeraldas. The middlemen had to
choose: either pay up or be forced out of business.
We should calculate some time soon what would be a
fair price here.’
‘And when a plank is not quite perfectly sawed,
they halve the price’, Suscal resumes her complaints.
‘It’s hardly worth all the trouble. We have to hire a
chainsaw, buy fuel, hire horses. And when we cut
trees on somebody else’s land, they get half the price.
I’d rather just keep hens. That’s way less trouble.’
Not all that much less, though, it turns out. Some
weeks ago, Suscal and eleven other women bought a
hundred chicks, which are kept in a coop behind her
house. They decided to do this after an extension
‘Come to think of it, I have seen people do it in a
couple of places’, Samaniego says. ‘Both men and
women. And fast, too.’ To which he adds, ‘You see,
we would really like to know what you already know
and do, and then improve on it. If it can be improved
any further, that is. ‘There’s yet another thing you
might be interested in’, Chiundia says. ‘It’s called
agroforestry modules. Invented in Brazil, where it
was very successful in the Amazon region. It’s a
mixture of different crops on a small plot of about
twenty by twenty. They grow on different levels,
from short-cycle crops down on the ground up to
trees. Costs are low and production is good. We have
a German in Riobamba who knows all about it. We
could bring him here.’
‘That would be great’, the answer comes.
Before we take our leave, Samaniego and
Chiundia bring out a dozen or so little bags with
vegetable seeds, some of them in quaint bright
colours - pink, blue, purple. The tiny seeds are
poured into large, callous hands, from where they go
into makeshift packagings - pieces of torn-up plastic
bags, matchboxes, curled-up leaves - which are
handled with much care. On our way back to the
main road, Samaniego calls on the president of a
Shuar community along the track. He has a short
•
15
•
‘At first, we had nothing but
our axes and machetes’
Settlers in the Amazon usually get a bad press, especially in the industrialised
world. Not without reason: colonisation is among the main causes of
deforestation, hence of biodiversity loss. But that is only one side of the story.
Here is their side.
was the third man to
settle down here in
Sexta. No, I didn’t come
straight from Azuay. I had
been in other places for a
bit, west from here. But I
didn’t like any of them all
that well, so I packed my
things yet again - a ten-kilo
bundle was all I carried with
me - and walked for nine
hours, until I hit on this spot.
We were really
wandering from one place to
the next in those days. And
wherever we liked it, we would settle down. Depending on
what the soil looked like, but also depending a lot on mere
chance: what the weather happened to be like that day,
whether the river happened to be high or low, whatever. Since
I settled down here in Sexta, I’ve seen many others come and
go, looking for a good place to live, just like I once did. And
some stayed, of course.
Back in the sierra, there was simply no land for us. No
irrigation water, either. New land had to be opened up. Which
couldn’t be done there. There was none left.
I remember that around 1970, you would hear this radio
commercial all the time: ‘El Oriente es tu destino’ (the
Oriente is your destination/destiny). It said you could move
straight into a house in a street, all for free. That was a lie. But
we only found that out when we got here. What they did give
us, though, was food. During the first two years, CREA [the
official colonisation agency] and the Peace Corps provided
foodstuffs in exchange for us building roads, bridges and
cableways.
In those days, it was all pure jungle here, pura montaña. At
first, we had nothing but our axes and machetes. With those,
we built our first huts. In (the nearby community of) Sinaí we
bought some sowing seed. That’s how we began farming.
In 1973, just after establishing the co-operative, we were
attacked by the Shuar. It was such a frightening experience
that some settlers fled back to the sierra. Apparently, the
Shuar believed we would grab their land and carry off their
women. Maybe that was because
we were only men at the time, all
about 25 years old. We didn’t
make our wives and children come
over until two or three years later.
At least we could offer them
something by then: a little house,
running water, even electric power.
For suffering on your own is bad
enough, but to see your family
suffer, that’s different altogether.
In the beginning, the
Development Bank said, ‘You
have to sow elephant grass, just
clear the jungle’. We didn’t know
better. We didn’t even sell the timber. The trees were just left
to rot, the finest woods, everything. That’s how we created
the pastures. But they went bad in no time at all. The trouble
is, the soil here needs a whole different sort of management
than we were used to. In many places, there is just ten
centimetres of topsoil. When you remove the vegetation, it
washes away instantly. In the sierra, people have grown their
crops on the same fields for centuries and the soil is still
fertile. Plants can root deeper there, which stops the soil from
being washed or blown away. And the fields have more
stones, which fertilise the soil.
Didn’t you know that? I’ll tell you a story to prove it. There
was this rich man in the sierra who hired a group of labourers
to clear a field of all the stones they would find. ‘Just throw
them into the river’, he said. But next year, instead of yielding
a rich harvest as he had expected, the maize came up poorer
than normally. And the year after that, it would only grow
knee-high. So he regretted what he had done, and he hired the
labourers again. ‘Get the stones back out of the river and
spread them over the field’, he told them, and so they did. The
following year, the harvest was better again. But it would
never be like it used to.
▲
BUREAU M & O
‘I
The above statements were made during a group interview
with three men in Sexta Cooperativa: Segundo Chinchilima,
Juan Tigre and Segundo Yunga.
•
16
•
BUREAU M & O
‘Anyway, most of the chickens have remained in
good health’, Suscal says.
‘Only ten have died. But we have another problem
now: we have run dead out of compound feed, and
out of money to buy it. That’s because three señoras
have pulled out of our group. They could no longer
afford it, they claimed. I’ve told them, it’s an
investment, you stand to make a profit. But they
wouldn’t continue, so we’ve had to return their
deposit. And now we can’t buy the three bags of feed
for the chickens to reach their full weight.’
Núñez looks thoughtful. ‘We’ll see what we can
do. Maybe we can help with you the feed when we
return to Macas this afternoon. But are you sure this
whole thing is profitable at all?’
Upon which the whole company tackles a
complex sum, adding costs for purchase of the
animals, feed, vaccinations, vitamins and fuel for
lighting, estimating the amount of time needed for
feeding, killing and plucking, multiplying this by a
fictitious hourly wage, predicting the mortality rate,
the weight of the survivors and their market price,
and subtracting the full cost from the sales price.
‘Yes, you’ll make a good profit’, Núñez finally
concludes. ‘Some 200,000 sucres (US$30) for each
of you, not counting the payment for hours worked.
And that’s on the basis of a moderate market price. If
you can get seven thousand rather than six thousand
sucres a pound, you’ll make a good deal more. So,
what do you plan to do with the money?’
‘First, pay back everybody’s deposit’, Suscal
answers. ‘And then, the idea is to reinvest the profit,
buying chicks again. It’s our capitalcito.
‘And what if your husbands want any of it?’ Núñez
asks.
‘They can borrow some money if they like’,
Suscal says, laughing. ‘With an interest!’
When we get back from Quinta, which is near the
forest, to the main road, it turns out it hasn’t rained
there at all.
‘That’s typical’, Samaniego says.
Transport east
of Sangay NP
worker of the Ministry of Agriculture had given a
talk on poultry keeping. A one-off affair: he never
showed up again. No follow-up veterinary
assistance, no commercial advice, nothing. Sloppy
work, we all agree.
(Ironically, Natura gave a similar talk on poultrykeeping in the Shuar community of Paantiin. Not a
subject to be thought of lightly, given the number and
complexity of specifications for the coops, the feed
and animal health care. But since Paantiin, which had
repeatedly asked for this information, was outside
Natura’s priority area, they were told right from the
start that there would be no further assistance. One
couldn’t help feeling that whoever would invest in
chickens on the basis of the lecture was at a severe
risk of losing their money.)
‘We didn’t know that some vaccinations had to be
repeated after a couple of weeks’, Suscal says. ‘And
it’s hard to get a vet to come to Quinta in the first
place. Some time ago, our guinea pigs were dying on
us one after the other. When I cut one open, I found it
was full of yellow foam. But there was no-one to ask
what might be the matter.’
‘We will talk to some vets in Macas’, Núñez says.
‘See if we can establish some sort of relationship
with one of them for you.’
Buffer zone
‘What worries me most is whether we will actually
be able to identify and develop livelihoods that are
viable alternatives to logging’, Martha Núñez says.
‘We really have to work even harder on that.’
We are seated in a shiny, cool Chinese restaurant
in Macas. The hot and dusty co-operatives and Shuar
villages seem far away - which is true in terms of
travelling time, but not in kilometres.
‘It’s all very well to keep chickens or bees or build
a pond and breed fish. But you have to consider very
carefully if it’s really profitable, like we did in Quinta
this morning. For one thing, you tend not to include
the opportunity cost, that is the income people could
•
17
•
earn doing
will have created an
something else with
informal buffer zone
their time.
for Sangay, because
Especially with
it borders the park.
women, you’re
‘The major
easily tempted to
timber company
pile more and more
around here,
burdens onto them,
Arboriente, has
assuming they’re
sawmills in Puyo
around the house
and Ambato, but not
anyway.’
yet in Macas. They
Fortunately,
are active in this
some alternatives do
area, though not
seem to stand up to
within in the park.
such scrutiny; not
We’ve already
just poultry-keeping
spoken with
and fish-breeding,
company people, so
but also at least one
they know we are
product that comes
watching them.
straight from the
‘At the moment
forest. ‘They have a
we’re telling people
medicine here,
it’s better to save
extracted from a
Sangay as a falltree, which is called
back for the future.
sangre de drago’,
If resources outside
Núñez says. ‘It
the park are used
disinfects and helps
more efficiently,
Sangay NP
healing. Here in
more rationally,
Macas, it’s sold at
they will last much
six thousand sucres a litre. In Quito, that’s the price
longer, we explain to them. They say they didn’t
for a two centilitre bottle!’
know it was unwise to cut down all the trees - it was
Nonetheless, timber is likely to remain an
what the bank told them to do. We hope that later on
important source of income. The challenge will be to
they’ll understand it’s best not to log it out.’
keep people out of Sangay nonetheless. ‘One
But that’s for the long term - longer than the four
important way of achieving that is by making sure
years the current project is planned to run. ‘True’,
they get a better price while at the same time drawing
Núñez says. ‘And that is not just Sangay’s problem.
up management plans’, Núñez says. ‘We hope we
In a study by WWF International, one or two years
will be able to organise forest owners into a network,
ago, the conclusion was that Integrated Conservation
Maybe they could get linked with the Forest
and Development Projects cannot be expected to
Stewardship Council. If we can get the Ambusha
reach their objectives in four or five years. Double
▲
owners to work according to a management plan, we
that, more likely.’
Why this project?
WWF’s Sangay project has the twin objectives of
conserving the National Park’s rich biodiversity and
ensuring the local population’s participation in the
management of the area.
More specific objectives include the following:
• To reduce the pressure on the park exerted by the
human settlements in and around the park.
• To minimise the adverse ecological and social impact
of the Guamote-Macas road, which is approaching
completion.
• To make sure that the local communities in and around
the protected area participate in its conservation and
management and in the sustainable use of the buffer
zones.
• To upgrade the official park administration, which is a
responsibility of the National Forestry and
Conservation Institute’s Directorate for Natural Areas
and Wildlife.
•
18
•
Looking forward
hich are the crucial problems that have to be solved to
make Fundación Natura’s Sangay project a success?
On the western highland side of Sangay, there is as yet no
serious threat to the forest, since there is very little illegal
logging in this area. On the other hand, overgrazing and
misguided natural resource management methods are real
threats to the paramo ecosystem on the western fringe of the
park and beyond. Sustainable levels of grazing and improved
vegetation management are in the best interest of both the
herdsmen and the ecosystem. But to persuade them to
change their ways, especially to quit their counterproductive
habit of burning patches of land to stimulate regrowth, will
take a lot of patience and trust on the part of the Natura
project officers. Fortunately the officers seem well qualified
in this respect. The highlanders’ traditional antipathy to
anybody who vaguely resembles an authority make the task
all the harder.
On Sangay’s eastern lowland side, there are three major
threats to the forest: the advance of the agricultural frontier
towards the limits of the national park, illegal logging and the
hunting practices of the Shuar Indians. The latter problem is
hard to tackle, since hunting is considered culturally, rather
than nutritionally, important. However, the intensity of
hunting has declined significantly with the increasing
importance of agriculture and cattle-raising in the Shuar
economy.
Logging, though on a small scale, and clearing new land
for agriculture pose greater threats. Both can be countered by
offering alternative livelihoods. But this is not an easy task.
The decisive question is ‘whether we will actually be able to
identify and develop livelihoods that are viable alternatives to
logging’, as one of the project officers put it. Several
alternatives are currently being put to the test with the eager
participation of the local people, who have traditionally felt
neglected by central government and development
organisations.
The third potential source of future ecological concern is
the road that will, within a few years, cut the park in two. This
will open up a large area to loggers, hunters and farmers. Both
the park authorities and the Natura project are aware of the
risks and are taking pre-emptive action.
▲
W
•
19
•
Acknowledgements
All texts written by Gaston Dorren of Bureau M&O - Environment & Development Productions
© WWF March 2001
Published by the DGIS-WWF Tropical Forest Portfolio based at WWF International.
For further copies contact Astrid Bjorvik, Finance/Communications Co-ordinator,
DGIS-WWF Tropical Forest Portfolio
WWF International, Avenue de Mont Blanc 27, 1196 Gland, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 364 90 16, Fax +41 22 364 06 40, E-mail: abjorvik@wwfint.org
Cover pictures:WWF-Canon/Kevin Schafer
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.
Printed on environmentally friendly paper

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