PARKS AND TRIBES

AMAZON RIVER [HISTORY & INTERESTING FACTS IN ECUADOR

CONSERVATION HISTORY OF ECUADOR

Amazon River Basin Ecuador History and facts

This page may look dated — and there’s a reason for that. It describes the early history of Ecuador’s Amazon River Basin and presents facts that even many Ecuadorians don’t know. And how do we know these things? I, Dr Daan Vreugdenhil, owner and initiator of the Cuyabeno Lodge, was part of the team that selected Cuyabeno for protection, and I was the the person who initiated ecotourism in Cuyabeno. In 1974, a forestry project of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) set in motion a process that transformed conservation history in Ecuador. At that time, the only protected areas in the country were Galápagos National Park and Cotopaxi National Park. Much of mainland Ecuador remained largely unexplored, with two-thirds of the territory still covered in virgin rainforest — including most of Ecuador’s Amazon region, half of the outer Andes slopes, and most of the coastal lowlands and mangroves of Esmeraldas, as well as a significant portion of the Guayas mangroves. The FAO team, in which I was the only graduated ecologist, began surveying the entire country to identify and evaluate its most important natural areas that were worthy of conservation as protected area. Later, I would become the founder of the Cuyabeno Lodge.

We traveled the four corners of the country, riding four-wheel-drives where we could until they would get stuck in the mud or until going further would be impossible for the presence of cliffs and jungle. We would explore the jungle for weeks on foot, hiring local guides until we would have a feel for the area. For the Ecuadorian Amazon - which was still was covered by 90% with rainforest and incredibly inaccessible - a special team was led by the founding member of the Cuyabeno Lodge, to explore the Amazon Rainforest of Ecuador. This team of explorers started combing the region by dug-out canoe as far as they could go into the smallest creeks. What could not be traveled by canoe, was first explored with small airplanes. We visited isolated Indian tribes landing on their airstrips, often no longer than a football field and as level as a "freshly ploughed corn field". Their villages would later serve as base camps for exploring the jungle on foot, while the people of the tribe, would show their territories and teach us about their ways of life.

Historical pictures of the 1975 FAO exploration of outstanding natural areas in Ecuador from the slide archive of the Cuyabeno Lodge member, Dr. Daan Vreugdenhil, who later founded the lodge. The team would first explore by car as far as the road would go, like this road to Alao into the Sangay area, and then continue on foot equipped with tents on teir backs. In the lowlands of the Amazon, Dr. Vreugdenhil would continue with canoes, as far up-stream as they would take him, as shown here where the Tiputini river was no more than 10cm deep. Where he could not get by canoe, he would fly in with Short take-of and landing - stol - Helio airplanes of missionaries in Limoncocha and near Shell to airstrips sometimes as short as 90m.

By end 1976, about 92 areas had been studied and the majority of the areas that now make up the System of National Parks of Ecuador were based on the recommendations of this Study by the FAO (Spanish only). Originally 15% became protected in some 40 areas, later to be expanded to currently about 20% in 59 protected areas of the government and about 12 private protected areas in the System National de Areas Protegidas (SNAP) of Ecuador. Among those areas was the Cuyabeno watershed, which was to become a "Fauna Production Reserve". Today, very few people know the background of that management category, so, let me explain. In the mid-seventies, the FAO was promoting wildlife farming and game cropping in Africa. So, we thought it a good idea to try something similar in Ecuador, with the idea to finance management costs from revenues generated from wildlife farming and hunting. We thought that it would also create opportunities for the indigenous people of the area, the Sionas, to become a part of fauna production operations taking benefit of their own hunting and fishing culture. So, Cuyabeno was proposed to become a Fauna Production Reserve.

In the course of the years, as the world's attention shifted more towards ecotourism, Ecuador was gathering more and more international fame for its Galapagos Islands as an holiday destination. As a result, legislation was never put in place to allow for fauna production use, and looking back, that was rather fortunate, as humid tropical forests are not at all suitable for such practices.  Now, for all practical purposes, Cuyabeno serves as a national park, and the Siona Indians are heavily involved in the tourism services, thus providing them with jobs from ecotourism services, while much more of the lands where they currenly live are protected.

Putting an area under legal protection, however was not enough, and a bit at the time, people started moving into some of the gazetted areas cutting down forest. After a road for oil-exploitation had opened the area in 1983, Cuyabeno became very badly affected and lots of forest was being cut down by people who had invaded the Eastern part of the watershed.

INVASION OF THE CUYABENO NATURE RESERVE

The, director of the reserve, Dr. Flavio Coello, visited the Dr. Vreugdenhil in his home in Netherlands in 1983 to ask him to go back to Ecuador and work with him at a solution. After analyzing the situation, the two biologists concluded, that the invaded part of the upper watershed could best be eliminated from the area limits as there already were too many people living there. But a lot of uninhabited jungle still existed between the area boundaries and the border with Peru. So the proposed to expand the reservation eastward. So, they advised the Government accordingly and now, the park reaches all the way to the border with Peru, also including the Lagartocoche Lakes, thus making Cuyabeno Faunistic Reserve the second largest nature reserve of Ecuador. In 1985, the founding father of Cuyabeno participated in a United Nations team on sustainable development of the Oriente of Ecuador. Cuyabeno remained under pressure as Ecuador depended on oil revenues and continued to open exploration roads into the reserve.

Photos from scans of historical slides of 1983 and 1985 of massive deforestation following the construction of the road to the border with Colombia, traversing the Cuyabeno Nature Reserve at what is commonly referred to as the "Puente" or Bridge, the current entrance of the reserve. Besides deforestation for oil exploitation purposes (slides 1 and 2) the road had opened up the area for settlers to move in, who started clearing the jungle for raising cattle. In addition to that, in those years, oil exploitation was extraordinary messy and at each pumping station, the water with remnants of oil were dumped simply drained into the jungle. Please note, these are scans of  our  historical, partly restored, slides of the 80s. They are not our modern quality pictures.

NEOTROPIC TURIS

After lots of brainstorming, the 2 biologists concluded that in order to rescue the area, it would be necessary to create alternative forms of income in addition to oil revenues, thus creating an interest at the level of both local and national governments. This could only be achieved if there were a sleeping accommodation within the reserve. Dr. Vreugdenhil suggested he would be willing to initiate a special marketing effort to bring tourists to Cuyabeno. The government appreciated the offer and agreed that an experimental Amazon rainforest lodge at Lake Cuyabeno was needed as an alternative to deforestation for agriculture and cattle raising. The first group of visitors – from the Netherlands - came in 1986. From 1986 until 1988, the tourists were hosted under very basic conditions in and near a hut considered to be the "Biological Station"

In 1986, Dr. Vreugdenhil and his wife organized the first official ecotour ever, with 16 brave tourists from the Netherlands. They did not know what they were getting themselves into. But, without realizing at the time the full significance, their visit set into march a gradual stabilization of the conservation situation of Cuyabeno Their visit set in march the ecotourism making Cuyabeno a prime ecotourism destination. It is fun to see how this first group was transported in old Tame Electra propeller airplane to Lagoagrio and from there transported standing up in a pick-up truck to the entrance of Cuyabeno. A group of Siona families, under leadership of Chief Victoriano lived with the tourists at the very primitive conditions of the biological station camp with no more than a central roofed structure and an outhouse. The Sionas helped pitch their tents, prepared their food and lived with the group as one big family, babies included.

In 1988, Neotropic Turis Cia. Ltda was created as a social responsibility company dedicated to the conservation of national parks through ecotourism. In 1988, Neotropic Turis received its license from the Government to operate an experimental lodge for ecotourism. From then on, one ecotour at the time, Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve accumulated fame as an ecotourism destination. Being the first, of course, we chose the best location, a hill on an island near the shore of the Cuyabeno Lake.

Neotropic Turis has always worked intensively with the Sionas, contracting all its transportation needs to the Sionas, even though Neotropic Turis is licensed to operate its own canoes. It started the health services for the Indians which were non-existing, so the company sent in doctor every other month and financed basic treatment and occasionally hospital costs. Neotropic Turis with its tropical biologist, in colaboration with the Ministry, organized and paid for the training of guides as well as the Indians. During construction, the Sionas received on the job training in carpentry, which served them to improve their own houses.

TOURISM IN THE AMAZON RIVER BASIN OF ECUADOR

After the pioneering days in the nineteen eighties, the Amazon Jungle Lodge Cuyabeno Lodge has continuously improved both its facilities and its programs. Packages can be booked as standard modules such as regular Amazon visits and special Ecuador Amazon Expeditions as well as custom programs being developed for birdwatchera and other groups specifically interested in birds as well as other for other interests, including Amazon Jungle Animals and/or Amazon Rainforest Plants. Particularly popular are combined packages with Galapagos National Park for which special discounts are provided. Check our Cuyabeno Lodge rates.

Visitation of reserve has grown from the first 16 visitors from the Netherlands in 1986 to about 14.000 the year before Covid and the area has become an internationally renowned tourism destination on mainland Ecuador. By now, most of the pressure of illegal invading has disappeared, in part, thanks to the Cuyabeno Amazon Jungle Lodge in Ecuador and its proud owner, Dr. Daan Vreugdenhil

With Modern amenities, the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best place from where you can explore the Cuyabeno: it has modern amenities, like hot showers, clean beds with mosquito netting and a great restaurant.

For detailed information on climate and weather conditions read: climate of Cuenca, Ecuador; climate Galapagos Islands in Ecuador; climate in the Amazon of Ecuador and climate zones of Ecuador.

Now that you read about these Amazon River Basin Ecuador History and facts, you can see why the Cuyabeno Lodge is the best lodge in the entire Amazon River Basin of Ecuador!

AMAZON RIVER [HISTORY & INTERESTING FACTS ECUADOR