A Walk in the Treetops
Getting into the rainforest canopy is a tricky business. You can use high-tech climbing gear or drop down from above using a specially adapted hot-air balloon. Or you can do what I’m doing: gingerly making my way along the rather disconcertingly bouncy canopy walkway at Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica in the Peruvian jungle.
More than 400 metres long, 30 metres above the ground, anchored with steel cables and enclosed with chest-high mesh, Reserva Amazonica’s canopy walkway is as safe as can be, but it’s definitely not for the faint-hearted – they even give you a certificate if you complete it.
Those brave enough to, well, brave it, are rewarded with an unparalleled rainforest experience, as they come face to face with brightly coloured birds and, if they’re lucky, troops of sprightly monkeys – no craning your neck for a fleeting glimpse; here you’re up at their level.
Amazing rainforest experiences is what Reserva Amazonica does best. The reserve is located 14 kilometres down the Madre de Dios (‘Mother of God’) River from the remote settlement of Puerto Maldonado, a 45-minute boat ride that takes visitors past white caiman sitting impassively on the riverbanks, rows of small freshwater turtles basking on exposed debris and the odd posse of illegal gold panners.
Set in a grassy clearing cut from the surrounding jungle, the main lodge – an airy two-storey building designed by the wife of founder and chairman of Inkaterra Jose Koechlin – sits adjacent to 35 basic but well-appointed palm-roofed cabañas, themselves modelled on the huts of the local Ese-Eja and Machiguenga people.
All of the buildings are made using local materials and techniques – and local labour – and the furniture is made on site using off cuts from the local saw mill. Indeed, everywhere you look is bare wood – you won’t see much in the way of paint. Even the sinks are carved from stone-hard quinilla wood.
The lodge is set in 7,800-hectares of virgin rainforest that Inkaterra has leased from the government. Indeed, so well integrated is the lodge that among the regular visitors are numerous examples of the local wildlife. As I’m settling into my cabaña, I hear an odd grunting noise outside that turns out to be a pair of agoutis – large rodents that look like guinea pigs on steroids – that are chasing each other across the lawn. Another strange sound, this time a loud grinding coming from a big palm tree, is revealed to be the product of a gorgeous rich-red squirrel. As I’m watching it, a hummingbird whirrs by, and all the while, parakeets chatter noisily in the trees above.
Responsible Pioneer
Inkaterra can lay claim to being a true pioneer of responsible tourism: the lodge was established in 1975, long before the term was invented; indeed, even before ‘ecotourism’ was coined. ‘We started in the early 1970s after putting together the team that produced [the Werner Herzog film] Aguirre, The Wrath of God,’ Koechlin tells me. ‘We had such a good team that the question was how to carry on with that group of people. The simple thought was that since we liked the rainforest, why not try to find somewhere to start a lodge?
‘And finally we came here,’ he continues. ‘At that time, Puerto Maldonado had a gravel airstrip. There was nobody here. Madre de Dios state covered 84,000 square kilometres but was home to only 6,000 people. It was a three-month journey to Cusco by road. So staples, or whatever else you needed, were very difficult to get. There was no food – you had to go and say, “Lady, can you sell me your hen?”.’
The low population density and the lack of roads into the region meant that it had been spared the rapacious logging that had taken place elsewhere in Peru. And after two years of searching for the right spot, Koechlin was awarded Peru’s first ecotourism concession and Reserva Amazonica was born.
Right from the start, the operation had a science focus. Koechlin was particularly keen to create an inventory of the species present in the reserve, and he quickly set about inviting biologists to come and stay
and study. ‘If there’s something that you care for, you want to understand it,’ he says.
Among those who have since visited is the renowned Harvard biologist Professor Edward O Wilson, who identified 362 species of ant in the reserve – the highest diversity ever recorded from a single location. They join the 83 reptile, 60 amphibian, 366 bird, 136 mammal and 442 spider species recorded so far. Many of these species were first discovered here (a few have been named after Koechlin himself) and some have yet to be found elsewhere in Peru.
Working with these baseline inventories, Inkaterra now carries out regular monitoring to check the forest’s health. ‘The are five pieces of land within the concession that are used for permanent monitoring,’ explains conservation and environment chief officer Dennis Osorio. ‘Every two years, a group of researchers goes out and carries out new inventories.’ A number of local subsistence farmers are employed as guides, taking the researchers along the five-kilometre transects that have been set up in the dense forest, just one of the many ways in which Inkaterra works to provide employment for local people.
In addition to the inventory and monitoring work, there are a number of larger long-term projects currently being carried out in the reserve. Since 1989, the Missouri Botanical Garden and University of Leeds have been monitoring carbon fixation by the reserve’s rainforest in four permanent plots, and researchers from Duke University are currently catching seeds in aqua-blue nets to test hypotheses about the relationship between seed fall and sapling establishment.
Social activities
This research is coordinated by a separate NGO, the Inka Terra Association (ITA). ‘The company passes a proportion of its profits to the NGO so that it can work on an academic or scientific basis without having to worry about fundraising,’ Koechlin explains. ‘So the company dedicates itself to good services in ecotourism and the NGO dedicates itself to research and social activities.’
Among these ‘social activities’ is Gamitana Farm, a sort of training centre for agroforestry techniques. ‘Many of the people in the local communities come from the Andes,’ Osorio explains. ‘They arrived here searching for new opportunities because the land here is more fertile. But they have a different background, so they burn the forest and use farming techniques from the Andes and exotic plants such as corn and rice. After a few years, nothing grows as the soil is depleted, so they burn a new piece of land. The ITA shows them how to recover the burnt plots so they don’t destroy new forest.’
Gamitana acts as a nursery for economically useful plants – mainly fruits and wood – as well as species useful for the recovery of depleted land. ‘We have meetings with the beneficiaries where they choose which products they want to use,’ Osorio says. ‘They can then come and receive training so that they can then apply the techniques on their farms.’
As well as helping to preserve the forest and improve the livelihoods of the local people, the farm also acts as a source of products for use in the lodge and a popular excursion for guests.
Community projects such as Gamitana are an important part of the Inkaterra philosophy. There is a real focus on raising the living standards of the local people, not just from an economic standpoint, but also through educational programmes. ‘There aren’t any parks in Puerto Maldonado, but there is an area of primary forest near the airport,’ Koechlin tells me. ‘We spoke to the airport authority and made a deal with them. So now we’re managing the forest and putting together an interpretation centre for young kids.’
Across the river from the lodge is another example of this educational work: Hacienda Concepcion, a former plantation homestead that was reconstructed in 2003 thanks to a partnership between Inkaterra and the Amazon Centre for Environmental Research and Education. Now it acts as an environmental education centre for the local townspeople and a base for foreign students and researchers, complete with interpretative materials and a well-equipped laboratory.
True professionals
This focus on education continues through to the lodge’s staff, around 60 per cent of whom come from Puerto Maldonado, and who often have little in the way of schooling. ‘In every Inkaterra hotel, there’s an English teacher,’ Koechlin tells me. ‘We want to turn our staff into professionals. There are many people who started with us when they came from their farms, from the mountains, from the rainforest – and now they work with other companies within tourism.’
But Koechlin isn’t some sort of rich benefactor running his enterprises at a loss. He’s clearly a very canny operator, who just happens to ensure that those enterprises provide some sort of environmental or social benefit. Inkaterra now runs two other properties and Koechlin has at least two other developments in the pipeline.
He also has the vision and the restlessness that seem to characterise so many entrepreneurs. How else to explain the breadth of his activities, which even take in chart-topping chillout CDs. ‘A large proportion of the population of Lima are migrants from the Andes,’ he explains. ‘We realised that many of these people are keeping their traditional culture alive in their homes. They live with modernity, but within their homes, their lifestyle is Andean. The most obvious expression of this is music. So we got together the best Peruvian musicians and came up with a CD of Andean chillout music – the first in Peru – that came to be the number-one selling album in Peru.’
That restlessness is evident when I ask him to reflect back over 35 years of Inkaterra and pick the achievement of which he’s most proud. Instead, he speaks of the future. ‘There’s so much to do,’ he says. ‘You’re always looking at what’s on the other side. You can’t lie back and say, “Okay, I’ve made it.” That’s the bad side of building momentum – there’s always more and more to do, and there’s a sense of responsibility to do it right.’
September 2009
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