NATURE PROTECTION

Protecting what keeps us alive

Nature conservation, especially in the Amazon region, must be more than „just“ the protection of fauna and flora. Nature conservation means „protecting the habitat“. This naturally includes the people who live there, who – like all of us – are part of nature.

The indigenous peoples of Ecuador were lucky enough to receive large parts of their traditional settlement areas with land titles from the state. In this respect, the situation of indigenous peoples in other Latin American countries is much worse, if not devastating.

However, although the territories of the Amazonian peoples of Ecuador are considered legally secure in terms of their extent and existence, the reality is more likely to be exploitation and destruction by international and national economic interests. Even the indigenous peoples themselves, who still have no alternative to their destroyed traditional way of life, are robbing themselves of their last natural resources and seeking their salvation in the connection to the road network, which then kills them off completely.

This unfortunate trend must be countered! The measures are education, training and support for all activities to protect the forest peoples, their habitat and thus to preserve the last great rainforest we have as mankind.

The habitat of the forest dwellers means life for us all!

Why is the rainforest in the Amazon region of Ecuador particularly valuable?

Due to colder temperatures and drought during the last ice age, the tropical rainforest of South America was largely transformed into a savannah. The former primeval forest only survived in individual retreat areas, which were scattered like islands across the northern half of the subcontinent, see map.

This made it possible to colonize South America over land (25,000 to 15,000 years ago), while nature preserved parts of a tens of millions of years old ecosystem in a particularly sustainable way. With an increasingly warmer and wetter climate, the forest islands formed the largest tropical rainforest in the world today, which is now being destroyed by humans

Ecuador is home to two of these primeval forest regions that survived the last ice age. They are among the tropical rainforest regions with the greatest biodiversity in the world: the Choco on the Pacific coast of Colombia extends into northern Ecuador, where it forms the last rainforest in the province of Esmeraldas.

The jungle island of Napo is the core of today’s rainforest area in the Amazon region of Ecuador and in the neighboring countries of Colombia and Peru. Its unique biodiversity has also been positively influenced by its geographical location at the foot of the Andes mountain range. This natural heritage of mankind is in great danger! The Choco has already been largely destroyed, and the governments of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are pursuing strategies that will lead to the certain destruction of the primary forest of the „Napo heritage“ within the next twenty years.

The measures in detail

Environmental education

„Since it is man who destroys nature, we must start with the people in order to protect nature“. Everyone in the family learns how important it is to keep nature intact and to live in a healthy environment – even in the deepest jungle! AMAZONICA integrates appropriate orientation into elementary school lessons, cultural education and community development through training in ecological disposal measures. Ecological working methods, especially in agriculture, and the use of renewable energies also contribute to increased environmental awareness.

As wildlife and other natural food resources are steadily declining, the Forest Indians feel the need to change something – without knowing what or how.

Two examples of the measures taken by AMAZONICA: The experienced old hunters are currently working on a hunting calendar to analyze and record endangered species and optimal hunting seasons. At the same time, the ABC schoolchildren are going on a litter hunt: they are cleaning the village, the riverbanks and the paths in the surrounding area with skewers and baskets.

Environmental management

We would prefer to say „environmental management“, because each of us is part of our environment and cannot escape it. „Environmental management“ is a course of study at Ecuadorian universities. AMAZONICA finances the scholarships for young Achuar and Shuar who will set important standards in their territories in the future and educate their families accordingly. They can get a paid job at the AMAZONICA Academy and in tourism.

The first tourist guides have already been trained. They accompany visitors to the forest not only for safety reasons, but above all to explain the special features of the tropical rainforest and help scientists with their work.

These professions only have a future if the environment is intact. This means that every trained indigenous person becomes an environmentalist in their own interest.

Nature reserves

Declaring regions worthy of protection as nature reserves, national parks and the like is good in principle. But in practice, none of this is of any use as long as no one abides by the rules and no one is there to monitor compliance with the protective measures! It doesn’t help if multi-billionaires buy up half of Amazonia as long as they can’t guard their natural treasures. And they can’t! On the one hand, they have the governments of the affected countries and regional economic interests as enemies, and on the other hand, no paid ranger force in the world can protect immense impassable and unknown forest areas.

The only possible local forest guardians are the local forest Indians. They are the natural, born guardians of their forest in their own interest and in the interest of us and future generations. Under the current circumstances, however, they too must be trained for this task. For AMAZONICA, this is a self-evident task.

A functioning nature reserve in the Amazon region therefore requires several actors, a lobby: the institutions that place an area under nature conservation and continue to monitor it, the forest dwellers who guard it from the inside, and the enlightened and interested global public as partners for the people who strive for „our nature conservation“.

The Achuar in the province of Pastaza are prepared to declare their most valuable, still intact primeval forest areas as reserves themselves, to stop hunting and to protect them from foreign encroachment. AMAZONICA is supporting them in this.