Kapawi Ecolodge at the World Travel Market

When I visited the World Travel Market last week, I looked around the Ecuador stand and got chatting to the folks from the Kapawi ecolodge in Ecuador.

When I was in Ecuador last October, we ended our river journey at Kapawi, in Achuar territory on the River Pastaza, where we took a small aircraft to fly us back to the airport at Shell. As the weather was too bad for the plane to land, we stayed the night at Kapawi village, where the president of the community invited us for supper in his home and gave us permission to sleep in one of the school houses. The ecolodge is set by a lagoon, a little away from the main village, and we didn't get the chance to visit, but I'd heard all about it.


Heather with Kistupa Peas from the Kapawi ecolodge

The Achuar own the Natural Reserve in which Kapawi is situated and have made a strategic decision to say no to the logging and oil drilling that would destroy the natural rainforest environment. We had seen for ourselves the changes that logging can bring earlier in the day, when we visited the town of Andaos, down the river and just over the border into Peru. Here the palm roofed traditional houses had been replaced by shops, hotels and houses with corregated iron roofs, and the rainforest had all but disappeared.


The logging town of Andaos in Peru

The Kapawi ecolodge started in 1996 as an effort to develop a sustainable income source through ecotourism and was developed in partnership with an Ecuadorian tourism company although in 2008 total ownership passed to the Achuar people. The ecolodge has an economic ripple effect throughout the whole of the Achuar territory, providing income for many who sell and transport supplies to the lodge. In order to benefit the maximum numbers of Achuar, those who work there usually stay two years, taking part in the language programme and gaining experience in ecotourism, then move on to let someone else gain the same experience.




I have to say that our visit to Kapawi was all too brief, and we were not in the best spirits to enjoy it. We had been travelling by canoe for over a week and it was pouring with rain as we arrived. The next day we waited anxiously for our plane, which had tried to land the previous day and turned back because of the cloud cover. Finally it came and we all piled in, offloading what baggage we could to keep the weight down in the tiny 6-seater. Finally we were rewarded by an hour long flight over the forest canopy with a bird's eye view of the rainforest that the Achuar are fighting to protect.



To you the Kapawi ecolodge may be an opportunity to see an unspoiled rainforest wilderness and learn something about the local wildlife and people. To the Achuar it's a hub from which they can tell their story and build support in the wider world that will enable them to preserve the rainforest on which their culture depends. Seems to me like a win-win all round.

See all the photos from my trip to Ecuador on Flickr

Website: www.kapawi.com Email: info@kapawi.com

Quito Office: Mariscal Foch E7-38 y Reina Victoria, Edificio Reina Victoria, Of.1, Quito, Ecuador, +593.2 600.9333 General Manager: José Saltos Carvallo

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