Environment: Promoting The Piranhas

Kapawi Ecolodge & Reserve, located in a remote corner of Ecuador's Amazon territory, is the kind of place the ecosensitive tourist can feel good about staying in. After landing on a nearby airstrip, visitors travel by canoe up the Capahuari River to Kapawi, whose 19 huts are modeled on the traditional thatched-roof homes of the indigenous Achuar, a tribe of rain-forest warriors. Much of its power is generated through solar panels, and nonbiodegradable trash is flown back to Quito. Tourists can try shooting darts through blow guns, or fish for piranhas in the river. Meanwhile, the Achuar hone skills like English that will help them deal with foreign travelers. Ten dollars per visitor goes to the Achuar people, making ecotourism their main source of income.

That's better than the alternative: oil. Kapawi sits in a part of the country known as El Oriente—the East—believed to contain 4.5 billion barrels of oil. Energy companies, led by state-owned Petroecuador, started drilling almost 40 years ago, devastating the environment while failing to supply impoverished locals with jobs. Some communities even sabotaged oil installations to demand work and social services, compelling some oil companies to clean up their acts. But oil development is not the only threat; logging, smuggling and bored soldiers firing idly at the wildlife have further decimated the area. As a result, the Ecuadoran government has pledged to contain the oil companies while working to clean up the region. Part of the government's strategy involves implementing a code of conduct for oil companies in sensitive areas, obliging them to restrict entry and require vaccinations against the viruses that have killed so many indigenous people.

Resorts like Kapawi are another part of the plan. The 12-year-old project is co-owned by the Achuar nation and a domestic tourism company, Canodros SA. It aims to attract some 1,500 well-heeled tourists each year for firsthand experience of Ecuador's wilds—the most biodiverse in the world. "It's an excellent model," says Raúl García, under secretary of Tourism. "It will work as long as it maintains a strategic alliance with the tourism industry." Kapawi has influenced similar projects in Ecuador—including the Napo Wildlife Center and Yachana Lodge—that provide jobs and training for locals. Tapir Lodge in the Cuyabeno wildlife preserve offers a haven in a volatile area just south of the border with Colombia.

To be sure, money from tourism can't compete with oil income, which accounts for about half of Ecuador's $13 billion annual budget. Yet ecotourism has allowed indigenous people to rediscover the value of their own culture, says Milagros Aguirre, an author who specializes in Ecuador's Amazon region: "They now realize that by protecting the jungle they can earn money, which gives it a real value." The tourists think so, too.