Conservation

Overview of Regional Issues
Exotic Animal Trade
Illegal Logging Trade

The current conservation trend in Peru solidly favors humans at the expense of wildlife and primary forest. This is not an issue unique to Peru, as it is logical for a country to use its rich natural resources to mitigate the economic hardships of its people. This pattern has already played out in many of the world’s most economically successful and powerful countries, but the trade-off is that little to no primary forest survived the development. The Peruvian government openly acknowledges that the laws dictating usage and allocation of natural resources are designed with people as the priority. This means that truly wild spaces are quickly disappearing, and even if a natural area becomes “protected” by the government, this does not mean its original wilderness will be preserved. The issues are complex, and there are no easy answers.

In terms of applied practices, the region around the Tapiche Reserve abounds with extraction methods that cause long-lasting damage to the forest: cutting trees down in order to harvest their fruit or honey (see details at The Acai Project - Sustainable Jungle Fruit Harvest), stringing massive fishing nets across the entire width of a river and harvesting all the fish without consideration for protecting future fish populations, using dynamite to literally blast fish out of the water, and dousing lagoons with fishing toxins (often agricultural pesticides) that asphyxiate the fish and cause them to float to the surface, enabling an exhaustive harvest of all life in the lagoon. In this last case, we have seen not only fish but also birds and aquatic mammals, commonly young dolphins, poisoned to death by this fishing method. The poacher takes everything, leaving the lagoon barren for several life cycles. It is commonly said amongst locals that the toxin does not travel beyond the gills of the fish, so the body of the fish is still safe to eat and can be sold at the market. Fish often do not return to the lagoon for generations, forcing people to constantly search for new places to fish. We’ve never seen regulation or supervision of these harvesting methods in the field, and poachers easily profit by selling their illegal harvest through black market venues.

Adding to the pressure on the reserve is the fact that we have a high concentration of animals on the property that, though previously plentiful outside of the reserve just a couple generations ago, are now concentrated inside our borders due to habitat destruction and over-hunting elsewhere. We have many species deemed “VU - vulnerable” or “EN - endangered” on the IUCN’s Red List, which means they are at very high risk of extinction due to low or rapidly declining population. The list includes the woolly monkey (Lagothrix poepiggii), Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis), Agami Heron (Agamia agami), giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), red bald uakari monkey (Cacajao calvus), six-tubercled Amazon River turtle (Podocnemis sextuberculata), yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle (Podocnemis unifilis), black caiman (Melanosuchus niger) and paiche fish (Arapaima gigas). All of these species are subject to poaching, we have never seen any local enforcement of IUCN regulations.

Mass harvesting is done by commercial hunters who come from Requena or Iquitos to Tapiche seeking a high-volume harvest. Once in a while, we also come across a local who has come to the property looking for food for his family. Since other areas have already been exhausted and opportunities for income are scarce, locals often find themselves at a loss for resources. We offer these men jobs at the lodge, but often the men who come to the property are older men who don't have the energy or will for logging, can't find or don't want jobs elsewhere, and oftentimes the cash they receive goes to feed a drinking or gambling addiction, which are common problems in the local villages. These men, like the commercial hunters, harvest animals in large quantities because they are looking for the highest profit at the market. They carry salt with them to preserve their haul over the course of several days before they reach the market in Requena. An adult endangered woolly monkey from the reserve could sell for the equivalent of just a few USD, so the best way to guarantee a big payout is in quantity. Poachers often work in groups of 3-4 and try to hunt as many animals as they can.  Splitting the profit between them, each person makes what they perceive to be a good profit, which is then too often quickly spent on drinks, gambling, or female companionship. We offer these men jobs at the lodge, too, but they generally do not accept. Sadly we have not seen much of a social support structure aimed at assisting this demographic.

Our visitors often wonder how it is that local people employ such environmentally destructive practices under the assumption that the locals are native to the area and would naturally employ sustainable living practices. While the population is indeed Peruvian, and while they may have mixed or indigenous blood from other parts of Peru, many of the residents now occupying the region today are not indigenous to the area, and they may have only moved to the jungle fairly recently with the view that the jungle represents economic opportunity. The village closest to the reserve was established in the 1980s by people coming to the jungle for work. The locals whose families have been in the area for a generation or two often descend from a mix of Brazilians who came to work during the rubber boom at the turn of the 20th century, as well as Peruvians who came (and continue to come) to the jungle from other parts of Peru looking for work. If they do have some percentage of indigenous heritage, they do not actively or openly practice their traditional culture and language. We have actually observed a form of racism against the small number of people of indigenous descent living in the local villages, as they are the minority and they are “different” from the majority of the riverine population. Despite not being native to the area, many villages are registered with the government as “comunidad nativa (native village),” as this title is easier for small villages to obtain than the “comunidad campesina (rural village)” designation. In addition, being declared “native” affords the village more benefits and makes outside organizations more favorable towards granting them assistance.

Back to top

At the Tapiche Reserve, we do not keep any jungle animals as pets, in cages, on leashes or strings, so there will never be sad animal eyes staring out at you from behind a barrier. Besides subsistence fishing, we do not catch or capture any animals for any reason. Sadly we are the only jungle lodge that we know of in the region with this policy. 

While this does mean that you won't get a photo of yourself holding a snake or a sloth, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you're not contributing to the illegal exotic animal trade. While some places may hide behind the guise of "rescuing" the animals they're holding in captivity, it is likely that the animals were harvested from the jungle, and someone profited along the way. Locals see how money can be made from capturing animals and exhibiting them in captivity, and they also learn that foreigners will pay to volunteer at rescue centers. A baby animal is generally only captured after his or her mother has been killed. The babies then endure high stress and often experience low quality of life in captivity. All of this is part of the unspoken price the jungle pays to satisfy the demands of its tourists.    

The other large contributor to the illegal animal trade is the demand for exotic jungle meats, which tourists like to eat as a novelty, and for souvenirs made from animal parts. Bush meat for tourism is truly a curiosity and topic of entertainment rather than a question of sustenance. Tourists often just want to say they've eaten caiman or paiche as a bragging right, and both of these animals are endangered and illegal to harvest for direct sale. While a restaurant may claim that their meat comes from a farm, the lack of regulation and law enforcement in Iquitos combined with rampant corruption make it hard to be confident in its origins.

Many visitors are drawn to souvenirs made from the skins, teeth, scales or feathers of animals, usually endangered species, or they want to try traditional "medicines" featuring blood, toucan beaks, or other extracts from the animal. Paiche scales, macaw feathers, and various animal skins are featured at many trinket stands in Iquitos. Buying these products encourages locals to harvest these animals as they please. There is no "humane" source or factory for these animal parts in Iquitos, as there may be in other parts of the world, so what you see at souvenir shops was harvested directly from the jungle. 

As a tourist, you can do your part to stop this destructive cycle by making conscious and considered decisions about what you eat and buy. Many visitors still do not understand the power and impact they have on the people and places they visit. We advise all visitors to abstain from consuming caiman, paiche, turtle, tortoise, monkey, or other exotic "bushmeat." Consider rejecting handicrafts and souvenirs that incorporate animal parts, and tell the vendor why. The market is driven by demand, and we believe that educated, responsible tourists can make a difference.   

(We can recommend the ACOBIA-DWAzoo Manatee Rescue Center on km 4.5 of the Iquitos-Nauta highway as the only animal attraction in Iquitos that keeps to programmed release schedules for their animals. They do have some permanent residents that help round out their tourist attraction, but they also do sincere rescues and rehabilitations and operate educational and community outreach programs. You can read reviews for them on tripadvisor.com)    

Back to top

The illegal logging trade may seem like a vague and distant problem to a lot of people, but the end products wind up right in their hands, homes and daily life as popular consumer items manufactured by international corporations.

Up until 2016, our region was declared by the local government to be a Zona de Produccion Primaria (ZPP), or "primary production zone." The rainforest was legally declared an economic resource free for the taking. Every Peruvian was allowed to cut 80 trees per year just by showing their ID card at a processing facility. There were no guidelines for cutting trees, no sustainability measures, and no supervision. Luckily, this law was revoked in 2016, but the destructive, haphazard logging practices continue.  

The cycle begins with an habilitador (roughly translated as "facilitator") making a contract with local people living on the riverside. He knows that the locals don't have the resources to carry out independent logging operations, so he offers to supply them with a chainsaw, a boat with long-arm motor, gasoline, and maybe some rice. The locals then go to work for months at a time in the jungle cutting trees however they choose, with no management or supervision involved. Because they must supplement their meager food ration by hunting and fishing, the areas that are logged are also stripped of animals. Sometimes entire families, like the one floating downstream through the Reserve in the photo above, go along for the job. Logging camps are harsh places, not only for the men who are logging but especially for females and children who are subject to the whims and demands of the men.

At the end of a season of back-breaking hard labor in stark living conditions, the loggers lash their logs together into giant rafts and float for days downstream to Requena, the processing hub. The habilitador quotes them a miniscule buying price far below market value for the wood they've brought, cheating them by taking false measurements of the wood or deducting value for cracks or natural bends in the logs. He then subtracts the cost of the chainsaw, boat with motor, gasoline, and all supplies used for the job, oftentimes leaving the loggers in debt. The loggers must cut even more wood the next season to pay the debt and thus perpetuate the downward spiral. There is no question that this system exploits the local people and decimates the forest all at the same time. The story has been repeated to us innumerable times by locals who have worked within this industry and often are still living in the cycle of debt.   

The story of the wood continues with the rather "miraculous" process of certification and legalization in the Requena office. Wood that was taken without any regulatory supervision or thought for ecological guidelines are granted certification papers and stamps. By the time the wood reaches Iquitos, it has all the "official" papers necessary for international corporations (Ikea has been a known buyer at the Iquitos port) to make their purchase with the outward appearance of having satisfied the requirements for an eco-certified product. This laundering system has been active and healthy for many years and is known to all who buy wood product from our region. 

In-Depth Resources

In 2012 the Environmental Investigation Agency published an article entitled The Laundering Machine. It documents US companies importing large quantities of illegal wood from our region of Loreto with ample evidence of the illegal activity between 2008-2011.

In 2014, Scientific Reports published the article Logging Concessions Enable Illegal Logging Crisis in the Peruvian Amazon, which focuses on how the legal systems within Peru are not just failing but in fact being exploited to make illegal activity possible.

If you know of other resources or have ideas about how to instill positive change, please Contact Us.

Back to top

Banner photo: logging family floating their log raft to Requena on the Tapiche River
© Deborah Chen