Sergio Mendoza and Yenny Escalante, for La Nube and Sumando Voces
It was the early 90’s when a young Israeli, about 33 years old, was inside a telephone booth in Washington, United States, with a yellow pages guide in his hands and a three-page document that contained an idea to save the world. an Amazonian town from extinction and evading extractivism.
In 1981, the same young man was about to die in the Bolivian jungle, where he had been lost for three weeks, when some men rescued him, two of them hunters from San José de Uchupiamonas. 10 years later he had a mission entrusted to him by the leaders of that town located in the north of La Paz: to prevent the disappearance of his community and to raise $250,000 to make an ecotourism project a reality.
“I returned 10 years later to close the cycles and give thanks, and I met Zenón, Guido and Alejandro. They told me about this dream of doing the project. I didn’t understand anything at first. They told me: ‘Our people are dying,'» recalls Yossi Ghinsberg, more than 30 years after that episode.
“It must have been 1992 when I went to Washington and called from a public telephone and the IDB answered, and I didn’t know them. I was very naive. I asked for $250 thousand on these three pages. It was the only meeting I had in Washington D.C. and I got this from the yellow pages. I left the meeting with $1,250,000,” says Yossi. But the work was just about to begin.
Guido Mamani was one of the young leaders of the 90’s who promoted the ecotourism project. Today, May 1, 2024, the day that San José de Uchupiamonas celebrates another year of existence since he was «discovered» by Franciscan missionaries, Guido is sitting in the patio of his house, remembering when he met Ghinsberg, that Israelite at that two members of his community rescued from certain death three days by boat upriver.
Mamani, who is 69 years old, says that at that time there was no dirt road for cars (which was only built in 1999) and the quickest access route to the town was through the Tuichi River: nine hours by car. overboard from Rurrenabaque.
People died due to lack of access to health services. Education only reached the fifth grade. There was no drinking water, no basic services, and no access to cell phones. It was a village forgotten by the State. By the early 90’s, a good part of the families had left in search of better luck.
“This population was already in exodus. People were packing their suitcases to leave. The question was: how were we going to support the population?” recalls Guido. “Here comes tourism.”
The Chalalán project is born
The town, or rather the village, is tiny: seven by four blocks. The houses are made of wood, adobe, or brick. Motacú, jatata, or calamine roofs. Fruit trees abound in the streets and patios of houses. The 70 families that live here have crops of cassava, rice, corn, peanuts, walusa, and also livestock. The dirt roads are paved with grass.
In one of the houses, almost two blocks from the main square (an open field with four rustic crosses on each corner), lives Zenón Limaco, 64 years old, an old friend of Guido Mamani and Yossi, with whom he started this crazy idea of save his people from extinction and extractivism through tourism. The inspiration came from outside. Between the 70’s and 80’s there was a Frenchman who brought tourists to the Santa Rosa lagoon, a large reservoir located 40 kilometers from the town. The locals were already collaborating with him and witnessed the interest that foreigners aroused in the beauty of the thick and dangerous jungle.
Sitting on a log in the patio of his house, Zenón remembers those years of his youth with slanted eyes. “The idea of ecotourism was brought by Yossi Ghinsberg.”
Ghinsberg was one of the many Israelites who visited the Bolivian Amazon for decades; but the only one (as far as is known) who was lost for three weeks inside the Madidi and lived to tell the tale. His experience was portrayed in a book, and made into a film with the film “Jungle”, starring Daniel Radcliffe.
As his life and that of his friend (Kevin Gale) were saved by the Uchupiamonas, the Israelite developed an intense affection for the community. Therefore, between 1991 and 1992 Ghinsberg wrote the project to build a hostel in the town where tourists from all over the world would come, which would generate resources for the community in a sustainable way, and offer a reason for people to stay. He states that in his first meeting with the IDB he was offered $1.25 million; but the money wouldn’t come that easy. The three sheets he submitted were not enough, and they asked him to prepare a more complete document.
“They gave me a blank book this thick (separates the thumb and index finger five centimeters) that I had to fill with interviews with experts, surveys and a lot of things,” he says. The place chosen to make the dreams of the Uchupiamonas come true would be the Chalalán lagoon, a virginal area where the indigenous people did not hunt because a dark spirit protected the area, says Yossi. The spirit was expelled by an Aymara witch that he brought from the La Paz highlands and then the foreigner established his camp on the banks of the river, where he remained for three years to fill out the blank book that the IDB had given him and prepare the shelter.
The million-dollar donation was used to build the infrastructure of Chalalán, to train the workers (Uchupiamonas indigenous people), and carry out the procedures for consolidating the company and other expenses for five years: from 1995 to 1999.
“We cut the trees with a machete, not with a motor so as not to make noise. They were some very nice years of my life. “I got married in Chalalán.” The wedding took place in 1993, with the presence of the famous herpetologist Vesty Pakos, who died in an accident while returning to the city. Yossi remembers him getting drunk every May 13 for 31 years, the day his friend died.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the company Albergue Ecológico Chalalán S.A. was active. Today 74 families own 50% of the shares. The other 50% belongs to the community, represented by its authorities on duty.
The community members were enthusiastic about the arrival of tourists to the cabins and the income they generated. The idea of community ecotourism was giving results. People began to unpack their suitcases, tuition levels increased until they reached high school (although sometimes with only two students). The water supply service improved, a cell phone antenna was built, and the community achieved title to 210 thousand hectares within the Madidi National Park, one of the most biodiverse in the world, created in 1995.
“The venture injected resources into the community and many times replaced the role of the State to pay for teachers and support budgets for projects such as water service,” proudly expresses Álex Villca, indigenous leader and entrepreneur of one of the eco-lodges that came later. : the Madidi Jungle.
Like him, many young people began to finish school, to enter universities, to learn English. The development of human capital is one of the greatest achievements achieved with entrepreneurship, say those interviewed.
One of the many who trained at Chalalán is Sandro Valdéz, 42, Uchupiamona and an experienced birdwatching tour guide. He boasts of having seen 1,187 of the almost 1,500 birds recorded in Bolivia, and of having learned English by ear. Today he works at the Sadiri Lodge, one of the six ventures that emerged after Chalalán.
– The seven ecotourism ventures in San José de Uchupiamonas are: Chalalán Ecological Lodge. Sadiri Lodge, Madidi Jungle, Yruma Journeys, Berraco del Madidi, Corazón del Madidi, and Santa Rosa del Madidi.
“We want that, for the Madidi to continue, and to protect this biodiversity that we show to those who visit us,” says Valdéz.
“This is the vision of the community. Right now you ask anyone which one they would choose, they will always say no to extractivism and mining. People are fighting to conserve their territorial space, as their ancestors did for a long time,” adds Pedro Macuapua, administrator of Berraco del Madidi, sitting in his patio under the shade of a soft tree.
New threats, with the Government at the forefront
“The new generations stopped hunting and the entire town was very convinced of the venture, and still is,” says Ruth Alipaz, leader of the Sadiri Lodge, of which, applying the logic of Chalalán, 35 women from the community are shareholders.
Alipaz, who is also an indigenous leader in the region, says that although ecotourism made it possible to evade extractivism, the threats to this part of the Amazon increased with the boom in gold mining, the urgency of oil exploration, and above all, the projects promoted by the Government of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) to expand agribusiness with monocultures of sugar cane, rice, corn, and lately African palm, a plant that would supposedly allow the country to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels.
“The biggest threat is the Government, because with its policies it tells us what development is, because with its programs they are going to destroy us,” says Ruth, who has seen how the waters of the Tuichi no longer clear, since gold mining was stopped. settled in the headwaters of the basin, on the Apolo side. The fires that recur every year have worn out the forest. 2023 was worse, and since then the town lagoon began to dry up.
San José de Uchupiamonas managed to survive the new millennium with ecotourism as the spearhead to generate an economy. But not everyone is convinced that the town’s disappearance has been avoided.
“I still have doubts about whether the project worked and if the town could be saved. To postpone his death…, yes we did,» says Zenón sitting on his trunk, with despair at the situation in which this community still finds itself. Tourists do not usually come to the town, but rather to the businesses, several kilometers away. Water service is frequently interrupted. The 30 kilometer road that connects with Tumupasa is impassable during the rainy season. Internet service is slow. There is still much to do to guarantee a better quality of life for the residents, and for them to see their stay in the town as a possibility to make money.
The key, according to Zenón, is in the diversification of income sources. “As a Brazilian once told me: ‘Conservationism is done with money.’”
Chalalán reached its best years in 2015, and then began a decline that reached zero with the coronavirus pandemic, in 2020. Now it is better, but it does not generate the same income as before and the bureaucratic pressure (taxes, retirement contributions, insurance health, etc.) has decreased the possibilities of generating the income that the community needs. For this reason, Guido affirms that he is talking to a private company to relaunch the venture this year, perhaps with a new share system that is still under discussion.
“Of course, mining does not pay taxes and no one says anything, but here we who take care of the environment and bring in foreign money have to comply with all regulations. And also the Government sends us commissions that take money from us,” Guido complains.
In any case, unlike his old friend Zenón, he is convinced that the main objective was achieved: saving the people from an exodus and evading extractivism. “Of course, we are talking about valuing what one is, about the self-esteem of youth. Look how they are dancing now at the feast of Saint Joseph, they are no longer ashamed. Other towns are copying this. The idea of Chalalán is copied.”
May 1, the town’s anniversary, has already passed. It is after midnight and in the darkness of the village, illuminated only by a few whitish lights, you can hear the incessant drumbeat of one of the three troupes that roam around there. From a street without people you can see them appear behind a corner, like shadows that sway from one side to the other to the sound of the bass drum and panpipes. If this town had disappeared, perhaps you could still hear, every May 1, these melodies recorded in the silence of the mountain, in the warm ruins, and in the stories of the elderly. Perhaps you could see some shadows moving among the vegetation. Luckily, the town is still alive and the party won’t stop all week.
“This research was carried out with the support of the Fundación Para el Periodismo (FPP) within the framework of the Journalism of Solutions project, with the support of The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)”.
