Before 1991, tourism was hardly present in Playas de Cuyabeno. That changed when the Flotel, a cruise boat operated by Transturi, began travelling along the river. Since then, many people from our community have found regular work on board, including work as crew members and boatswains.
The company has also supported our community in other ways. It has helped pay for local education and provides free first aid. In a remote area like ours, these things make a real difference. Tourism did not only arrive as visitors passing through; it created employment and brought services that were difficult for us to obtain before.
Working with tourists has also changed the way we think about the forest. Of course, we always depended on our natural surroundings, but tourism made the economic value of protecting them much more visible. Visitors come because they want to see the river, the rainforest and the wildlife. When the forest remains healthy, people can earn an income from it without cutting it down.
Tourism showed us that standing trees and living wildlife can support our families for much longer than timber can.
Logging has therefore decreased considerably. This is partly because people have another way to earn money. Protecting nature becomes easier when families do not have to choose between conservation and feeding their children.
A few years ago, we held a community meeting to discuss whether we could become more involved in tourism ourselves. We did not want all opportunities to depend on an outside company. Together, we decided to build huts where visitors could stay.
Building them required everyone’s help, and this brought back the minga. A minga is our traditional system of communal labour, in which community members work together on something that benefits everyone. The practice had been slowly disappearing, but the tourism project gave it a new purpose.
Families now take turns looking after and maintaining the huts. Because responsibility is shared, the income can also be distributed quite equally among the community instead of going to only a few people. Tourism has therefore helped us recover not just an old way of working, but also a feeling of unity.
By building the visitor huts together, we brought back an almost forgotten habit and became one community again.
Not every effect of tourism has been positive. Language has been one of the more difficult changes. When we began working with tour operators and visitors, we mainly used Spanish. I became so accustomed to it that I spoke almost only Spanish, even at home. Over time, this weakened our use of Quichua.
Fortunately, that is beginning to change. Schools now give more attention to Quichua, and people are speaking it more often again. I believe protecting our language is important for its own sake, because it is part of who we are. It is also important for tourism. Visitors who genuinely want to learn about our community should encounter a living culture, not one that has already disappeared.
The greatest benefit tourism has given us is the possibility to make choices. With a better income, parents can send their children to schools outside the community and help them continue their education. The next generation will need that knowledge. Oil companies, settlers and other outside interests are moving closer to our territory, and our young people must be able to defend their rights and make informed decisions.
I welcome visitors, but I also ask them to understand that the rainforest is our home. Do not smoke in the forest or make unnecessary noise. Drink alcohol modestly. And if you want to photograph an Indigenous person, always ask first.
Tourism is valuable when it helps us protect the forest, educate our children and strengthen the community—while visitors remember that they are guests in both our territory and our culture.