Amazon Interactive
The Ecotourism Game

Accept the compromise

Tourists continue to visit Pangayacu at a slow but steady rate. The Quichua spend most of their time in agriculture, but they look forward to tourist visits as a pleasant break from the daily routine. The cultural program remains somewhat crude, but tourists appreciate its simplicity.

Because tourism is limited to one group per month, so tourism earnings are limited to a few hundred dollars per household annually. The Quichua continue to clear forest and plant new crops, but there remains several large tracts for tourist walks. For the moment, at least, your community has found a sustainable balance between ecotourism and daily Quicua life.

Most Quichua have cleared another hectare of primary forest to plant coffee and rice for the market. Each family has only a few hectares of forest left.

Income from tourism accounts for one-fourth of a family's annual income. The rest comes from agriculture, which means planting new crops every year or two.

Congratulations

You may not feel like your project is a complete success, but this result is similar to the situation at Río Blanco, a Quichua community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Río Blanco accepts several tourist groups a month (though visitation is concentrated in the summer). Compared to the fate of many similar indigenous ecotourism projects in the Amazon, Río Blanco's can be considered a great success. However, if deforestation continues at current rates, little of the community's primary forest will be left in fifteen years.

This game is based on research into a Quichua ecotourism project in Río Blanco, Ecuador. Learn more about it in at Ecotourism Research and Other Adventures