Cofan ecotourism lodging
The Cofan Guardians of the rainforest invite you to experience the Amazon lifestyle upfront in a deep cultural immersion for the ultimate natural history adventure.
The Cofan are preserving our culture... protecting our rainforest
The Cofán Nation is one of the oldest intact cultures in the Americas, with over five hundred years of recorded history. Our mission is to preserve our culture by protecting our environment, the rainforest that is our home.
We invite you to learn more about us- about our past, with its lore and its wisdom; about our present, with its battles and its challenges; and about our future, as we look towards the coming centuries.
Our nation is one of the world’s smallest, with only 1,000 people. We speak our own language, A‘ingae, that is like no other presently spoken. Most of us live in Ecuador, where we have managed to regain control of approximately 1,000,000 acres of our ancestral territories. Traditionally, we are hunters, fishers, and subsistence agriculturists. Today, we include conservation and protection of our lands as our primary activity.
The lands we guard include vast and largely unexplored forests, wild and pristine rivers, tall mountains, and forbidding swamplands. With over 800 species of birds, 150 species of mammals, and several thousand species of plants, these lands are some of the most biodiverse in the world.
We are guarding these forests for you and for us. We are on the front line, but you can help!
The Goal of our community: Protection, Conservation, and Management of Ancestral Cofán Lands
PROTECTION, the legal acquisition and defense of our territories from outside interests.
CONSERVATION, the documentation, analysis, and preservation of the ecology of our territory’s rainforest environment.
MANAGEMENT, the sustainable use of our biological and cultural resources to generate stable and environmentally friendly sources of income for Cofán communities.
EDUCATION, the development of the knowledge and skills necessary to preserve our land-base and to deal effectively and autonomously with the outside world.
Our ecotourism project is small part of our efforts, though we believe it is the best way for you to see what we are doing and interact with the forest. By visiting us you are helping to protect this wonderful environs.
Global Benefits
- A globally important new conservation area in Ecuador
- Effective protection of a newly vulnerable sector of the Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserve
- Protection of the major watersheds in the Sucumbíos region
- Preservation of important reservoirs of wet forest habitat
- A model of successful, science-based conservation stewardship of ancestral lands by an indigenous community
A Conservation Community
Very few if any communities have a naturally well developed ecological sense. However, the seeds for that sense are present in the intricacies of the community's inter-relation with its environment. In the case of the Cofan, we are a people who know how to live in the forest. We are excellent hunters, fishers, plant users, and builders. The relationship with the environment is so deeply ingrained that it is almost subconscious. However, we are not naturally conservationists because it was never necessary to be so prior to the advent of Western population and technology into our rain forest. Now it is necessary.
Cofan Zabalo is a community of approximately 25 families, living along the banks of the Aguarico River, still relying on hunting, fishing, and small plots of subsistence agriculture as its primary food sources. The forest continues to supply us with fruits, artistic resources, and construction materials in addition to wildlife. In spite of major changes in certain aspects of harvesting technologies, both flora and fauna populations seem to be under no threat within the community's territory. There is an almost universal awareness of conservation values and priorities. Village meetings frequently discuss and apply various restrictions on harvesting of the natural resources in response to perceived problems. Active conservation initiatives include the Proyecto Charapas Zabalo, which has returned over 4000 turtles of genus Podocnemis to the river during the last six years, in addition to having supplied the scientific world with substantial information concerning breeding, nesting and feeding behavior of these turtles. Ecotourism projects provide the major source of income for the community, as well as the funds necessary for community infrastructure.