Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25120
Ecuador has the highest rate of deforestation in South America and if this rate continues, there are 15 years of rainforest left. This is why, when I decided to head to Ecuador, I chose to visit Alinahui, the Butterfly Lodge, owned and operated by the Ecuadorian-based Jatun Sacha Foundation and the California-based Health and Habitat. Together they own and man age about 350 acres of the rainforest. This may not sound like a lot-and isn't really a lot but at least it's something. Health and Habitat built Cabanas Alinahui, a collection of eight cabins inspired by indigenous homes and complete with hammocks, toilets, showers, cots and rooms pro tected by a barricade of wire mesh meant to keep out the mad marathon of insects. In the ory, mesh is a great idea. But these insects want every last drop of your blood. So, screens or no screens, repellent or no repellent, this is the Amazon and the first rule of the Amazon is that insects will not be denied. Health and Habitat is trying to support an indigenous based ecotourism that doesn't decimate the forest. Unlike the nearby Swiss Lodge, Alinahui has no television, no phone, no swimming pool and no 15-foot wall surrounding its perime ter to remind the locals know just how poor they really are. Alinahui is a biological preserve so it is protected, at least in theory, for a little while longer. Which isn't to say that it has a ·chance. Not really. Not if the Ecuadorian government gets its way. According to the law, Health and Habitat only owns the land above ground. The government owns everything below ground and has the right to authorize oil men to drill and test and nibble and scratch away. Should they find oil on your property, never mind biodiversity or endangered species, it's no longer your property and maybe they'll compensate you for it. See, the Ecuadorian government is so oil greedy that in 1992 it dropped out of OPEC because they didn't want to subscribe production quotas. They claimed economic hardship as their reason. They claimed need-whatever that means. The fact of the matter is, they wanted to be able to produce more oil than OPEC allowed, meaning that the gov ernment of Ecuador got greedier than OPEC. What happens when an oil company finds oil is very simple: they build a road. They don't respect property or animals or anything. They draw a straight line between here and there and begin hacking. So what's the big deal, a swath of land no more than thirty feet wide gets clear cut. so what? Well this brings us to the Field of Dreams law of jungle sur vival: if you build it, they will come. A road means immigration. A road means that whatever poor folks from around the country who have had enough of starving in that patch of dirt over there will come try this patch of dirt over here. The first thing migrants do, after setting up camp alongside the new road, is begin chopping down trees. Rare hardwoods go first because they bring in the most coin. The softer woods follow and then, when there are no more of those trees, they burn whatever is left and plant grass to raise cattle. The problem is, the - --