Blog 3/13/2020
Conservation efforts in Peru
The narrow boat battles against the stiff current of the Madre de Dios river. Our destination is just up ahead, a small jetty and a set of vertiginous wooden steps leading to Inkaterra Guides Field Station, one of Peru’s most pioneering tourism projects.
The innovative lodge is run by the Inkaterra Association (ITA), the NGO arm of Peru’s original conservation tourism specialists. Inkaterra has been running holidays that place the preservation of the natural world front and centre since 1976, when its luxury Reserva Amazonica opened just downstream, at a time when such work was still seen as a niche concern. The model, however, has clearly worked. Since its conception in 1978, ITA has been able to protect 15,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest, capturing 3,400,000 tons of carbon emissions in the process. Inkaterra has become one of the leading proponents of conservation–led tourism.
By Joe Minihane