SEE THE AMAZON THROUGH OUR EYES
Experiences of the Chalalán Ecolodge in Ecotourism, Conservation, and Development
[Alternative titles]
SEE THE AMAZON THROUGH OUR EYES
Story of the Chalalán Ecolodge in Bolivia
CHALALÁN: STORY OF A DREAM COME TRUE
Ecotourism, Conservation, and Development in the Bolivian Amazon
THE CHALALÁN ECOLODGE
Making Ecotourism Work for Biodiversity Conservation and Community Development
Draft DRAFT Draft
A Case Study from
Conservation International
Amanda Stronza
(astronza@tamu.edu)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chalalan: Story of a Dream Come True
Introduction
Setting
The Region
The Lodge
The Community
Section I: Project Profile
San Jose: Hope for a Community’s Future
Conservation International: Support for a New Park
InterAmerican Development Bank: Local Capacity for Sustainable Development
The Process
The Transfer
Section II: Costs and Benefits Analysis
Section III: Market Analysis
Section IV: Biodiversity Conservation
Section V: Conclusions and Recommendations
Appendices
Chalalan Chronology
Letter from San Jose
Typical Itinerary
Ethnographic Data
Chalalán: Story of a Dream Come True
“We believe that taking care of our animals and forests for the enjoyment of visitors is a way of taking
care of our home. We want Chalalán to be a unique spot in the Bolivian Amazon that will provide tourists
with excellent cuisine, comfort, environmental education, activities in the rainforest and cultural
exchange and will make Chalalán an unforgettable experience.”
~Members of San Jose de Uchupiamonas, in the Chalalán Ecolodge brochure
Chalalán is the first eco-business in Bolivia that is entirely community-owned and managed. Its
achievements in linking tourism with conservation and development is the result of joint efforts
between the local indigenous community of San Jose de Uchupiamonas and two organizations—
Conservation International (CI) and The InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB). Each
organization invested considerable planning, talent, financial resources, human ingenuity, social
concern, time, energy, and sheer faith in creating Chalalán. Officially named the “Program of
Sustainable Development and Ecotourism in San Jose de Uchupiamonas and Establishment of a
Protect Zone of the Proposed Madidi Park (ATN/ME-4757-BO),” Chalalán was born of dream to
create a true model of ecotourism, one that garner genuine and material benefits for people and
conserve a critical reservoir of biodiversity in the lowland rain forests of Bolivia—the Madidi
National Park.
Created in 1995, the Madidi National Park protects a swath of land that stretches from the high
Andes to the Amazon Basin. Spanning 19,000 square kilometers, Madidi features lowland
rainforests, cloud forests, dry forests, and pampas grasslands. It is home to 1,000 species of
birds, 44 percent of all mammal species known to the Americas, and 38 percent of all neotropical
amphibians. It’s hard not to be impressed by Madidi. Biologists celebrate the Park’s unmatched
variety of plants and animals, while tourists—7,000-8,000 a year—are been drawn to Madidi’s
stunning landscapes. Whereas other regions of Amazonia offer “views” that typically extend as
far as the immediate line of trees, vines, and understory vegetation, Madidi features spectacular
topography, complete with mountain vistas. The Park is about the size Massachusetts, but it’s
population of inhabitants is only 1,700. Thus, despite a century of extraction booms in rubber,
timber, quinine, and animal pelts, Madidi remains quite pristine. In short, it is a park that truly
stands out, even in an elite class of “biodiversity hotspots.” In this setting, the Chalalán
Ecolodge is the premiere ecotourism destination of the region.
The Chalalán lodge is just one component of a broader program that aims to connect ecotourism
with sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, and organizational strengthening in the
community San Jose de Uchupiamonas. A guiding philosophy of the program is that the longterm effective management of Madidi National Park for biodiversity conservation hinges on the
well-being of local communities. Everything in the Chalalán project, since 1995, proceeded by
way of participatory planning and participatory action. From the very beginning, CI worked in
close collaboration with leaders and institutions in San Jose. The indicators of “success” were
always related to capacity-building, shared decision-making, and local autonomy. In other
words, if sustainable development and biodiversity conservation were the long-range goals for
the Chalalán project, all of the paths for reaching those goals were local. All of CI’s efforts were
aimed at collaborating with local leaders in San Jose in order to clear and pave local paths to
ecotourism, conservation, and development.
As a “project” aimed not just at offering tourists a progressive jungle tour but also connecting the
economics of tourism with biodiversity conservation and community development, Chalalán had
three main goals. The first was create a viable tourism operation, which entailed building a lodge
and its related infrastructure and trail systems, training a staff in hotel management and service
through on-site experiential learning and rotating shifts, and establishing a organizational and
legal structure for the company. A “sociedad anónima” (S.A.) or legal company was
established to make Chalalán officially and legally a community-based enterprise. That decision
entailed an lengthy (and on-going) process of combining two parallel sets of decision-making
processes, and leadership between the company of Chalalán, S.A. and the community of San
Jose de Uchupiamonas.
In addition to ecotourism, the Chalalán project included two additional complementary
components: ecotourism, combined with handicraft development and sustainable agriculture.
These complementary activities were meant to support ecotourism by supplying handicrafts and
fresh, locally grown foods (cultivated and forest-harvested) to the lodge. Project leader, Candido
Pastor, described the goal as “creating a flow of socially and environmentally sensitive
commerce within the community of San Jose.”
Project planners promoted micro-enterprises of handicrafts to serve as an additional,
complementary source income for the members of San Jose. As tourists represent a “captive
market” in Chalalán, and many items can be fashioned from locally available materials,
particularly from natural seeds, dyes, and fibers, the handicrafts project was also planned as
complementary to tourism in Chalalán. Women were actively encouraged to participate in the
handicrafts project, in particular because they could join without the need to travel downriver
three hours to work at Chalalán.
The third tier in Chalalán’s long-term strategy to integrate biodiversity conservation with
sustainable development for the community of San Jose is the promotion and support of
ecologically-sensitive production through agriculture, harvesting of non-timber forest products,
and small livestock. Families in San Jose were offered extension support in new farming
strategies, which included agroforestry systems with citrus trees, intercropped with cacao and
coffee. The aim was to intensify local farming practices and minimize the yearly clearance
forest for annual crops. Also, agroforestry was a way to help diversify local diets and in the long
term help diminish reliance on game meant, thus helping reduce pressure in the forest. This
project was complementary to tourism at Chalalán, as food items could be sold to the lodge, and
the more sustainable harvesting and production practices are strategies for maintaining healthy
forests and wildlife populations for tourism.
Total investment in Chalalán was $1,450,000. The Inter-American Development Bank invested
$1,250,000 and Conservation International contributed $200,000. The project spanned five years
from inception to transfer of full ownership and management to the community San Jose. As a
project aimed at balancing economic needs of people in Madidi with conservation of natural
resources in the park, Chalalán is an ongoing endeavor that continues to undergo changes,
adjustments, and improvements. For the IDB, the investment serves as a model of ecotourism
that may be tried in other parts of the world where integrated conservation and development is
the goal. Indeed, in the wake of Chalalán, IDB created a fund of $12,000,000 for similar
ecotourism investments elsewhere. For Conservation International, experiences and lessons
learned from the Chalalán project are invaluable for future initiatives with local communities in
manage natural resources and make biodiversity “work for” people in communities in and near
conservation areas.
Chalalán Case Study
Information and data for this case study of Chalalán has been culled from a variety of primary
and secondary sources. They include: archival data, project reports, and financial records about
Chalalán (1995-2001), primarily from Conservation International (CI) and the InterAmerican
Development Bank; semi-structured interviews conducted in person with key players in CIBolivia, San Jose de Uchupiamonas, and Chalalán; quantitative and qualitative household
interview data from San Jose de Uchupiamonas; small group discussions amongSan Jose leaders
about lessons learned in Chalalán; popular and journalistic articles and videos about Chalalán;
and, interviews with key tour operators and agencies in La Paz and Rurrenabaque.
Following a brief introduction of the ecological, social, geographical, and political backdrop for
Chalalán, the case study is divided into five sections:
Section I: The Project Profile is a description of the goals, objectives of Chalalán from the
perspective of different stakeholders involved in the project. It is process-oriented and includes a
narrative of changes the project—and project planners—experienced between 1995 and the
present.
Section II: The Costs and Benefits Analysis begins with a brief of history of San Jose, and then
summarizes the varied benefits Chalalán has generated for the community, beginning with
economic benefits in the form of dividends, which are divided fifty-fifty to 74 families and a
community organization. It closes with a broader evaluation of the socio-economic and cultural
costs and benefits of Chalalán.
Section III: The Market Analysis characterizes Chalalán’s market segment, and the company’s
efforts to increase sales and profits, while also focusing on goals of conservation and
development. In many ways, Chalalán is an experiment in business planning and marketing, and
the analysis here reflects that.
Section IV: The Biodiversity Conservation section is a assessment of Chalalán’s contributions to
Madidi, including descriptions of the community’s perspectives on natural resources
management for ecotourism, and other indicators of a local conservation ethic in San Jose, as
expressed in people’s attitudes and practices. Data from the guides’ wildlife monitoring efforts
are included.
Section V: Conclusions and Recommendations: The case study closes with summary of key
points and lessons learned in Chalalán, linking ecotourism, conservation, and development.
INTRODUCTION
Setting for the “Chalalán Dream”
Operations for Chalalán straddle two geographic regions in Bolivia. The legal base and office for
the company, “Chalalán Ecolodge S.A.,” is in the town of Rurrenabaque, which is in the
Province of Ballivian-Beni, in the Department of El Beni. The Chalalán Lake itself, and the site
of the ecotourism lodge, is located five to six hours upriver, by motorized canoe (with 65-hp
outboard motor), on the Beni and Tuichi Rivers, in the province of Franz Tamayo-La Paz, which
is in the Department of La Paz. Importantly, the lodge is also in the center of the Integrated
Management Area of the of the Madidi National Park, a protected area of extraordinarily high
diversity in plants and animals. Before Madidi was declared a national park (in September
1995), it was under significant pressure from logging and hunting. As a protected area, Madidi
extends 1,895,750 hectares (19,000 square kilometers), or roughly the size of Massachusetts. It
is divided into three regions: a western portion of 1,046,750 hectares (55% of the area), an
eastern portion of 224,750 hectares (12% of the area), both of which are part of the Madidi
National Park. The third area in between is the “Natural Area of Integrated Management,”
which encompasses 624,250 hectares (or 33% of the area). San Jose is located in this area of
integrated management. The community of San Jose de Uchupiamonas is located in yet a third
province from the lodge and the town of Rurrenabaque. San Jose is three hours by river from the
lodge (25 kilometers upstream on the Tuichi River, and thus eight hours by river from
Rurrenabaque), in the province of Abel Iturralde-La Paz, in the Department of La Paz. Unlike
Chalalán, San Jose is accessible by a dirt-and-gravel road from Rurrenabaque. Depending on the
season, the journey to San Jose by road with 4-wheel drive can take eight to twelve hours.
Madidi National Park and Madidi Integrated Management Area
Management Category: National Park and Natural Area of Integrated Management
Established:
September 21, 1995
Size
1,895,750 hectares (19,000 square kilometers)
1,271,500 hectares in National Park
624,250 hectares in Integrated Management Area
Legal basis:
Created by Bolivian Government, Supreme Decree No. 24123
Altitude:
ranges from 300 to 6,000 meters above sea level
Boundaries:
Between Amazon and Andean regions of Tropical Andes:
67º30’ – 69º51’ Longitude west 12º30’ – 14º44’ Latitude south
Conservation Importance:
 biodiversity hotspot; 90% considered “good,” 60% deemed “pristine”
 high levels of endemism: 30% plant species, 10% bird species
 contains 70% of all mammal species, 50% of all vascular plant species, 80% of
all reptile species in Bolivia
 Asariamas Dry Forest, unique to the world
Chalalán
The Region
Twenty years ago, few in the world had heard of Madidi, much less the Tuichi River. Israeli
adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg is credited by many for changing that. In November 1981,
Ghinsberg and three friends headed for Madidi in search of gold, uncontacted Indians, and
adventure. At some point on the journey, two of them built a balsa raft and descended the
Tuichi, a river seldom navigated, much less by outsiders. An accident ensued in an area of
rapids known as the “Mal Paso” and Ghinberg and his friend capsized. His friend floated
downriver to safety, but was swept to shore and became lost in the forest. After 20 days of
starvation, utter exhaustion, and near death, he was rescued (18 kilos lighter) by a his friend and
a search party. Ghinsberg had been found just upriver from the village of San Jose de
Uchupiamonas, and he spent some time there in recovery. In the 1993 version of his book, Back
from Tuichi, Ghinsberg tales of his adventures in Madidi, his time alone in the forest, and,
notably, his gratitude to the people of San Jose.
Vistas from the Beni River
Photo: A. Stronza
Today, Madidi is an important pole for tourism in Bolivia. Rurrenabaque, a town with a
population of 10,000, described by some as an old-time frontier on the Beni River, is the gateway
to many Ghinsberg-inspired adventures. Guide books entice backpackers to visit the savannahs
(“pampas") or the rainforest ("selva"). Tourists arrive to “Rurrenabaque” by way of El Alto
International Airport in the capital city of La Paz, though the town has been accessible by road
since the late 1980s. The airline is a military plane, TAM (Transporte Aero Militar), on which,
as Chalalán’s promotional material, reassures, “customer service is not a priority, but safety is.”
The market for tourism in Rurrenabaque has grown dramatically since 1993, especially by word
of mouth. Much of the business is operated by local agencies, and conditions tend to be quite
basic, catering mostly to young, foreign backpackers.
One travel writer described Rurrenabaque as “unpaved streets, corner saloons, mangy dogs in the
streets, dust in the air, and emporiums featuring rubberized raincoats, blue enamel cooking ware,
and smell of copra” (Hendrix 1997). Another noted Rurrenabaque’s restaurants “display menus
in English and Hebrew as well as Spanish,” and its streets are “lined with gaily painted signs
promising the most exciting adventure, the best guides, the most remote locations, the cheapest
rates” (Hamilton 2002). Twenty-two hotels and hostelries in Rurrenabaque welcome between
10,000 and 13,000 visitors annually. Chalalán has been described as “the brightest star in this
local ecotourism constellation” (ibid.).
The Lodge
Chalalán is nestled in the Tuichi valley, in the heart of the Madidi National Park, approximately
90 kilometers from Rurrenabaque, following the course of the Beni and Tuichi rivers. A travel
magazine described Chalalán as “one place you can get to with relative ease, a place that still is
unspoiled by touristic overuse. What is more you have a real chance, just by going there, of
making a direct contribution toward saving a virginal piece of South American rainforest and of
providing an economic lifeline to the indigenous people who live there.” The lodge is situated
beside an oxbow lake, called the Chalalán Lake, thirty-minute hike inland from the Tuichi River.
Apparently, the name Chalalán refers to a plate that fell when a local hunter’s boat rolled over
near to the lake. When the plate fell, it made the sound: "Chalalán!” Others say a tapir ran
through a temporary campsite, causing several plates to fall, and sounding, “Chalalán!”
Similar to ecolodges throughout the Amazon, Chalalán design strives to combine luxury with
traditional indigenous—in this case, Tacana—style. Ecotourism writer Abi Rome mused, “this
lodge is a homespun business in every sense of the word” (Rome 2003). The walls are fashioned
from siding of the chonta palm (Astrocaryum murumuru), the roofs are woven from palm leaves
known locally as jatata (Geonoma deversa), and the interior is papered with straw mats, all of the
furniture--including wood-frame beds, side tables, and chairs are handmade, and the windows
are screened. Gossamer mosquito nets are hung above the beds.
Much of Chalalán was crafted from timber that had been
abandoned by loggers expelled from the Park before the
lodge was built. The lodge has a 24-bed capacity of 12
double rooms. There are four shared tiled bathrooms and
showers. A dining room nestled in the shade of palms and
trees, with polished wood floors, windows all around, a
thatched roof, and an ample porch with hammocks that
serves both local and international cuisine and offers a fully
stocked bar. The far end of the dining area serves as a
library, with a variety of natural history books and field
guides, combined with a small interpretation center that
features artifacts from the forest and community. Chalalán
was also designed to be able to host small seminars,
workshops, and conferences. A meeting room situated just
meters from the dining area and bar can support up to
twenty laptop computers, two printers and a projector. The
first meeting was organized for staff of Wildlife
Conservation Society in 2000, and a second in 2001. In
2003, the lodge was host to a tri-national “Trueque
Amazónico” workshop for exchanging lessons in
ecotourism between Chalalán, and two other community
lodges in Ecuador and Peru.
Chalalan Cabin
Photo: CI-Bolivia
Chalalán’s energy consumption and waste disposal processes are aimed at balancing needs and
luxuries demanded by the tourist market and minimizing as much as possible environmental
degradation and contamination from tourism. Drinking water is purified with a four-filter system
and also boiled and stored properly for tourists. Sewage is treated and discharged to the Tuichi
River. Initially project planners thought a subsoil infiltration system would work, but they
discovered subsurface water levels to be quite high in the area. The solution was to create a
system that involved two facets: an anaerobic treatment in which solids could be separated from
liquids, and an aerobic treatment through which liquids are oxidized in order to then dump noncontaminated water waste. Solid waste is sorted and transported to Rurrenabaque for disposal.
Organic waste is composted on site, and all non-degradable garbage is packed out of the park for
proper disposal. Glass bottles are recycled and used to make a local “Tangelo” wine production,
which is bottled in San Jose de Uchupiamonas and sold locally.
The system of twelve trails at Chalalán are ordered thematically, and each includes interpretative
material, either related to medicinal plants, tree, bird, or mammal species. The meter-wide trails
vary in length, and distances are marked with painted stones. At 1,300 meters from the lodge,
tourists can climb to a look-out point that features a complete panorama of the lake and beyond,
to the edge of the Madidi National Park and the mountains that mark the frontier between Bolivia
and Peru.
To minimize disturbance to wildlife and vegetation, groups are generally limited to five persons
per guide and walk. Keeping groups small is also a strategy to minimize noise. Chalalán’s
planners, in fact, specified a goal of limiting noise emission to 68 decibels from 6 AM to 10 PM
daily, and 65 through the night. All lodge lighting is derived from photovoltaic technology.
Solar panels channel solar energy to illuminate all bedrooms and common areas of the lodge.
The lead batteries used are re-sold to the supplier.
Overview of Chalalan Lake
Photo: CI-Bolivia
Though wildlife, the lake, and the rainforest itself are main attractions at Chalalán the lodge also
features traditional culture and contemporary community life of San Jose as part of its appeal
(but see recommendations in Section III). Occasionally, tour groups are given the option to take
a day-trip from Chalalán to San Jose to see and engage in the religious feast day of the patron
Saint Joseph (or San Jose). The festivities that mark the syncretism of pre-Columbian ritual
infused with post-colonial Catholicism last several days and include performing dance troupes of
men adored with masks and costumes. The dance of the old men is performed on the last day of
this celebration. Accompanied by drums and flutes, the men carry walking sticks and visit every
home in San Jose to collect offerings in the form of elaborately decorated wooden crosses. It is a
tradition that dates back several hundred years.
Vilcabamba-Amboro Biological Corridor
The Madidi National Park is part of the Vilcabamba-Amboro Biological Corridor, a chain of
nineteen protected areas that straddle Peru and Bolivia. The Corridor encompasses the most
biologically and culturally diverse terrestrial habitat in the world and is a key focus of attention
for Conservation International’s fieldwork in the Tropical Andes, in particular through the
initiatives of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (a consortium of the MacArthur
Foundation, the World Bank, the Global Environmental Facility, the government of Japan, and
Conservation International).
Table X: Species Diversity in Vilcabamba-Amboro Biological Corridor
Number of Species
Class
Vilcabamba-Amboro Corridor In all of Bolivia
(Bolivia side)
Mammals
187
325
Birds
1,150
1,379
Amphibians
165
260
Reptiles
124
186
Fish
253
550
The Corridor is also very culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse. The indigenous
peoples who were native to the land long before it was a “corridor” of protected areas include
the Aymara, Quechua, Tacana, Mosetene, Tsimane, Toromona, Araonas, Yuracare, Yuqui,
Sirionos, Moxenhos and Lecos. And that’s just on the Bolivian side.
The Chalalan Ecolodge is located in the “Tambopata-Pilón Lajas” complex of the Corridor. This
subset of protected areas in the Corridor includes the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone and
the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park in Peru, along with the Madidi National Park, its Integrated
Management Area (, and the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory. Major
threats to the region include deforestation due to seasonal burning and grazing, agriculture, and
mining. Ecotourism is one potentially lucrative economic activity that offers the promise of
improving local livelihoods while also creating incentives to protect (or even enhance) the
integrity of natural habitats.
The Community
San Jose is the only community within the multiple-use zone of Madidi National Park. The
village has a population of approximately 450 people (70-80 families) who identify themselves
as Quechua-Tacana in ethnic origin. Though most Josesanos speak a combination of Spanish
and Quechua, their ancestors migrated to the Tuichi River from the Bolivian highlands 300 years
ago. Over years of living with the indigenous Tacana people, the highland migrants learned to
thrive in the lowland rainforests of Tuichi, growing rice, bananas and manioc in the local manner
of swidden-fallow. Today, they also raise chickens and a few cattle, and grow coffee, cacao, and
citrus, some of which they sell in the market of Rurrenabaque, six hours downriver.
The community is center is a settlement of thatched-roof, adobe-style homes lining wide grass
pathways. It is situated on a small plateau, surrounded by creeks and hills in the base of the
eastern slope of the Andean mountains. As humid tropical forest, San Jose receives 1,800
meters of rainfall each year (mostly between December and April), and temperatures ranging
from 20°C to 24°C. The Tuichi River is two kilometers south of the community center, and 150
meters below the plateau.
San José de Uchupiamonas
Photo: A. Stronza
Josesanos are in the process of securing title to their land, which the Bolivian government grants
to indigenous communities or “TCOs” (“Tierras Comunitarios de Origen”). Because of its
cultural origins there is an indigenous government (cacique) that parallels the municipal
governing structure in the community.
SECTION I
Project Profile
San Jose: Hope for a Community’s Future
Years ago, Guillermo Rioja, an anthropologist and former director of CI-Bolivia noted, “San
Jose is a tiny little dot, but this little place represents a flash point for . . .haphazard tourism and
growth, catch-as-catch-can resource exploitation.” Tourism had arrived to San Jose in the 1970s,
and perhaps Rioja was speaking of those days. A tour company, TAWA, had built a lodge with
trails and two small airstrips on the banks of the Santa Rosa lake, near San Jose, on the lower
part of the Tuichi River. TAWA offered hunting and fishing expeditions, and talked little of
“biodiversity conservation,” “sustainable development,” or “community participation.” In those
days, there was no Madidi National Parks, and really no concept of “ecotourism” or any other
brand of tourism that fashioned itself “respectful of nature or local culture.” By 1995, the
concepts changed. Though backpacking tourists still camp near the Santa Rosa lake, what the
tourists are doing—not hunting—and perceiving has changed quite a bit.
Tourism near the Chalalán Lake began in 1992, several years before the creation of what is today
the Chalalán Ecolodge. That was the year a visionary group of leaders in San Jose de
Uchupiamonas began to seek new economic opportunities through nature tourism. Their hope
was to make tourism an alternative to logging, which they began to perceive as short-lived,
poorly paid, and destructive of the very forests on which they and their ancestors had depended
on for at least three centuries. On the other hand, tourists had been coming in greater and greater
numbers to the area, many of them inspired by the adventures of the Israeli, Yossi Ghinsberg,
whose 1980s book by that time had became a minor best seller. Having read about the Tuichi
village of San Jose in Ghinsberg’s book, many of the backpackers began trying to find the
community and to seek out the guiding services of Josesanos.
Three of San Jose’s leaders, Guido Mamani, and two brothers, Alejandro Limaco and Zenon
Limaco, sought a partner who could help them bring their ideas for nature tourism to fruition.
They found him in Oscar Sainz, an outsider to region and owner of a tour company based in La
Paz called Colibri Tours. Sainz agreed to partner with the trio and invested $3,500 in a plan to
create a rustic tour camp in San Jose, with two bunkhouses that could accommodate up to 40
backpackers. The conditions were quite primitive, recalled Mamani. “We were thinking small,
working without a salary.”
As they worked, and as more adventure-seeking backpackers (mostly
from Israel) began discovering Tuichi, the community of San Jose was
losing its own people. Families were packing up and abandoning their
homes and farms, trying a new start in other towns like San
Buenaventura and Rurrenabaque. There just weren’t many
opportunities in San Jose. Even the rich mahogany of the area wasn’t
enough to keep people there. Woodcutters, like Mamani himself,
reported earnings of just $5 a day, not much to provide for a family.
Guido Mamani
Photo: A. Stronza
Though they gained valuable experience in with the backpackers, experience that later served
them well in Chalalán, the operation fell through, mostly for lack of capital resources, marketing,
and strategic planning. Relations with Sainz soured, and the tour camp never garnered much
business. Mamani and the Limaco brothers held to their dreams for tourism in San Jose, even as
more Josesanos continued to migrate out. “San Jose was a place to leave in those days” Mamani
said.
In 1992, about a decade after his fateful journey down the Tuichi, Yossi Ghinsberg returned to
San Jose. This time, he came with an offer, with gratitude to San Jose, to collaborate with the
community in the creation of an environmentally sensitive tourism village called “Chalalan.” It
was an era when even mainstream perceptions of tourism and its impacts had begun to shift, and
people were talking about “ecotourism” as a tool for making conservation economically and
socially beneficial to local communities. Conservation attention on the Tuichi was mounting all
the while. Top field biologists in zoology, botany, and ornithology at Conservation International
had conducted an assessment of the region in 1990 and discovered a treasure trove of biological
diversity. Plans were underway to create a national park in Madidi, which would both San Jose
and the patch of forest where years before Mamani and the Limacos had dreamed of building
their tourism business.
Ghinsberg’s proposal for Chalalan mirrored the dream San Jose’s leaders had been nurturing for
some time. The community agreed to work with the Israeli to create the Chalalan village. “Faced
with shrinking economic opportunities,” a reporter for International Wildlife later wrote, “the
community wanted to throw open some of their vast wilderness to tourism in order to create local
jobs as managers, owners, guides, cooks, and artisans” (Hendrix 1997). “Our goal,” Mamani
elaborated, “was to create jobs for San Jose. We were hoping 20 people could work at Chalalán.”
Fellow Josesano, Leopoldo Macuapa, explained, “We can cook them native food, and we still
play the zampata and the traditional music” (ibid.) There was also a general concern people
expressed to protect the forests surrounding Madidi. “We knew that timber companies were
coming,” Mamani said. Tourism could maybe be a way to keep the loggers out (ibid.).
At the start of their collaboration in 1993, Ghinsberg and Mamani began seeking technical
support and international funding for what would become the “Chalalán” project. Conservation
International (CI) had already been carrying out extensive biological research in the region to
catalog Madidi’s extraordinary diversity of species and ecosystems. Jim Nations, then VicePresident for Latin America Programs at CI met with Ghinsberg and became a supporter of the
ideas for Chalalan. He talked with his colleagues about ecotourism as a tool for protecting
Madidi’s diversity. As the CI team was already busy proposing a national park for Madidi, they
were receptive to the idea. Ecotourism could perhaps be used to help convince Bolivian
authorities of the economic value of protecting Madidi’s forests—intact.
The initial plans were simply to improve the bunkhouses the men of San Jose had built earlier.
More ambitiously, the long-term vision for Chalalán was to make ecotourism work for integrated
goals of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation (Viera 2000). In 1994, after a
series of pre-feasibility studies and discussions, San Jose and CI joined forces to prepare a formal
funding proposal for Chalalán. As part of this effort, Jim Nations worked with Guillermo Rioja
and Carlos Ponce (also of CI, in Peru) to help channel US$ 25,000 from the Bolivian “Debt-for-
Nature Swap” to fund development needs in San Jose. This was intended as a way to help
address immediate needs of San Jose—in education, health, river transportation, etc.—until
Chalalan could become a reality. In 1995, a year after talking up the idea of Chalalán to various
agencies and foundations, CI was successful in late 1995 in securing non-reimbursable funding
of $1,250,000 for a four-year program from the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), an affiliate
of the InterAmerican Development Bank that finances private sector projects.
Conservation International: Support for a New Park
An active player in Madidi since its inception, CI had reason to pursue ecotourism in Chalalán as
a tool linking biodiversity conservation with community development. The report, “A Biological
Assessment of the Alto Madidi region, and Adjacent Areas of Northwest Bolivia,” published by
CI’s “RAP Team” in December 1991, had successfully captured the attention of government
officials in Bolivia. Essentially, it revealed Madidi to be one of the highest and most
ecologically diverse regions in the entire world. The report made two key recommendations: 1)
establish a large conservation unit to protect lowland and foothill regions of the upper drainage
of the Madidi River, extending to Apolo and covering the spectrum of ecosystems along the
eastern slope of the Andes, and 2) create a protected area in the watershed of the Tuichi River for
conservation and for ecotourism (MacQuarrie 2002:57, italics added). After a second RAP
expedition to Madidi and countless hours of lobbying, the Bolivian government agreed to set
designate 1,271,500 hectares as the Madidi National Park and 624,250 hectares as adjacent Area
for Integrated Management in September 1995. That was the same year CI and San Jose had
joined forces to create Chalalán.
Once the Park was declared, Chalalán was soon characterized as a “model” for conservation
enterprise development, local participation, and biodiversity conservation in Madidi, and in other
protected areas around the world. Representatives from Conservation International described
Chalalán as a chance to prove that protecting biodiversity could also generate economic returns.
But there were concerns too. Karen Ziffer, a specialist in conservation enterprises at CI asked,
what if San Jose attracts too many visitors? “We had to have serious workshops here on how
tourism has affected other communities,” she told a reporter years later. “If we wanted to put a
helicopter pad at Chalalán and build a luxury resort for rich Bolivians, we could do it easily, but
to do true ecotourism, to bring together a conservation and a development ethic is much more
difficult” (Hendrix 1997).
InterAmerican Development Bank: Local Capacity for Sustainable Development
The InterAmerican Development Bank invested in Chalalan because they had high hopes for
what it could achieve. The goals were broad, ambitious, and interconnected. In a three-pronged
approach, the IDB’s investment sought to address the economic needs of people in San Jose, the
conservation needs of the newly declared Madidi National Park, and the institution-building
needs for getting local communities involved in managing natural resources, not just in Madidi
but also in other protected areas in the Americas. In other words, the IDB invested in Chalalan
not simply to enable people of San Jose to invite tourists to visit a beautiful Amazonian lake.
Rather, the Bank sought to promote ecotourism as a vehicle for the longer-term goal of
improving the ability of the Park--and people in the Park--to meet local social, cultural &
economic needs while also conserving biodiversity.
The three goals for the IDB investment in Chalalan were:
1) To improve socio-economic conditions of the community of San Jose through the
establishment of conservation-based enterprises in the village.
2) To build local capacity for sustainable development by strengthening local institutions.
3) To replicate successful aspects of the project in other communities bordering the park.
Specific objectives were to: create an ecotourism complex at Chalalán and design a series of
pilot projects in the community of San Jose to promote sustainable agriculture and microenterprises for handicrafts and non-timber forest products. See Table X for a detailed outline.
The total investment in Chalalan was US$ 1,250,000. The funds came from a Multilateral
Investment Fund based in the U.S. and Japan. For managing the funds, the Bank charged some
overhead, but CI did not. CI also invested US$ 200,000, but this was applied more directly to
purchasing logging concession near Chalalan. (Just prior to the creation of the Park, the Bolivian
government had authorized a 40,000-hectare concession for logging to Hauser).
Some of the funds were spent for overhead at the Bank. According to representatives of CIBolivia, who managed the funds, a big portion of the $900,000 that remained was spent on fees
and operating costs for consultants. “It was a time of trial and error,” noted Candido Pastor, CI’s
lead coordinator for Chalalan from 1999 to 2002. “At first we worked with foreign consultants.
If you add about four or five consultants,” he continued, “it was like paying for a Miami project
in Bolivia.”
About $400,000 was spent on training and workshops, and $200,000 went to infrastructure and
construction. A major expense was simply hauling in the materials. “You can buy a water tank
for 100 Bolivianos,” explained Pastor, “but the Bank demanded three bids for any purchase. So,
when you factored in staff time to pursue the bids, the same item could end up costing $300.” In
sum, the IDB funds were used primarily for indirect costs, infrastructure and construction, and
consultant trainers and researchers.
Table X. Framework of sustainable development project in San José de Uchupiamonas and the
surrounding area in National Park Madidi (translated and adapted from Guillamon et al. 1994)
Community
Ecotourism
New Businesses
Development
Objective
Improve local
Improve the efforts
Diversify economic
organizational
already begun with the possibilities for the
capacity & decision- aim of creating a viable community through
making; strengthen
tourism business to
establishment of
institutional capacity generate income
additional incometo direct the project
generating opportunities
in its entirety
Components
Planning
1. community
design
workshops
2. definition of
objectives
3. solicitation of
proposals for
training
4. modify
training
proposals
5. pilot project
6. annual
evaluation
Human Development
1. contract
coordinator
for
community
development
2. contract
community
counterparts
3. train
counterparts
Execution
1. prepare
training
manuals
2. prepare
community
publications
3. training in
health
4. extension
programs
Planning
1. perfect
structure &
supervision
2. prepare annual
work plan
3. year end
evaluation
Human Development
1. contract
ecotourism
complex
administrator
2. contract
counterpart in
San José
3. contract
employees
4. develop
training
program
5. implement
training
program
for those not involved in
ecotourism, & facilitate
the improvement of
existing activities such as
agriculture
Agriculture
1. analysis of current
production
2. study of possible
markets
3. cost-benefit
analysis
4. create units or
systems of
production
5. promote/commerc
ialize products
6. tracking and
evaluation
Handicrafts
1. analysis of design
& quantity
2. training
workshops
3. study of potential
local markets
4. study of
international
markets
5. cost-benefit
Commercialization
analysis
1. develop
6. create systems of
commercializati
production
on strategy
7. develop
2. prepare
commercialization
materials
system
3. develop
8. promotion/comme
relations with
rcialization
tourism
9. follow-up &
agencies
evaluation
4. organize trips to
get to know the Nontimber Forest
area
Products
5. attend tourism
1. inventory products
expositions
in area
Operations
1. high season for
tourism
Ecological Sequence
1. create plan for
limits of
acceptable
change
2. collect
reference data
3. create rules of
conduct
2. analyze
commercial
possibilities
3. study market
possibilities
4. cost-benefit
analysis
5. create production
system
6. develop
commercialization
system
7. promote NTFPs
8. follow-up &
evaluation
Community Relations
1. concept
workshops
2. present plans
3. debates about
progress of
program
4. identify
community
benefits
A Process of Learning
Once San Jose and CI had gained the support of IDB, construction and preparation for Chalalán
began in 1995 and took three years to complete (see Chronology in Appendix I). The partners
depended on the support of many consultants over the years. Everyone, on all sides, seemed to
be learning all the time, adapting to changes, and then moving forward, always keeping an eye
on the original vision. One of Chalalan’s slogans is “A Dream Made True,” and it may be
precisely because so many people remained faithful to the dream of 1995, even in the midst of
many trials, errors, misunderstandings, false starts, and readjustments. Indeed, if there is any
word to the sum up the secret to Chalalan’s success, it must be learning.
Over the years, CI brought in consultants, volunteers, researchers from various disciplines,
marketing and design experts, conservationists, community development workers, journalists,
and filmmakers from the U.S., Bolivia, Peru, and elsewhere to help make the dream of Chalalan
a reality. One of the first consultants, Kurt Culbertson, a landscape architect from the U.S.
provided pro bono support and helped identify attractions, scouted sites for trails, lodges, and
waste systems. Eventually, he wrote a full-scale prospectus and design for the Chalalán that CI
presented to San Jose. It included initial designs for the 24-bed lodge, marketing plans, cost
estimates, a construction schedule, and a draft itinerary for potential guests, from backpackers to
elite birdwatchers.
Joseph Vieira, a forestry consultant, lived in San Jose to help to manage the construction and
startup of Chalalán over two years, between 1995 and 1997. Forty men and women from San
Jose were trained in hotel management and service through on-site experiential learning and
rotating shifts at Chalalán. There were classes in planning a cycle of menus for seven days, and
preparing foods and drinks that tasted good, looked nice, and was safe for visitors.
David Ricalde, a Peruvian biologist, played a key role in training San Josesanos to become forest
guides. Twenty trainees in all received six-month preparatory courses between 1999 and 2000
under the tutelage of Ricalde and other biologist consultants. “We had to pass the course, too,”
explained Sandro Valdez, one of the first young men from San Jose to earn the title of guide.
“We had to study biology, natural history, learn about the species of plant and animal that you
find in the park and know about different habitats. We also had to learn about river rescue and
first aid.” Ovidio Valdez, also a guide, said one of the first things he learned was simply to stay
with the tourists at all times, make sure they don’t get lost or hurt. “They taught us that tourists
can't do the same things that we can do” (Hendrix 1997).
There were training courses off-site as well. Two trainees from San Jose, Alejandro Alvarez and
Alejandro Limaco, participated in a guides course in Tambopata, Peru, organized by the
Peruvian tour company Rainforest Expeditions. Other guides participated in a 15-day course in
wildlife management in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, where they had the opportunity to visit
parks and zoos, adding to their own knowledge of local flora and fauna. Throughout the training,
the prospective guides were encouraged to combine their traditional knowledge of forest with
western ecological understandings.
Collaboration and Communication: CI and San Jose
A priority indicator of the success of Chalalán, throughout the process of preparation, lodge
construction, and training, was the degree to which San Jose invested their own resources in the
project, and in a variety of ways. Again, a key goal of the IDB investment was to build local
capacity for conservation and development. Chalalan was never intended to become another topdown, “paternalistic” development project, led by outsiders and delivered to passive
“beneficiaries.” Rather, it was meant to serve as a model for community-created and
community-driven initiatives, and from the beginning that implied getting the people of San Jose
to contribute to their own visions and dreams for Chalalan, in whatever way they could. The
contribution also were way of eabling the community to invest capital in the company so that
legally Chalalan could eventually be transferred to San Jose.
One of San Jose’s first in-kind contributions was the commitment of seventy families to
volunteer at least 20 days of labor to building the lodge. Over time, the community also invested
their unpaid time to the local promotion and marketing of Chalalan, and to the coordination of
transportation and food for volunteers and workers. In fact, nearly every component of the IDB
project was met with in-kind support from the community. Even in the handicrafts project,
Josesanos built the houses artisans used to gather for workshop and cooperative craft-making. A
mantra for Chalalan was, “Nothing with money, everything with sweat” (“nada con dinero, todo
con sudor”).
These details are today part of the lore that attracts tourists to Chalalan. A travel magazine wrote
this about Chalalan: “The lodge’s simple yet charming buildings were built by the Josesanos.
Consultants taught them carpentry skills, such as how to make windows and hinged doors, and
the Josesanos added their traditional knowledge, such as thatching roofs with palm fronds. The
Josesanos even learned the exacting techniques of furniture making, creating tables and chairs in
their forest workshop with a level of craftsmanship that does justice to the luminous tones of the
local wood.”
Members of San Jose working to build Chalalan
Photo: CI-Bolivia
Establishing the Chalalan Ecolodge, S.A.
In the midst of the training, capacity-building, and lodge construction, Chalalan was established
as a legal company. Today, Chalalan is a company with stocks, a “Sociedad Anónima, but when
CI and San Jose partnered to create it, there was no precedent for a community company of the
kind. There was a general lack of understanding in San Jose about what a business was, and
what the process of transfer would entail, so training was an important component of everything
from the beginning.
The Chalalan Ecolodge is the company, and the company is comprised of shares, all of which are
registered in the public record as a stock-holding company. “But it is all very complicated ,”
Pastor said, “because the legal base for the company is in Rurrenabaque even though Chalalan is
in the a different department of La Paz.”
CI initially became the principal shareholder, with 11,998 shares, or 99.983% of all shares. The
Organization of Territorial Bases (Organization Territorial de Base) or OTB of San Jose had one
share, and the church had one share. (The church was involved because Bolivian commerce code
required three of shareholders). Not surprisingly, there was some concern from San Jose that the
majority of shares were controlled by CI, even though it was just a temporary step in the process
of transferring all of the shares to the community.
CI had the majority of shares because, as Candido Pastor related, ”the IDB told us they would
not give the capital to the community, but rather to CI, and so CI, not the community, were the
active shareholders by law. We worked to make the OTB the adjudicators.” The OTB then
made a plan to carry out community works, such as building the road from San Jose to
Tumupasa and constructing a medical post. That became another capital contribution the
community invested in the company. “That was a bit of an artifice,” conceded Pastor, “but it
served to resolve the problem of how to transfer the shares from CI to San Jose.” Again in 1999,
the IDB helped clarify communications between CI and San Jose. Dennis Gravel, a
representative of the Bank traveled to San Jose to assure the community assembly that all
company shares would indeed be transferred.
The leaders of San Jose suggested a fee of $5.00 per tourist so that people in the community
could start receiving some material benefit from the lodge directly and immediately, even while
shares remained in the hands of CI. A strategy for Social Reinvestment was created to define
how the fees could be applied to community development needs in categories they identified as
education, health, agriculture, recreation, and legal representation, and other miscellaneous
needs. In 1999, the community received a total of $2,000 from this fee. Management of these
funds were perceived as good practice for taking on the responsibility of managing and
reinvesting future income from Chalalán.
There were two forms of transferring shares, donation or endorsement. Endorsement required a
transaction that would be free of taxes, and in which CI could pass shares whenever a contract of
services has been established. In the case of Chalalán, the transfer could occur whenever
families of San Jose had invested capital and could receive remuneration of up to 50% of all
shares. Annual profits would go to each family in San Jose, and the second 50% would be
endorsed to the community’s “Organization of Territorial Bases (OTB). In this way, the annual
profits from Chalalan would go back to the community by way of a plan for “Social
Reinvestment.”
For a donation, the person (or entity) receiving the shares had to pay taxes--23% of the total
value of the shares. In this scenario, the company would be not transferable because the
community of San Jose simply did not have the money needed to pay the taxes, which would
have been $45,246.
The community agreed to follow the endorsement strategy. Upon endorsement, the OTB
completed a contract of services for the community, which allowed it to receive up to 50% of the
shares. Families also completed contracts of service, meaning they were obligated to work in
Chalalán, and this allowed them to receive the second half of the shares. Most community
members lacked official identity documents, so these needed to be acquired in order to enable the
official transfer of title to shareholders in San Jose. The specifications of this plan for
transferring Chalalán by way endorsement were written as “Agreement of the Establishment of a
Company,” “Regulations for Transfer,” “Establishment of an ‘Sociedad Anónima,’” and “Act of
the Founding and Approval of the Statutes and Election of the Provisional Directors.” In July
2000, a letter explaining all of this was distributed to the members of San Jose (see appendix for
translated letter).
Also for the transfer, Josesanos needed to start distinguishing between directors of the
community company, Chalalan, and members of the community. The Directors, Mamani and
Alejandro Limaco received training in financial analysis, legal management of the company,
strategic planning, and bookkeeping and accounting. The community is comprised of persons
less involved in decision-making for the company and has fewer direct interests in Chalalán. In
between the Directors and the Community is the Local Coordinator, Zenon, who serves as an
intermediary and assumes the role of ensuring that communication is transparent, fluid, and clear
between the two (see Figure X).
Figure X: Organization of Chalalan Ecolodge, S.A.
Shareholders
(50% OTB; 50% 74 families)
Local
Coordinator
Director
Marketing
Manager
Rurrenabaque
Chalalan
Sales & Logistics
Guides
Administrator
Cooks
Housek.
Boats
Waiters
Waiters
Bodega
Period of Tension
Before Chalalán was transferred to San Jose and its community company, the partners on both
sides, CI and San Jose, experienced a debilitating crisis of miscommunication and lack of trust.
One indicator of the problems is a statement in a September 1999 progress report, written by
Zenon Limaco, that states community members from San Jose were refusing to accept invitations
to a training workshop sponsored by CI on financial accounting until “problems between CIBolivia and San Jose could be resolved.”
In retrospect, and according to the archive of progress reports written by consultants and leaders
from San Jose, the distrust seems to have emerged from perception of community members that
“rules of the game” for creating and transferring the company of Chalalán to the community
were not well understood. One progress report noted two main perspectives in San Jose at the
time (1999). One was a general disinterest in the project and low regard for Chalalán, and the
second an interest in Chalalán accompanied by a demand for immediate benefits. Various
factors inherent to the project design influenced these feelings. For one, there were many outside
consultants involved in the training and capacity-building, creating a sense that Chalalán was out
of the hands of San Jose. Although the consultants were critical for matching the right expertise
to whatever gaps needed to be filled, the cost of having so many consultants were financial as
well as social.
Other problems (at least in perception) were that during the period of apprenticeships and on-thejob training, community workers at Chalalán were learning but getting paid only with room and
board. Third, there were new divisions between community members who were closely
associated with CI, IDB, and those who kept their distance. The combination of these three
factors became a breeding ground for resentment and suspicion on all sides.
Strategies for overcoming the crisis included organizing a visit by the Mother’s Club to the
lodge. Seventeen women visited Chalalán to get to the know the operation, but also to discuss
their own short and medium-range goals for linking income from Chalalán to positive changes in
San Jose. These kinds of visits between the community and the lodge also gave the newly
trained guides opportunities to practice their skills and share what they had learned. A second
strategy was to create a newsletter about the project to distribute periodically throughout San
Jose.
[Transition . . . ] Translated portion of San Jose’s letter to the Bank: “With regard to the low
level of participation of the community in the project, we agree this has been the case, and
believe it is the result of the following: the activities were directed in a paternalistic way on the
part of the executors (CI), who have disregarded (“dejado de lado”) opinions of the community.
Also there has been a lack of transferring of information, and a lack of assigning responsibilities
to the community, which did not have the power to make decisions—all of which have precluded
our participation. We agree the goals have not been clearly defined. Upon hearing of your
concerns, we are writing to inform you that we recently completed a two-day workshop with full
participation of the community and Conservation International to overcome the problems. Both
the community and CI want to improve the process of implementation and management of the
project, and we have discussed in depth the concerns you and your colleagues at IDB have
raised. Finally, we want you to know that from this day forward, all of the participation of the
community will be documented in writing.
On the same day, the community also sent a letter Juan Pablo Arce, then Director of CI-Bolivia
referring to “Presentation of the proposal to improve relations with regard to implementation of
the project.” The community members attached a copy of the they letter had sent to IDB. In this
second letter, they proposed several solutions to strengthen the collaboration and trust with CI:
create a new organization to represent the community in all matters relating to the project;
assume shared and equal responsibility for the implementation of the project; clearly define the
roles and responsibilities for each partner in the implementation of the project; establish and
project office in San Jose (which, they said, should have been created from the beginning of the
project); ensure complete transparency in all communication; contribute to a percentage of the
transportation of tourists and the salaries of the staff who work in the project in the community;
and establish a formal agreement between the community and Conservation International to
implement the project.
As part of the solution, the community started quantifying their contributions and including them
a budget with monetary values attached. Table X shows the estimation of contributions made by
community members to Chalalán during several months.
Table X: Example of Partial Shared Costs
San Jose
IBD/CI
Total
U.S. dollars=5.53 Bolivianos (Bs.)
Human Resources
Project Team
40% San Jose
60% IBD/CI
Labor

Lodge Construction
$11,960
$17,940
$29,900
$4,882
$4,882
$12,694
$12,694
$13,020
$13,020
$1,932
$1,932
$3,662
$3,662
15 comuneros X 30 days/year X 2 years X
30 Bs/day=27,000 Bs.)

Coffee and Cacao
(26 farmers X 45 days/year X 2 years X 30
Bs/day=70,200 Bs.)

Vegetables
(80 farmers X 30 days/year X 30
Bs/day=72,000 Bs.)

Fruit trees
100 saplings per day
35,556 per 365 days
356 days X 30 Bs/day=10,680 Bs.)

Other productive work
(15 farmers X 45 days/year X 1 year X 30
Bs/day=20,250 Bs.)
Sub-Total Human Resources
Training
Materials
Travel
Sub-Total Training
Zenon Limaco
Photo: A. Stronza
$48,149
$17,940
$66,089
$1,162
$2,421
$3,583
$1,162
$2,421
$3,583
Also in November 1998, Zenon Limaco was selected to
served as Local Coordinator, and Guido Mamani was
named General Manager, responsible for operations and
personnel, both in the lodge and in the Rurrenabaque
office. Also, a Comité Cívico in San Jose was created
to help coordinate all project activities and represent the
community’s interests. Mamani began reporting
monthly to the shareholders, and every six month to the
community assembly, which included shareholders and
representatives of organizations in San Jose (i.e.,
artisans group, mother’s club, etc.).
In October 1999, the Chalalán team initiated “Phase II” of the project, focusing systematically on
what they identified as “planning, follow-up, and monitoring” (planeación, seguimiento y
monitoreo). Roberto Roca, then Director of CI’s Andes Program, Conrad Reining of CIWashington introduced the series of planning and monitoring tools and strategies. Bolivian
sociologist, Candido Pastor, was hired as new lead consultant for CI-Bolivia. He played a
critical role in strengthening relations between San Jose and CI and implementing the new plan
for continual record keeping, monitoring and evaluation of project efforts. Over the years, Pastor
also served as CI’s key spokesperson for the Chalalán project to various academic and NGO
audiences around the world. In 1999, his work was focused primarily on improving San Jose’s
acceptance of and ability to assume control of Chalalán. He also strove to strengthen the
organizational of San Jose, and serve as an intermediary between CI-Bolivia and the project. In
many ways, Candido Pastor played the role of CI-Bolivia’s counterpart to San Jose’s
Coordinator, Zenon Limaco (see Figure X). Also in 1999, Romulo Trujillo was hired as
consultant in hotel administration, and Roberto de Urioste as a consultant in ecotourism services,
and Jose Ayala as consultant in sustainable agriculture and no-timber forest products.
Figure X: Organization for Collaboration
CIBolivia
San
José
Comité Cívico
Directors
Comité
Consultivo
C. Pastor
Z. Limaco
Tech. Coordinator
Ecotourism
Local Coordinator
Agriculture
Handicrafts
Organizational
Strengthening
Because it had been difficult to get people from San Jose interested in working in Chalalán,
salaries were changed. For the first half of the year, workers continued as apprentices. After,
Chalalán began to assume the payment of salaries, and by December 1999, all positions were
paid by the company. Romulo Trujillo and Guido Mamani worked togher to manage the
personnel. It was agreed to pay on a scale comparable to what people would be paid in similar
positions in Rurrenabaque, and then also comensurate with skills, and finally taking into account
the special challenges of working in the rainforest (including the fact that workers needed to
leave their families in San Jose for days and weeks at a time) (Allgoewer 2000).
In September 1999, the progress report indicated that relations between CI and San Jose had
improved, and that generally the members of San Jose perceived the outside (CI-hired)
consultants positively as “facilitators for community development.” But the tensions lingered for
some time. In this period of learning to work together, Zenon Limaco, voiced concern on behalf
of San Jose that consultants were not taking enough time to familiarize themselves adequately
with the people San Jose. Suspicions emerged when people started to feel alienated by the
number of outsiders involved in Chalalán. In a progress report from December 1999, Limaco
recommended that consultants try to integrate themselves more with San Jose, focusing on
building trust. A related challenge for San Jose was the many changes in personnel in IDB and
CI over the course of Chalalan’s evolution. Community leaders have noted that the persistence,
continuity, and patience of San Josesanos has been a critical element of success in the project.
Transfer Complete
The transfer of the ownership and management of Chalalán to San Jose occurred on three levels:
administrative, financial, and legal. The Chalalan team (both from CI and San Jose) have
described “transfer” as a process of legal and technical appropriation of one institution—in this
case, CI to San Jose. Before the legal transfer could take place, a whole process of transferring
knowledge and skills needed to unfold. In all, the transfer process took five years, and
proceeding first by training of staff in knowledge and skills, then by sharing decision-making in
the operations, and finally by transferring legal title.
To prepare San Jose to assume full financial control of Chalalán, the transfer strategy was to
create a system of apprenticeships. Community members worked at the lodge and learned while
doing. Their salaries were subsidized by the project for the first two years. Also, two
community members were sent to La Paz to gain professional training in accounting and
marketing. Guido Mamani, took courses in administration and accounting so that he would have
the skills needed to manage the enterprise.
A challenge throughout the training was the constant rotation of personnel. Rotating staff was a
way to give opportunities to a maximum number of community members, but the trade-off was
continuously needing to shift a well-trained individual out of any given position to make way for
the next person, freshly in need of new training and preparation. In retrospect, the rotation
system was a good way to ensure equitable participation for the community, but ultimately
results in diverting resources away from creating a fully-trained staff, and thus local enabling
complete local autonomy.
In October 2000, the shares of CI were legally transferred to the community OTB, and then the
second half of the shares were transferred to the families in February 2001. San Jose marked the
occasion with a “gran fiesta.” Despite the innovation Chalalan represented, and bureaucracy one
might expect in setting up a company in the remote Bolivian Amazon, the legal steps for
establishing the “sociedad anonima” for Chalalan proceeded relatively rapidly. The challenge,
project leaders said, was not to be patient, but rather to learn to adjust quickly.
“But we felt sure of ourselves,” Guido Mamani remarked in 1993, “even though, in reality, we
were never really ‘ready.’ We are still in an ongoing process of learning and overcoming
challenges. We sensed we were ready for the transfer because we already had gained some
experience in managing tourism on our own, and then we also participated in a lot of training.
And as for decision-making, our involvement in that increased a bit more gradually.”
Zenon Limaco elaborated, “In some way we had knowledge, and we only had to perfect what we
knew. We knew how to treat tourists. So that’s why it was fairly fast. But the project came at a
the perfect time because before that, it would have been challenging for us to get ready in just
five years.”
Lessons from the Transfer
In the years between the idea of a creating a bunkhouse for tourists on the shores of the lake to a
full-scale luxury lodge and development project that became Chalalan, more people in San Jose
got involved. By the time Chalalan was opened to tourists, Guido Mamani, Zenon Limaco, and
Alejandro Limaco were no longer carrying the load, or the vision, alone. Nevertheless, the three
leaders have remained very much in control of Chalalan’s direction and operation over the years.
The project has been fortunate to have such leadership, but the downside is concern over
favoritism, and that the “community-based” project is really the result of a handful of people.
The questions of how to get more people involved, especially in positions of leadership, and
especially among younger generations, remain unanswered
Before the transfer process began, IDB and CI had not taken into account the fact that San Jose
had no legal property title for land on which Chalalan was built, though they did have use rights,
and they were allowed to occupy the area.. This was a problem, though not unusual in Bolivia
where most lands are not titled. So, the transfer did not entail a transfer of territory, but rather
just a transfer of shares. “Our recommendation for future [community-based ecotourism]
operations” noted Pastor, “is to make sure there is legal land title.
Concerns the Chalalan leaders expressed in 2003, once the transfer had been complete include:

We are concerned that shares will be sold to people and interests outside the community

We are concerned about the lack of a continued formal alliance with IBD, CI and other
organizations.

We are worried there is no legal framework [in Bolivia] for promoting other community
enterprises like Chalalan.

We are concerned about the lack of professionalism [advanced degrees] in the managerial
ranks.

There is a lack of continuity in the leadership of Chalalan.
Chalalan’s advice to others in planning a transfer:

Be sure to have the backing and support of a document that establishes a timeframe for
the transfer.

Plan the process from the very beginning and have rules laid out clearly.

Make sure that the transfer is more than just a transfer of capital, but also a transfer of
knowledge, hierarchies, skills, mandates, and legal requirements.

It is necessary to start transfer from the beginning, and be constantly with the people who
are going to receive.
Follow-up from IDB
[verbatim excerpt from Roger Hamilton, 2002]
Like all significant inventions, Chalalán was designed to be superseded. The IDB is working to
do just that in a sustainable tourism program for Bolivia that was approved in January 2002. One
part of the program will finance projects such as lodges, for cultural tourism as well as
ecotourism. A second part will improve the country’s regulatory framework and establish a
certification facility, both of which will help Bolivia to win a bigger share of the growing Latin
American tourism market, particularly for the out-of-the-way, off-the-beaten-track destinations
where it has a competitive advantage.
“It was essential to have Chalalán to do the present program,” says Helena Landazuri, team
leader for the new IDB program. “It not only taught us lessons about how our project should be
structured, but just as importantly, it proved that a community enterprise can be successful.”
The new program will improve upon Chalalán in several important respects. First, the projects it
finances will get up and running much more quickly. The Chalalán Ecolodge took four years to
become operational, and then three more years before it became financially self-sustaining and
was turned over to the community, as was the project’s original intent.
“No IDB project can accept a time frame of seven years to break even,” says Landazuri. “That
kind of framework would not work under this financing.”
According to Landazuri, the problem was in part lack of experience. The community didn’t
know how to do an ecotourism project, and their partner, the private group Conservation
International (CI), was new to the tourism sector. CI’s area of expertise was conservation, not
business development. So CI and the community learned together, and that took time.
The lodge’s local operators had to take courses to learn how to run a business, build the facilities,
prepare food and guide visitors, for example. And they had to do this while simultaneously
tending their crops and meeting the needs of their families. “They couldn’t just go and take three
months off to take courses,” says Landazuri.
Transition to next section . . .
SECTION II
Cost Benefit Analysis
“Years ago, people abandoned San Jose, and today they are returning because of pride in the
success Chalalan. Before, San José was a place of suffering; now it is a place of opportunities.”
Chalalan delegation in the Trueque Amazonico, 2003
Socio-Economic Description of San Jose
As in most Amazonian communities, the families of San Jose engage in a variety of productive
activities, including agriculture, hunting, fishing, small-scale livestock, forest extraction, and in
the past fifteen years, tourism, which includes wage labor and the sale of handicrafts, food,
services, and other items to the Chalalán lodge. Outside of tourism, most economic activities
occur on a subsistence basis, and the cash flow among families is relatively low. The average
reported monthly expenditure by households is US$ 70. This is generally spent are goods not
produced in the community, such as cooking oil, sugar, soap, batteries, and other items. A
survey of manufactured goods showed that 70% of families have a radio, 9% have a television,
22% have bicycles, 13% own a chainsaw, 67% a shotgun, and 73% a wristwatch.
Table X: Livestock per household in San Jose
N= 67 households
Average # of
chickens
21.4
% households Average #
sell chickens
cattle
49%
.43
% households
sell cattle
<1%
In many ways, contemporary San Jose is clear reflection of its history, as a nexus of both Andean
and Amazonian cultures. Local medicinal use of plants and animals incorporate Andean
techniques as well as techniques from Amazonian cultures. The languages spoken in San Jose
are Quechua, Spanish and Tacana, though most people (95%) speak either Spanish and/or
Quechua, and only a few people know (or remember) Tacana. Also, since Chalalán opened, more
Josesanos have been learning English.
The community has a health clinic, which offers primary care and is very limited in staff,
equipment, and medicine. A new clinic is currently under construction. Each home has running
water, from a system that was installed in 1991.
Table X: Sense of well-being in San Jose
Do you have a “good life”? (66 respondents)
No
53%
Yes
47%
See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Primary Source of Income
N=64 responses
Thatch
Gold Mining 3% Teaching
6%
Fishing 3%
2%
Livestock
5%
Carpentry
5%
Agriculture
9%
Chalalan
56%
Handicrafts
11%
Cultural History of San Jose [need to edit, edit, edit this section!]
The original inhabitants of San Jose were part of the Uchupiamonas ethnic group, a division of
the Tacana linguistic group of the Tuichi river area. Historically, the Tacana people lived in
small, mobile villages, subsisting on hunting and manioc production, throughout entire region
that lay between the Andean foothills and Amazon lowland rainforests of northern Bolivia and
southeastern Peru. Today an estimated 5,000 indigenous peoples claim Tacana ancestry; most of
whom live within and around the towns of Tumupasa, Ixiamas, and San Buenaventura.
Archaeologists believe the Incas must have used balsa rafts to navigate down the Beni River
from the highlands between the years 1470 and 1492 AD. By 1500, a network of Inca stone
roads crisscrossed what is today the Madidi National Park, from highlands of Titicaca to Apolo,
past the village of Uchupiamonas on the Tuichi and to the plains of Ixaima. (MacQuarrie 2002).
The people of Uchupiamonas traded honey, feathers, cat skins, and medicinal plants for clothes,
copper, and bronze axes from the Incas (ibid.)
At least two Inca expeditions are known to have traversed the area of Madidi in the pre-colonial
era. The resources they sought were mainly plants, gold and silver.
The Spanish Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries entered Madidi around 1540. They created
religious missions as they moved down the Tuichi River. A Franciscan missionary founded
Mission de Tumupasa, with Tacana groups of Sipiramonas and Uchupiamonas. Three years
later, because of diseases passing between the tribes, the Uchupimaonas abandoned the mission
and returned to their ancient territory on the Tuichi river. In 1716, Fray Domingode Valdez
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followed them and founded the original San Jose de Uchupiamonas with 45 families. This site,
called Tullullani, was abandoned almost immediately due to odd occurrences thought to be
associated with the ancient cemetery. The village was moved to another area on the Tuichi River
called “Kuara” (mother in Tacana), where the present village of San Jose is located” (Rioja
2000).
An epidemic severely reduced the population to the point that the missionaries were forced to
move the remaining families to Apolo. In this region Quechua was the common language
spoken and used by the missionaries to evangelize the area. When a group of the original
inhabitants of San Jose returned they found only three families remaining of the original
inhabitants (Rioja 2000).
In 1616, a Spaniard by the name of Juan Recio de Leon set off for the rainforest of Madidi to
pursue rumors of gold. What he found was a settlement of Mojos Indians on a tributary of the
Tuichi river. On his return westward to the Andes, he founded the town of Apolo, and then
returned back down the Andean slopes to the Tuichi River. Leon eventually came upon the
native village of Uchupiamo. With soldiers and priests in his expedition, they built a church and
claimed the village and the surrounding forests as part of the royal dominions of ‘New Spain,’
naming the village San Jose de Uchupiamonas, in commemoration of the day they ‘discovered’
the village, March 1616 (MacQuarrie 2002). Leon continued his journey downriver to discover
that further downstream the Tuichi joined with the Beni River..
Most people in San Jose have heard tales from their parents and grandparents about battles with
the Spanish conquistadors, located in a place known for many generations as Tulluliani or "place
of bones" in Quechua. Marked by deposits of human bones and ceramic fragments, it is believed
to be an ancient cemetery. It is located a half-hour upstream on the Tuichi river. After years of
abandon, as local tales go, strange and frightening things began to happen near Tulluliani.
Villagers decided to relocate. A second site further south east was deemed also unhealthy.
Eventually, Kuara, or “mother” in Tacana was chosen as the location for San Jose de
Uchupiamonas.
After years of failed attempts to uncover fabled cities of gold, the explorers of Spain were
gradually replaced with its missionaries. In 1629, a Augustinian missionary expedition was
slaughtered by the Uchupiamonas Indians on the banks of the Tuichi River. For two centuries,
first the Augustinians and then the Franciscans managed a chain of missions, “the goal of which
was to draw the natives out of the jungle, resettle them near the missions, baptize, and then
convert them to the European faith” (MacQuarrie 2002:49).
“Joseanos maintain these symbols and the spirit they convey, routinely scattering peanut shells
and flowers at the bases of the crosses as a gift to Pachamama, Mother Earth, to ensure good
harvest” (Rome 2003).
The Bolivian rubber merchant, Antonio Vaca Diez, formed the Orton Rubber Company Ltd in
1880 and encouraged colonization by Europeans to what later became Madidi. But it was
Bolivia’s wealthiest rubber baron, Nicolas Suarez, who set up headquarters in Esperanza, an area
just above the waterfalls on the lower Beni River. By 1905, the rubber boom was transforming
the economy the region. “Rubber posts in the Beni and Madidi Rivers and their tributaries
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
sprouted up almost overnight,” MacQuarrie (2002) related, “while rubber tapers filtered into the
remotest forests to seek out and tap the latex-bearing trees. In the Tuichi area, rubber was packed
out by humans or by mules along the Inca and missionaries routes linking the Tuichi with the
town of Apolo. Another route was down the Beni river to Rurrenabaquena-baque which means
‘river of ducks’ in Tacana” (p. 51). The commerce persisted through 1912 and brought wealth to
towns like Apolo in northeastern Bolivia. At least thirteen rubber companies established rubber
posts or “barracas” in Apolo or nearby.
Rubber wealth served a few, but proved savage and brutal to the Tacana, Mojo, and
Uchupiamona Indians of the region who were captured, enslaved, and often worked to death in
service of the boom. “Slaving raids on the savages were a common practice,” the explorer Percy
Fawcett wrote later. The prevailing idea that the Barbaro [native Indian] was nothing better than
a wild animal accounted for many of the atrocities perpetrated on them by the degenerates who
were the straw bosses of the barracas” (quoted in MacQuarrie 2002:52).
“For the next quarter of a century, the Madidi area sank again into a backwater of Bolivia as the
hordes of rubber tapers left to chase after other opportunities elsewhere. Meanwhile, the citizens
of Apolo and other formerly rubber-rich towns returned to drinking national or homemade beers,
not foreign ones, as wealth in the area quickly dried up. The days of largess were over. During
WWII, demand for rubber to help fuels the world’s armies gave a brief impulse to the Madidi
region as some of the old rubber estradas were worked again for the war’s duration (MacQuarrie
2002:53). The war also created renewed demand for the cinchona o “fever bark” tree.
“By the time the ‘fever bark’ and rubber trades exploded in Bolivia between 1840-1870 and
1880-1912, respectively, the Tacana had already been “missionized” for nearly two centuries.
They proved to be a ready source of cheap labor and were quickly siphoned off from the mission
communities” (p. 297). By 1910, the inhabitants of the mission communities of San Jose de
Uchupiamonas, Tumupasa, and Ixiamas had dwindled to no more than 100 families” (p. 297).
“By the 1880s . . . at the beginning of the rubber boom, the inhabitants of San Jose spoke a
mixture of Spanish, Quechua, and Tacana, reflecting their diverse origins and influences. As
Tacana and other natives were siphoned off for labor during the rubber boom, the Franciscan
priest there decided to make highland Quechua—the ancient language of the Incas—the lingua
franca of San Jose” (p. 300).
“In the years following the collapse of the rubber boom, peasants from San Jose turned to
growing coffee for export. An average of over 30 metric tons was annually sold in Tumupasa,
Ixamas, and San Jose de Uchupoamonas during this period. Between 1968 and 1971, the
hunting of animal skins—mainly ocelot, jaguar, giant otter, and caiman—had a short-lived
boom, stimulating the economy in the area with an animal pelt store opening in San Jose at this
time.” (p. 300).
Economic and Social Benefits of Chalalan
In 1995, when Madidi National Park was created, the people of San Jose suddenly found
themselves living within the “Integrated Management Area” of the new reserve. With little work
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
available, many of San Jose’s young began emigrating to towns such as Rurrenabaque and San
Buenaventura for work” (p. 300). Today there are some four hundred inhabitants who earn their
living from the sale of coffee, rice and peanuts in Rurrenabaque.
As a community product, Chalalán has a multiplier effect in the community. Most provisions are
sough locally, and several families from San Jose supply farm produce, native fruit, and drinks to
the lodge. Handicraft sales have been on the rise since Chalalán opened as well. San Jose is
especially famous in the region for its wooden carved masks, but local artisans also make baskets
and handmade cards.
The Chalalán project has helped to ease the hardships in other ways. For one thing, it has created
jobs, directly employing 18–24 Josesanos. All receive fixed salaries, except the guides, who are
paid by days worked. The lodge has also turned a profit.
Dividends. . . .
First profits distributed to community were in 2001: $15,000
50% went to community fund, for health, education, infrastructure, etc.
50% went to 74 families who are shareholders ($105 per family)
Chalalan has helped identify new products as well. An example from Chalalan is the production
of chickens and eggs that has generated an activity that is going to benefit everyone. The first
step was to make a supply of products for tourists to consume in the lodge. Say, ‘Here is the
demand,’ and then see how much the community is able to produce and supply.
Community development projects have focused on diversifying the array of items extracted from
the forest or produced in agroforestry plots, either for subsistence and sale in the Rurrenabaque
market. Raw produce as well as value-added items have included cacao, citrus, and coffee (as
part of agroforestry systems), carved wooden animals and masks, handmade cards, “jatata” palm
thatch, and chickens.
For a period when Chalalán first opened, San Jose received a fee of $5.00 per tourist, for a total
of $2,000 in 1999. They organized an plan for reinvesting the money, which served as a source
of funds to match with support from other institutions for various development initiatives in the
community. The fund presented new challenges to San Jose to prioritize and agree on how funds
should best be reinvested, and also to establish a reliable accounting system for keeping track of,
and reporting back to the community, on how money was being spent. The directors ultimately
decided to discontinue the $5.00 fee, taking into account the fact that it was never agreed to by
the company anyway. After creating an annual plan, they decided to reinvest funds in
development needs for San Jose, a process which began in 2002.
The social benefits of Chalalán extend beyond the new employment and income to include:
• Training and skills development. includes training in ecotourism service provision, e.g. as
cooks, guides and managers, as well as training in related enterprises, e.g. organic agriculture,
handicrafts, NTFP processing. Chalalán employs a minimum of sixteen community members to
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
fulfill various positions in the lodge. Two young men from San Jose were selected to study
marketing and administration in La Paz, and the expenses were covered by IDB funds as well.
• Education Chalalán has built environmental awareness in San Jose as well as contributed to
basic education for children through school building and provision of supplies and teachers.
Another advance due to the tourism project is a new middle school. Until a couple of years ago,
children could attain only a primary school education in San Jose. If they wanted to continue
their studies they had to leave their families and become boarders in Rurrenabaque or San
Buenaventura, or one of the parents would go to, separating families for the sake of education. In
a survey of 39 adult heads of household, primary education was the highest level of education
attained by 48%.
• Healthcare Improvement in services, either by funding regular visits by nurses and doctors and
by investing in local health clinic. Investments are also made in raising nutrition through more
varied diets and improved water supplies. With support of CI, in collaboration with the nonprofit development organization, CARE, CI installed a potable water system that brings running
water to each of San Jose’s homes. Each family contributed 45 days of work to complete the
project, tapping two springs, one for each side of the village, and then running distribution lines
to each house” (Hamilton 2002.
• Improved local infrastructure Another positive spin-off of Chalalán has been improved
transport and communication links to the market center in Rurrenabaque. Thanks to the income
generated through tourism, Joseanos were able to purchase an antenna, solar panels, and satellite
dish, which allow them to use radios and telephones to communicate with Chalalán,
Rurrenabaque, and the rest of the world from their remote plateau in the Tuichi Valley. They
also have added a public address system, which they use to announce meetings and broadcast
important news. Finally, San Jose used funds from Chalalán to subsidize local government
efforts to improve the road from San José to Tumupasa
(which then leads to Rurrenabaque). By any definition,
the road represents development and progress for the
community, though San Jose’s conservation partners
worry about the impacts the road might signify for
forests, especially if people from the highlands use it as
an entryway to Madidi for new farms and colonization.
• Increased social capital Chalalán has invested
significantly in building local organizational capacity in
San Jose. Chalalán has helped strengthen local
organizations in San Jose. In a 1999 community
newsletter about Chalalán, it was noted that the
women’s group had reorganized and renewed their
intent to effect change in the communities. Their
broadly stated goals were to improve the household
economy and promote greater participation of women
in communal decision-making.
Road from San Jose
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Photo: A.Stronza
See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Ten years ago, people were leaving San Jose because there were few ways to make a living or to
get an education. Guido Mamani, general manager for Chalalán, says, “Now, people are
returning to our village. They see opportunity here. And, as many of us have received training
to work in our tourism business, everyone sees the value of education. The community now
expects a good education for all its youngsters. This helps us develop a variety of sustainable
community-related businesses which improve our living standards” (Rome 2003).
What makes you proud of your community?
N=59 responses
Living in M adidi
National park
3%
To be progressing
12%
Our youth
7%
Chalalan
43%
Living peacefully
7%
Our organization
8%
Our lodge & other
amenities
3%
Culture of San Jose
17%
What are problems in your community?
N=59 responses
Poor understanding
of Chalalan
8%
Loss of tradition
1%
Unsanitary
Lack of organization
conditions
21%
8%
Environmental
degradation
Poor leadership
3%
8%
Nothing
11%
Lack of basic services
(water, electricity, etc.)
- 35 40%
See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
In 1998, a consultant for Chalalan, Susana Roca Idelberger, conducted a 10-day field study to
evaluate the degree of San Jose’s involvement, primarily through work, in Chalalán and also
how much community members accepted and approved of the project. Idelberger interviewed
39 households (about half of the total in San Jose) to ask a series of 15 questions that took about
30 minutes to answer. Her findings included the following:
To the question, “What benefits do you think Chalalán will bring to the community of San
Jose?”

12 (27%) respondents said “work” (or “trabajo”)

11 (25%) identified nothing (or “ningun beneficio”)
Among respondents who identified conservation as “important”

15 (36%) said conservation was important for “maintaining the forest for the future, for
our children” (“mantener el bosque para el futuro, para nuestros hijos”)

8 (19%) said conservation was important for “the development of tourism”
In response to the question, “What would you change about the ecotourism project,” 34
respondents indicated they knew little or nothing about the project (in 1998), and only 5
indicated they knew a lot about the project. All were leaders who had been deeply involved in
tourism and Chalalán from the beginning, including Guido Mamani, Zenon Limaco, and
Alejandro Limaco. In 1998, the year of Idelberger’s interviews, most people in the community
had so far only participated in the construction of Chalalán, and not, in fact, received much in the
way of monetary benefit.
Idelberger wrote that during her field work, her overall impression of peoples’ feelings in San
Jose was one of pessimism with regard to Chalalán and the benefits it would (or would not)
bring. What she realized, however, after assessing her interview data more closely was that
Josesanos had a relatively narrow definition of benefits, summing them up as income. What they
did identify as coming from Chalalán were training (“capacitacion”) and support for community
development projects, like potable water, better health and hygiene. Though respondents said
they perceived these as positive things coming from Chalalán, they had not specifically identified
them as “benefits” in the interviews. In addition, people tended to perceive the project as only
the lodge, Chalalán, and did not also consider development initiatives in agriculture and
handicrafts as also part of the project.
Second, Idelberger noted that people had many expectations from tourism and seemed somewhat
frustrated with the delay. Many said they had already invested “many years of hard work,” and
yet were still waiting “the results.” A majority of respondents, 56%, noted that the project
brought few (“poco”) benefits to the community. An even bigger majority, 87%, complained
that most benefits went to just a few people. “Chalalán is a source of work for just a small group
of individuals,” one said. Again, leaders of Chalalán, such as Guido Mamani and the Limaco
brothers, did seem to have good understanding of the long-term goals of Chalalán, and the
amount of time it would take to reap benefits, but the vast majority of the community did not
have that understanding. In general, though, people maintained great hope for Chalalán as a
opportunity that can bring economic alternatives to the San Jose and thus prevent future
generations from abandoning the community. One problem Idelberger pointed was the distance
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
from Chalalán to the community. For many, at least in 1998, the lodge was not simply not part
of the community.
One man noted, “To work in the rainforest, the people start to get desperate for their families.
Working more than two months is exhausting. We know we have to do something, but we are . .
. we are three hours from the community.”
Related to the problem of geographic distance between Chalalán and San Jose and Rurrenabaque
is the fact that some people in San Jose have been more actively involved in the project than
others. The varying levels of connection to Chalalán, and all that it has entailed—different kinds
of interactions with tourists, conservationists, consultants, journalists and other outsiders,
different amounts and forms of benefits, and different levels of personal investment and
responsibility—have led to more differences in general between Josesanos. Though San Jose
was never socially or even culturally homogenous, today the differences between families and
individuals is arguably greater than ever. The small group of leaders in San Jose who have
nurtured the dream and reality of Chalalán from the beginning—Guido Mamani, Zenon Limaco,
Alejandro Limaco, in particular, express feelings of disconnect and at the same time greater
sense of obligation to San Jose. They speak for their brothers, uncles, mothers, cousins, and
neighbors in San Jose, but they also speak of staff, employees, shareholders, and the
commitments they have to each. It is challenging, they have said, to bridge the roles, and to
manage a company within the community in which they have grown and raised their own
families. Another divide is between the guides and other staff at Chalalán. The guides are, in
many ways, “the lead singers” of Chalalán. As guides, they introduce tourists to the beauties and
mysteries of Madidi, and they become the faces and names attached to the memories tourists
carry home and remember. The intense bonds guides create with tourists are famous
everywhere, and they are too in Chalalán. The connections with outsiders then also tends to
have a disproportionate effect on guides, changing their way of behaving, talking, and interacting
with their peers. Directors of Chalalán have spoken of their concern about these changes, noting
that guides are becoming less inclined to work as part of team and also less interested in
returning to or supporting their community, San Jose.
Finally, a third theme that Ingelberger’s study revealed was of special concern to community
members in 1998 was the matter of the road connecting San Jose with Tumupasa. People said
that improving the road would be the only solution to improving marketability of their farm and
forest products. The cost of transporting items to Tumupasa or Rurrenabaque was prohibitively
high for community members. Without the road, the Tuichi and Beni rivers is San Jose’s only
link to the nearest markets and medical help, six hours downstream.
Changes in San Jose
Joseanos identify a series of both advantages and disadvantages to working in Chalalan. One
man explained, “You can earn a lot more in the community with fewer responsibilities, and
without losing touch with your family and the community.” The following section contains a
summary of the changes most often identified by respondents from Chalalan. None of these
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changes were objectively classified as “good” or “bad,” though some people felt strongly that
certain kinds of changes were distinctly negative and others were positive.
A summary of the positive changes includes:
-
-
Improvement of infrastructure for health, education, and transportation
People talk about and do more for conservation
There is a greater concern for things related to the company There are more people
worrying about outcomes and results.
There is greater sense of identity and self-esteem with respect to local culture There is
greater equality of opportunities for work for both men and women There There is greater
human capital and skills in the community, and greater capacity to manage projects
among community leaders
There are new possibilities to develop other activities, such as handicrafts, fish ponds,
and wildlife breeding
More confidence in outsiders
Those who work in the lodges now understand the importance of concepts like
punctuality, responsibility, client satisfaction, and decision-making
A summary of the negative changes includes:
-
-
Distance from family
Rise in jealousy and suspicion against those how work in the lodge
Certain loss of community spirit, specifically with regard to communal work. Now there
is interest in individual gain through paid employment, and not in voluntary work for the
community.
Some people have become dependent on profits from tourism and have abandoned other
subsistence and income-earning activities.
A change many delegates described as potentially positive or negative is greater contact with
Western society, in particular because of better infrastructure, now with roads and airports and
greater access to cash. Ruth Alipana, one of the first guides from San Jose told a reporter in
1997, “We have talked about the possibility in San Jose that a lot of growth, a lot of vision, could
change its identity,” she said. “We have to think carefully about how to manage it. We want to
improve the quality of life, but we don’t want to lose its sentiment.”
Tourism is not San Jose’s first introduction to the market economy or western society, but it is
quite remote. Interactions with tourists seem to be having some a “westernizing” influence on
San Jose, particularly among guides. In interviews in 2003, San Josesanos were shown various
indicators of exposure to western society. In ethnographic fieldwork for the Trueque Amazónico,
researchers showed a series of images to interviewees, and asked them if they could identify.
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
The results were the following:
Image (Modern Icon)
Catholic Pope
President of Bolivia
Logo for Coca Cola
President of the U.S.
Logo for Nike
Fidel Castro
Logo for McDonald’s
Mickey Mouse
Michael Jackson
Eiffel Tower
Princess Diana
Questions
Heard about Sept. 11
Learning English?
% able to identify
(N=67 respondents)
84%
76%
72%
40%
39%
28%
28%
25%
24%
12%
4%
51%
34%
Among the respondents with ten highest identification rates, seven (70%) were administrators
and leaders for Chalalán. Among the respondents with the ten lowest identification rates, none
(0%) were administrators or leaders for Chalalán. While this simple test does not show any
relation of cause and effect, or that San Josesanos who work for Chalalán became more
“westernized” because of their connection with the lodge, it does indicate some association.
Perhaps San Josesanos who work in Chalalán were somehow already more connected with
society outside their community. Regardless, it is an association that merits more exploration, in
particular if there is concern about the “corrupting” or westernizing influence of tourism on local
culture in Madidi.
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Disadvantages of Working in Tourism
(n=99 responses from Chalalan, Kapawi, and Posada Amazonas)
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Separation
from family
Diificult
schedule
Personnel
problems
Low pay
Leaving the
farm
Advantages of Working at Chalalan
(N=47 responses)
e
Co
n
se
Ab
rv
ili
at
ty
io
n
to
Sa
Im
v
eM
pr
ov
on
ed
ey
Tr
an
sp
or
tat
io
n
fe
In
su
ra
nc
Li
lth
of
He
a
Qu
ali
ty
se
a
nd
Co
m
fo
rt
Sk
ill
s
Ne
w
Ea
Im
pr
ov
ed
Se
c
ur
e
W
or
k
an
dI
nc
om
e
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Handicrafts
Chalalán has also introduced economic
alternatives through handicrafts. The
community is becoming famous (at least
the world of South American
handicrafts) for its wooden “bibosi”
masks, carved in the shape of howler
monkeys, jaguars, caiman, toucans, and
other rainforest creatures. They also
fashion baskets from motacu palm
fibers, jewelry from seeds, vegetal ivory,
the “chonta” palm wood, and ornate
cards made from recycled paper and
decorated with flowers and other natural
materials collected from the forest floor.
in
and
Handicrafts in San Jose
Photo: A. Stronza
For at least a couple centuries before the initiation of the Chalalán project, the people of San Jose
had made ceramics, baskets, and masks. Since the 1980s, when tourists first began arriving to
the Tuichi valley, Josesanos have been selling these traditional items as handicrafts.
When the project began, most artisans had little sense of the monetary cost of collecting
materials for and crafting the masks, baskets, and other items. The CI project in collaboration
with Sartawi helped the artisans calculate prices for the items, taking into account materials,
time, and labor. The project also arranged to send goods by boat from San Jose to Chalalán and
Rurrenabaque. Sartawi’s goal was to help commercialize San Jose’s handicrafts in stores in La
Paz. They gained support to carry out two handicrafts workshops in San Jose in which they
brought artisans together to start cooperating in the elaboration of San Jose handicrafts. In one
workshop, fourteen community members learned to make baskets using natural palm fibers of
the “jipijapa,” “miti,” and royal palms.
In 1999, researchers from the Kellogg Business School conducted research on handicraft
purchasing behaviors of tourists. They found the most important factors for purchasing included
perceived cultural authenticity, weight (not too heavy for luggage), whether handmade or not,
and whether benefit the community, and size.
Beyond the “captive market” of tourists in Chalalán, artisans from San Jose also have potential
markets in Rurrenabaque, and in San Buenaventura where there is a Tacana Cultural Center
(established with funding from CI and CARE funding). Also, every year in Rurrenabaque, there
is a Handicrafts Fair. In 1998, Eustaquio Valdez and Pascual Valdez, two artists from San Jose,
sold about $350 and $250 in items, respectively. In all, nineteen Josesanos have engaged in the
sale of handicrafts.
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Sustainable Agriculture
“But ecotourism cannot do it all.” Stephen Edwards, Conservation International’s ecotourism
manager for the Americas, says it is “absolutely essential” that people make money from
ecotourism. “But will it be a cash cow? Will it be a primary source of income? We try to
discourage that idea,” he says.
The villagers concur. “Tourism is important for the future,” a school teacher from San Jose told
reporter Roger Hamilton. “But we also need alternatives, like agriculture and handicrafts to earn
income when there are no tourists.”
Benefits extend beyond ecotourism. Agriculture specialists have taught Josesanos new strategies
for growing vegetables, although they still report having problems getting seeds and seedlings.
They have also learned agroforestry systems in which short-term crops are planted among coffee
bushes and cacao trees, which enables them to produce harvests in the short as well as long term.
The program purchased a mechanical rice husker, which saves time from winnowing the grain
by hand.
“Consultants have also taught the Josesanos better ways to raise chickens, improving feed and
preventing diseases. At least one villager has gone into the egg business. Josesanos practice
swidden-fallow agriculture, shifting plot locations annually. Annual crops are planted in areas of
0.5 to 2 hectares divided over two or three plots. Most production, 80%, is concentrated on rice
and corn; the other 20% is dedicated to a combination of platano, manioc, and fruit trees in areas
that are in fallow. Some smaller plots are planted with perennials, especially coffee and cacao.
The agriculture component of the
Chalalán project offered extension
services to 33 family farms in fruit tree
planting, organic control of pests and
disease, construction of covers
maintaining moisture, weed
management, and planting of amaranthe.
All of these activities were aimed at
increasing consumption of vegetables,
and encourage the exchange of seeds to
increase genetic diversity between
farms, and to lesser extent,
commercialize farm produce in San Jose.
Value-added produce, San Jose Photo: CI-Bolivia
The project provided technical assistance to four demonstration systems agrosilviculture and
agroforestry, small plantations of citrus trees for 43 families with the goal of creating valueadded products to commercialize in Rurrenabaque, 30 plots cultivated with a mix of citrus and
annual and perennial crops, the installation of 14 chicken coops, with the purpose of encouraging
family consumption of eggs and chicken in place of wild game meat as a source of protein, the
creation of school farms, and finally, the purchase of a rice husker,
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
The project also encouraged sale of coffee among 16 families. In the past, San Jose was an
important producer of coffee, but this practice was mostly abandoned because of falling prices
for coffee, and timber sold for much more. One goal of the agricultural component of Chalalán
was to encourage the production of organic coffee. Farmers in San Jose were encouraged to
grow coffee in conjunction with a series of annual crops including rice, corn, and manioc, and
also with legumes and woody tree species (to provide shade for the coffee plants).
Fifteen San Josesanos (13 men, 2 women) harvested wild cacao as part of the agriculture project.
The concentrations of coffee were relatively far from the community and so the costs were too
relative to the returns to continue. So, instead wild cacao was transplanted to the farms of two
families in San Jose with the eventual goal of making cacao harvesting possible within San Jose.
The project experimented with the commercialization of tomatoes in small quantities of 40
kilograms, which had a good response in Rurrenabaque, but the costs of transportation proved
too high to make tomatoes commercially viable from San Jose.
The key challenges for agriculture in San Jose include the following:



Control of pests and disease (for example, they experimented with soy one year, but were
overrun by mice)
Relatively high costs of transportation to commercialize products in the Rurrenabaque
market
Short period of technical assistance to facilitate long-term processes of production
In sum, the element of community participation in San Jose has been critical to the success of
Chalalán in making ecotourism work for development. The model of Community
involvement—in every aspect of lodge planning, design, construction, management,
administration, accounting, reinvestment, etc used in San José appears to have prepared the
community well to handle future tourism to the area as well as the commercialization of
handicrafts, non-timber forest products, and value-added agricultural goods. This is evident in
the requests Josesanos have made—to the government, to NGOs, and to other tour companies—
for further technical assistance in tourism and agriculture, particularly marketing, as well as the
requests for services that are likely to make the community more accommodating to tourists in
the future.
Transition to next section . . .
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
SECTION III:
Market Analysis
Marketing efforts for Chalalan were initiated in 1997, while Chalalán was still under
construction. In September of that year, an information office was opened in Rurrenabaque, and
the first task was to define Chalalán’s market segment both nationally and internationally. Once
that had been determined, promotional activities kicked in, and consultants went to work on
product design, preparing the package tour and itinerary, fixing prices, designing the logo and
brochure, and presenting promotional materials and slideshows to operators, both in La Paz and
outside of the country.
In subsequent years, the goal was to build Chalalán’s image and expand the demand. Chalalán
was promoted primarily through national and international tour operators. “Fam” (or
familiarization) tours were organized for operators and journalists. In 2000, Chalalan’s office in
Rurrenabaque opened, and Chalalan was able to book reservations from there and also establish
direct contact with operators in La Paz.
Operators reached clients by way of catalogs, publicity, direct sales in office, internet, and word
of mouth. Two operators were especially important for Chalalan in the early years. In 1998,
Chalalán initiated business with G.A.P. Adventures, a Canadian operator that distributes catalogs
in North America, Europe and Australia, and in 1999, with America Tours of La Paz. In 1999,
the Chalalán team signed an agreement with America Tours, an agency that specializes in
ecotourism and in clientele who arrive to Bolivia without reservations. Most other agencies in
La Paz, particularly in the late ‘90s had little experience with operations in the Bolivian
rainforest.
America Tours began to function as the exclusive operator for Chalalán, and by 1999, they had
sold tours to 329 persons. The agreement with America Tours helped in communications, and
resulted in good sales; on the other hand, it diminished direct contact and possibilities for selling
to other national operators, because there was a perception of exclusivity with America Tours.
Chalalán’s dependence on one agency, especially in the beginning, was related to the fact that
the agency’s director, Jazmin de Miranda, was connected with the Chalalán team as a marketing
consultant from the beginning.
By 1999, Chalalán was working with eleven national operators (America Tours, Turismos
Balasa, Fremen, Colibri, Magri Turismo, Crillon, Turisbus, Andean Summits, Transtruin,
Ecological Expeditions, and Azimut Explorers) and nine international.
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Table X: Tour Operators Working with Chalalán (1999)
National (11)
International (9)
América Tours
G.A.P. Adventures (Canada)
Turismo Balsa
Explore Bolivia (USA)
Fremen
Explore Worldwide (England)
Colibrí
FTI Touristik (Germany)
Magri Turismo
Hannibal Tours (Denmark)
Crillón
Journey Latin America (England)
Turisbus
Indigo Tours (Holland)
Andean Summits
Amazonian Explorers (Peru)
Transturín
Veloso Tours (England)
Ecological Expeditions
Azimut Explorers
Table X: Sales Source and Percentage of Guests
Source of Sales
Year
1999
America Tours (La Paz)
34%
Direct Sales (Rurrenabaque)
17%
G.A.P. Adventures (Canada)
12%
Turismo Balsa (La Paz)
7%
Other agencies (La Paz)
30%
2000
55%
22%
5%
7%
11%
CI’s offices in Washington, DC were also critical promoting Chalalan. A webpage was
incorporated into CI’s “Ecotravel Center.” CI’s communications team, led by Brazilian directors
Haroldo and Flavia Castro, also produced a promotional video in English and Spanish titled,
“Chalalán: The History of Dream.” In 1999 and 2000, Chalalán participated with CI in the Latin
American Travel Mart in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the largest marketing event for tourism in Latin
America.
Consultant Mary Ann McConnell attended the Travel Mart and found that Chalalán attracted the
most interest from buyers because it “best met the market’s interest for ‘soft adventure,’ it is
community-owned and operated.” Buyers had to be assured however that “intensive training and
business planning had been undertaken with the community operators.” Other factors in
Chalalán’s favor were that “Bolivia seems to be the up-and-coming, ‘hot’ destination among
many tour operators.”
Though Chalalán opened to three tour groups informally in 1997, and then between 180-200
tourists in 1998, the first systematically maintained records of tourism date from January 1999.
Between 1999 and 2001, the number of tourists increased by 17-19%. The increase reflects a
broader trend in nature travel and ecotourism worldwide. According to the World Tourism
Organization, travel to “megadiverse” countries increased by 28% between 1993 and 1997. In
Madidi, tourism began to prosper between 1992 and 1998. In 1992, approximately 1,000 tourists
visited the area for three-days tours with local operators. In 1998, the number had risen to
7,000—most of whom were seeking the same tours from the same operators. By 2000, the
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
12,000 were visiting Rurrenabaque, and the numbers have continued to increase. The main
source for information to tourists is through word of mouth, travel guide books such as The South
American Handbook and Lonely Planet, and tour operators in both Bolivia and the country of
origin.
Tourists arrive more often during the dry season rainy season, April through August, which
coincides with summer in the north. The drop in numbers in the rainy season is exacerbated by
the fact that Rurrenabaque's airport lacks an asphalt runaway, and is therefore out of commission
in the rainy season.
Tourist arrivals to Madidi in 2000
Months
J F M A M J J A S O N D
No. of Tourists 173 123 450 652 429 457 957 835 514 323 359 340
Table: Tourists arrivals to Chalalán
Months
J F M A M J J A S O N D
23 19 49 20 58 54 76 119 63 129 33 57
1999
34 26 37 99 82 62 77 155 109 47 39 48
2000
Total
5,612
Total
700
815
Business Success
Starting a small business is a risky venture. Even in the United States, seven out of 10 small
businesses fail, noted Conservation International’s Ecotourism Manager for the Americas,
Stephen Edwards. Chalalán is no ordinary business, nor even a typical ecotourism enterprise. In
addition to the inherent constraints facing ecotourism entrepreneurs, such as small size, isolation
and obligations to local communities and the environment, it had to overcome the challenges of
creating a trained labor force and the complexities of village politics and interest groups.
The demand and clear market niche established so quickly by Chalalán is a considerable
achievement. Promotion was subsidized almost entirely by CI and IBD, including the brochures,
websites, participation in the travel mart, press articles. But, several important additional factors
contributed to the market success of Chalalán, independent of CI:

Increased interest internationally in Madidi National Park. An article published in
National Geographic in March 2000 helped put Madidi on the map as a hotspot for
biological diversity. The article also had some negative impacts for Chalalán in that it the
natural environs of Madidi seem not welcoming but rather hostile, filled with dangerous
insects and charging peccaries.

Client satisfaction: exit surveys conducted at Chalalán levels of satisfaction as greater
than 85%. Positive word of mouth has proved an invaluable marketing tool for Chalalán.

Acceptance of the product by tour operators. Since 2000, the company’s strategy focused
on strengthening relations with national operators. The local sales princes are equivalent
to the prices sold by operators, with adjustments only for costs in Rurrenabaque the
customer assumes when s/he makes a reservation in the office but the company assumes
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
when the reserve is made in La Paz (reception and hotel. This policy helps avoid
competition, especially because many tourists arrive to Bolivia without reservations, and
they learn about Chalalán in La Paz and make reservations for the tour only later when
they arrive to Rurrenabaque.
Chalalán has been recognized and cited at conferences by the Vice Minister of Tourism as a
model for tourism development, and thanks to public relations efforts on the part of CI and
Chalalán, especially in the International Year of Ecotourism (2002), Chalalán’s name has
become more familiar throughout the nation and beyond.
In 2000, seven years after Chalalan was first conceived and three years after it received its first
guest, Chalalán made a profit of nearly $22,000 (Hamilton 2002). Earnings were used to finance
new capital purchases, including Chalalán’s new sales office in Rurrenabaque, and $2,000 to the
municipality for the construction of the new road linking San José to Tumupasa. In 2001, with
an occupancy rate of 45%, gross revenues totaled more than 40 percent over the previous year,
and profits were anticipated to be more than $54,000.
“But Chalalán’s commercial success was revealed only after a thorough financial analysis that
carefully separated business-related expenditures from costs for generating external benefits for
third parties. Unlike most businesses, where the only aim for investments is to produce eventual
profits, a considerable amount of the funding for Chalalán was spent on training and
improvements for the community,” explained Andres Garrett, financial consultant with the
IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund (cited in Hamilton 2002). “When Garrett included this class
of expenditures in his analysis, he found that Chalalán’s rate of return was essentially zero. But
when Garrett isolated the strictly business-related investments, he found that Chalalán’s rate of
return was 11.9 percent in real terms. In Bolivia, banks pay 6–7 percent on deposits, making a
venture such as Chalalán potentially attractive to private investors” (ibid.)
[insert interview data with Candido here]
One of the greatest disadvantages, from a financial perspective, for Chalalán is that decisions
generally require a great deal of discussion and can take a considerable amount of time. San Jose
simply does not have cultural traditions of efficiency, multitasking, or the notion that “time is
money,” all of which are so prevalent in western societies where the business of tourism began.
A challenge for the local leaders of Chalalán as they have begun to manage the company
autonomously is learning to combine local ways of organizing, making decisions, and generally
getting things done with business-driven approaches. The tension is present everyday, as
expressed by key leaders, Guido Mamani, Alejandro Limaco, and Zenon Limaco.
A second challenge is learning to manage marketing on their own, and also take it to a new level.
Almost of the marketing was conducted by CI, by way of consulting teams. As Alejandro
Limaco explained in 2003, “Everything we have been trained in is going well. But beyond that,
yes, we have problems. In terms offering quality services to our tourists, there is no problem.
But on the issue of marketing, yes, there are some gaps. When CI left, the marketing was
weakened. On that point, we do not feel well prepared.”
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
In fact, the lack of training for marketing, especially in English and in international markets, was
identified by one of CI’s marketing consultants as one of the greatest threats to the sustainability
of Chalalán.
A third challenge for Chalalán is that it operates over four diverse and remote regions, not easily
traversed by any means, air, river, or road. The lodge is in Chalalán, the community in San
Jose, the locus for receiving tourists and managing operations and accounts in Rurrenabaque, and
the key site for client operators in La Paz. The political and geographic space divided these areas
would create logistical and managerial headaches for any company directors, much less
community directors, recently learning to run their own business.
The separation of the community and the lodge, and the distance between both and the center of
operations in Rurrenabaque creates two additional challenges. One is the difficulty in keeping
well-trained personnel in the lodge. It is necessary to maintain a rotation system for personnel,
but it has been difficult to get community members keen to work in the lodge, despite the
economic benefits offered. The constant rotation of personnel (between trained, untrained, and
newly trained) can negatively affect quality of service. Also related to the problem of distance
between the lodge and community is the need to maintain a big permanent staff in the office in
Rurrenabaque and Chalalán, and at least two boats with two boat drivers in each. As a result,
fixed costs are higher than might be expected, especially for a new company like Chalalán. The
point of equilibrium requires, depending on the number of tours sold, approximately 700 tourists
per year, a number that Chalalán was able to achieve in its first couple years. Most of the fixed
costs occur outside of the lodge, and so one idea is to close the lodge during the low season,
October to March. Instead, a key strategy for Chalalán is to increase the number of tourists per
year. As the lodge’s capacity is 24 guests, the company needs to focus on increasing numbers in
the low season.
Threats to Chalalán:

The biodiversity and attractions of the Madidi National Park is threatened by various
large-scale developments, including petroleum exploration, road-building, dam
construction, and state-led incentives for agricultural colonization.

Bolivia’s political instability since 2003 has already sent tourists in search of alternative
rainforest destinations perceived as safer, including Ecuador, the always competitive
”stable and safe” Costa Rica, and even Peru.

There is a lack of political will, especially locally, to help make Rurrenabaque and it
surrounds a hotspot for tourism. Authorities have for years ignored the need the pave the
airstrip in Rurrenabaque, and so arrivals and departures are often significantly delayed
during the wet season when planes cannot safely land on wet ground. The Tourism
Association of Rurrenabaque, of which Chalalán is a member, has been too weak relative
to the government to make demands.

If the effort to expand Chalalán’s market niche is delayed too long, other locally available
and up-and-coming products, including Mapajo for example, may detract attention away
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
from Chalalán, making it all the more difficult to establish effective relations with
operators in La Paz and internationally.
The principal competition for Chalalán was identified by marketing consultants (cite) as Kapawi
Ecolodge in Ecuador, and Posada Amazonas in Peru, two community-based lodges with similar
products in terms of lodge design, quality of service, rainforest setting with abundant wildlife,
and social approach to transferring ownership and decision-making to local indigenous groups.
The competition became an alliance in 2003 when leaders from Chalalán and their counterparts
in CI joined with leaders from the Posada Amazonas and Kapawi to participate in a series of
“lessons learned” workshops under the name “Trueque Amazonico.” Plans for follow-up to the
meetings are collaborate in marketing, as well as other initiatives, such as helping each other
monitor and compare the impacts of ecotourism in their respective communities, and pooling
their resources for training events, handicraft cooperatives, etc. Proposed plans for the
marketing alliance include promoting a “green passport” that will reward tourists with discounts
and other bonuses for visiting more than one of the three lodges, and joint advertising booths at
upcoming travel marts.
Other competition in Bolivia is in the National Park Noel Kempff, where community-based
ecotourism lodges have also been planned. Closer to Chalalán are two community-based lodges
that are modeled after Chalalán: one in Pilon-Lajas National Park, which in June 2001 and
features an indigenous community that has partnered with the NGO, PRAIA, to open Mapajo,
and San Miguel, another community-based lodge supported by CI.
To address weaknesses in marketing, Chalalán has good opportunities to pool its resources with
the Kapawi Ecolodge in Ecuador and Posada Amazonas in Peru, forming a community-based
ecotourism alliance for the Tropical Andes. Meanwhile, Rurrenabaque continues to become
more accommodating to international tourists every year, opening new hotels, restaurants, and
internet cafes. In addition to the military airline, other private airline companies have initiated
service to Rurrenabaque from La Paz.
There are several ways to increase sales. One strategy Chalalán has pursued is to diversify its
market, in part by advertising to school, universities, and research institutes. A second market
that has yet to be tapped fully for Chalalán is among birdwatchers. Plans (in 2003) were to build
an observation tower, a big plus for elite international bird watching companies like Field Guides
and Victor Emmanuel Tours.
Bolivia Tourism Market Size
Bolivia's tourism market size presents two important difficulties: it is small and it does not grow.
In 2002 Bolivia received 333,913 tourists. This figure was not affected by the 2003 riots.
Between 1996 and 2002, the number of foreign visitors entering the country has increased only
by 6,7%. These figures include travellers visiting the country for business and family. To put
these figures in perspective, Machu Picchu alone receives as many visitors as the whole country
of Bolivia. Peru, even though it has been subject to civil unrest since the year 2000, grows at an
average rate of 5-10% a year.
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Javier Gordillo and Kurt Holle of Rainforest Expeditions conducted surveys of six major
industry players in Bolivia. They found that only 30% of the total number of foreign travellers to
Bolivia are leisure tourists. Of these, about 50% combine their visit to Bolivia with a visit to
Peru. In sum, only 15% (or 49,500 travellers) of all visitors to Bolivia are leisure travellers who
choose Bolivia as their main destination. The other 15% are travellers who visit Bolivia as an
extension on their travels to Peru, or as part of a lengthy backpacking trip throughout South
America. To estimate how many are backpackers and how many are Peru-Bolivia travellers,
Holle and Gordillo (2004) used data from the Peruvian government agency, PromPeru.
According to Promperu's Foreign Tourist Profile for 2001, 25% of foreign leisure travellers to
Peru visited Bolivia, and 65% of foreign leisure travellers to Peru did not use an agency. An
estimated 80,000 travellers visited Peru and Bolivia (this is about 30,000 travellers more than
that estimated by our surveyed agencies in Bolivia). Of these, 65%, or 52,000 did not use a travel
agency. While some Peru-Bolivia travellers do travel independently (i.e. without the help of an
agency), the estimated size of the backpacker market as who do not is 52,000.
By extrapolating the data from various sources, Gordillo and Holle (2004) summarized three
main market segments:
Market Segment
Bolivia-only leisure travellers
Backpackers travelling through Bolivia as part of a South
America trip
Bolivia-Peru leisure travellers
Estimated number
of travellers per
year
49,000
52,000
28,000
Rainf
orest
Tour
ist
Mar
ket
Size
Two potential market segments for the Bolivian rain forest total 100,000 travellers: Bolivia-only
leisure travellers and backpackers. The Peru Bolivia travellers are set aside for two reasons: 1)
they spend most of their time in Peru, which has more accessible, better-value rainforest
destinations with better known destinations, such as Manu, Tambopata, and Iquitos; and 2) this
market is controlled principally by Peruvian travel agencies, which tend to sell Peruvian
rainforest destinations. Although the 52,000 backpackers also have the option of buying
rainforest trips during their stay in Peru (and even in Ecuador and Brazil, which are also part of
the extended route through South America), they are a legitimate market because their purchase
decisions are heavily based on price, they tend to purchase rainforest destinations in more than
one country, given their time availability, and they are often trying to cover all bases on their
extensive trips.
Among the backpackers, Rurrenabaque has a solid reputation. Rurrenabaque receives an
estimated 13,000 foreigners per year, most (nearly 50% combined) from England and Israel, with
U.S., Australia, and Germany following. Although there are other rainforest destinations in
Bolivia, it is the only rainforest region handling significant numbers of tourists, though it only
receives only about 10-15% of the total market size for the rainforest (or 13,000 of the total
100,000).
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
It is important to break this number down into backpackers and Bolivia-only travellers.
According to Chalalán directors, all other lodges in the region operate with backpackers.
Therefore, it can be said that only about 10%, or 1,300 tourists are not backpackers. Comparing
these numbers to potential markets, Gordillo and Holle (2004) found:


About 20% of all backpackers in Bolivia (11,700 of 52,000) are visiting the rainforest
About 2.5% of all Bolivia-only travellers (1,300 of 49,500) are visiting the rainforest
In comparison to Peru, where 20% of all foreign travellers visit the rainforest, the authors found
the lodges catering to the backpacker market are, in fact, reaching a substantial percentage of
their potential market. Chalalán, in contrast, is not reaching a substantial percentage of their
potential market.
Chalalán’s Potential Market Size
In Chalalán, there is no potential for competing in the backpacker market. Due to its expensive
transportation costs, Chalalán is priced out of the backpacker market. Backpackers arrive with
shoestring budgets and are looking for relatively inexpensive adventures. Tour packages to the
rainforest or savannas (selva or pampas), are available for $25-35 daily, per person, and include
rustic camping accommodations and basic services. Because the operating costs, quality of
service, distance, and uniqueness of Chalalán’s product in the backpacker mecca of
Rurrenabaque, prices at Chalalán are considered quite high by comparison. For these reasons,
direct sales from Chalalán’s office in Rurrenabaque have been relatively low—17% of all sales,
for example, in 1999, and 16% in 2003.
Therefore, having already eliminated the Peru-Bolivia traveller as a potential market, that leaves
Chalalán with only one market: the Bolivia-only traveller. This market has been estimated at
close to 50,000 travellers a year. Chalalán has been receiving approximately 1,000 travellers a
year. This means Chalalán has a market penetration of 2.5%. Given the fact that the Peruvian
rainforest destinations of Manu, Tambopata and Iquitos have a combined penetration of 20%,
there is ample room for work.
Having arrived at the conclusion that Chalalán is only receiving 10% of the market it could be
getting, it is relevant to ask why is this so. The questions to answer are:
-
Is Chalalán at operating at capacity?
Is Chalalán being out-competed by other destinations or other lodges?
Or, is their room for improvement in Chalalán's market strategy?
Is Chalalán operating at capacity? No, Chalalán’s capacity is 65% occupancy. Rainforest lodges
with 20-30 beds peak at 65% capacity. This is equivalent to 5,781 nights a year. Chalalán has
room for growth.
Is Chalalán being out-competed? No. All Chalalán competitors are either start-ups or indirect/
substitute competitors. Arguably, as a product, Chalalán is the best-established, Amazon lodge
with the best service. There are a number of start-ups that are worth watching and a number of
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other destinations that offer nature options, without really competing at a jungle lodge level. A
full analysis follows.
Mapajo. Located 3 hours from Rurrenabaque on the Quiquibey river, it is owned by an
association of six native communities from the Moseten and T’simane indigenous groups. Its
lodge emphasizes authentic cultural experiences combined with nature. It is located next to the
Asuncion del Quiquibey community, meaning guests must travel by boat upriver to see wildlife.
Mapajo markets itself as the only indigenous and community-based ecotourism venture in the
Pilón-Lajas Biosphere Reserve. It has a total capacity of 15 people. Last year it received 260
tourists. Prices ranged from US$55 to US$60 per person per day, and regular tours begin at
3d/2n. Price includes lodging, guiding, food, transportation to/from the airport at Rurrenabaque.
It is present in the minds of the major travel agents of La Paz, though it is not yet present in the
major travel guidebooks. Conservation International, PRAIA, GEF (World Bank Global
Environment Facility) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bolivia
funded the project. Its guides are from the community and do not speak English, though an
agreement with CI is planned to solve that problem and improve guiding techniques. Although
still young and in the process of establishing a market presence, this lodge could become a
competitor, or a potential marketing ally.
San Miguel del Bala. Located a one-hour-boat ride from Rurrenabaque on the Beni River, this
lodge is still under construction. It is owned by the San Miguel community, and funded by
CARE Bolivia, CI and UNDP. It has seven family cabins, each with two rooms, a small living
room, private bath and small terrace. It is in the buffer zone of the Madidi National Park. Tours
and itineraries have not yet been defined, but it is estimated that San Miguel would be either a
full day or 2d/1n destination. Prices are about US$30-35 per person per day. As well as Mapajo,
San Miguel is likely to receive the same support from its donors, especially in promotion and
training. It may also become a competitor.
Jatatal Hotel. This is a four-star hotel of 16 rooms and three suites, located in San Buenaventura,
five minutes across the Beni River from Rurrenabaque. It offers air conditioning and a
swimming pool. It claims to be a destination in itself or a base for tours to the pampas or jungle
lodges, including Chalalán and Mapajo. Its strategic location and fine infrastructure may attract
tourists interested in comfort and tours close to Rurrenabaque. A private company that created a
cultural center in the highland plateau operates it and it is associated to an NGO dedicated to
improve quality life for rural communities in the plateau. Given its location, it does not represent
competition to Chalalán.
Pampas: This is the main attraction in Rurrenabaque that attracts an estimated 90% of the
tourists that arrive there. It is not a direct competitor to Chalalán, but rather an important
substitute, especially to those who come to see wildlife. Prices range from US$ 13 to US$ 30 per
person per day. However, it sells to a different niche.
Noel Kempf Mercado National Park is a competitive substitute for Madidi because it has a
strong biodiversity component combined with the cultural experience of visiting the Jesuit
Missions. However, its difficult access makes it very expensive and time-consuming to visit
Noel Kempf. It will have difficulties becoming part of a typical visitor vacation.
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Accommodation is based on lodges of 15 and 30 beds in two sites, Flor de Oro and Los Fierros.
Flights from Santa Cruz to Flor de Oro and Los Fierros, take 2.5 hours and one hour,
respectively. Tourism numbers are still incipient and are in the hundreds.
The following destinations, though offering different ecosystems, could be considered
substitutes. However, they, all have incipient tourism industries.
Amboró National Park. It is another substitute for Madidi. It possesses also a huge biodiversity
due to its different ecological levels. It is easy accessible from Santa Cruz by a 107 km road.
However, the tourism is not developed there yet. Accommodation and other services are out of
the area in the surrounding towns.
El Pantanal, reachable from Santa Cruz is another jungle destination in Bolivia, due to its
enormous biodiversity and scenery. However, it is located 642 kilometers from Santa Cruz and
offers not only nature but also culture by visiting the Chiquitanos and Ayoreos.
Carrasco National Park, located in Cochabamba, also presents a high level of biodiversity due to
its different altitude levels generating a wide range of ecosystems and wildlife. Villa Tunari is
the nearest town to the park, and its reached after a 160 km road trip from Cochabamba. It has
700 beds. The main attractions are the Wildlife Sanctuary that includes the Repechon Caves,
where live guacharos and bats, and the Sehuencas, a camping site that offers the possibility of
doing trekking.
Is their room for improvement in the marketing strategy? Yes, and below is an analysis of
Chalalan’s position in the market and its marketing and distribution strategies.
Market Positioning
Chalalán has a good understanding of its competitive advantages and it drives the point well in
its materials, such as its web page.
According to the business plan of 2001, Chalalán’s competitive advantages are that it:

has made a name for itself in the national and global tourism markets as the first, and firstclass, ecotourism lodge in Bolivia managed entirely by a local community;

offers a very attractive profit margin to operators of 20% (or 30% for large groups);

is located in one of the best known, most important for biodiversity, and most pristine for
protected areas of the world;

is constructed entirely from natural materials from the forest, thus creating a aesthetically
beautiful, as well also ecologically responsible ambience;

features a staff, comprised entirely of local community members, that has have been
extensively trained to offer high-quality service;
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes

has the support and backing of well-known international institution, Conservation
International, recognized and respected for its expertise in tropical biodiversity, conservation,
and ecotourism;

its guides are of the region and have impeccable knowledge of the local flora and fauna that
is both biologically informed and culturally specific.
Three years later, Gordillo and Holle (2004) described Chalalán’s competitive advantages as the
following:
Location: Chalalán’s location has its pros and cons. Being in the heart of the Madidi National
Park, Chalalán offers the best option to experience a protected and pristine rain forest area in
Bolivia. Its location five-hours from Rurrenabaque generates a perception that it is too far away.
However, all major travel agencies consider Chalalán a primary place to experience flora and
fauna in the jungle. The trick is to prove that the five hours of travel are well worth the
experience, a feat that has been accomplished in several destinations throughout the Amazon,
and which one agency (America Tours) has proven is possible.
Guides: Chalalán’s guides are considered the best of the region among La Paz travel agencies.
The fact that they speak English is considered a plus that merges perfectly with the great ability
as locals to spot wildlife in the forest.
Lodging: Its traditional, environmentally friendly architecture, and its finely finished woodwork,
make Chalalán a comfortable location. Its location next to the lake Chalalán, and its facilities,
which include a spacious dinning room, an interpretation and convention center, make the lodge
the most comfortable of the region, according to the travel agents. Its only noteworthy problem is
the presence of shared bathrooms.
Culture: An attraction the owners of Chalalán are planning to develop more the opportunity to
visit San Jose, interact with local families, and “gain an Amazonian’s view of the forest.”
Leaders from San Jose explained in 2003, “Tourists visit only the schools, family farms, and
handicraft shops in San Jose. In the future we want to give presentations about the community
and our customs, including our legends, dances, traditional music, the coca leaves, the traditional
meals. We want to show our culture through special walks focusing on medicinal and other
useful plants.”
Although Chalalán champions these kind of cultural resources as a competitive advantage,
among travel agencies in La Paz, Chalalán is considered more of a nature destination than a
cultural one. Attempts to do cultural activities in the community, such as handicrafts, thatch
weaving, or cooking, are burdened by the three-hour boat trip needed to reach San Jose. When
tourists are more interested in culture than in nature, travel agents are likely to them to Mapajo.
The cultural aspect of the product requires rethinking. Given the new competitive context of
Chalalán, and the natural difficulties and disadvantage the lodges has to compete with the
Mapajo for cultural factors, the question is whether Chalalán marketers should continue to define
culture as a part of its competitive advantage.
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In conclusion, except for its emphasis on culture in San Jose, Chalalán has successfully identified
its core competitive advantages and does a good job of communicating them. Also, Chalalán’s
pricing is competitive, especially in comparison to similar products in Peru and elsewhere. There
are no significant problems with product or pricing. The for improvement is product distribution.
Market Distribution and Tactics:
Indirect Travel
Roughly 50% of all travellers going to Chalalán reached through a travel agent. This means that
only about 600 travellers visited Chalalán through a travel agent. Of these, 500 visited through
one client, America Tours. Just Crillon Tours operates ten times as many tourists (over 6000)
Magri twice as many (>1000). In theory, then, these latter two agencies should be sending
Chalalán approximately 2,000 tourists between them—exactly the number that is needed to fill
the lodge to capacity. Reasons for why this is not include the following (based on interviews
Javier Gordillo conducted with representatives of Andes Amazon Adventures, Magri Turismo,
Crillón Tours, and America Tours in May 2004).

Agencies perceive and note a lack of flexibility with Chalalán because they can purchase
only a 4d-3n trip. Whether this is true or not, is irrelevant.

Agencies sense that America Tours receives an unfair deal as representative to Chalalán in
the guidebooks, and as the only channel through which Chalalán can be booked. This means
that if a German travel agency client wants to book Chalalán, it must go through America
Tours. America Tours, competes with Crillon, Magri and the likes. By forcing the market to
channel bookings through America, Chalalán is actually exposing other people's clients to
them. Again, whether this is so or not is irrelevant—the negative perception should be
addressed.

Agencies indicated they felt a lack a personal connection with Chalalán. They noted a high
regard for project, and said they understood it is a good product, but they know no one in the
company who they can consider a friend. In a business based on trust and word of mouth,
this is a liability.
It is evident that the principal problems agencies have with Chalalán are problems of perception.
There are no product problems per se, as all of the qualms the agencies demonstrated are
nonexistent. For example, there is a choice of several itineraries and Chalalán's web page has the
contacts of all the principal agents. Therefore this problem should be easily and quickly
resolvable. Chalalán should choose a particularly charismatic representative without any links to
any agencies and conduct an intensive campaign to generate loyalty through personal meetings,
lunch invitations, etc.
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Direct Travel
About half of the travellers who reach Chalalán book their tours directly. They do so through
essentially three mechanisms:
1) Rurrenabaque: Chalalán has an office in Rurrenabaque that serves as a logistical center, but
also as an important selling point. In 2003, Chalalán itself sold 16% of its tours in
Rurrenabaque, being the second biggest seller. Being a small town, every taxi driver knows
where Chalalán is, if asked. However those tourists that arrive without a guidebook, could
potentially leave Rurrenabaque without hearing about Chalalán because there is no major
information about it at the airport or in town. There is the need to advertise through posters at
the principal tourist "water holes".
2) Guidebooks: More than 30% of its customers booked their trips using a guidebook. However,
in some cases, such as the South American Handbook, Chalalán appears under heading
“Rurrenabaque,” and not under “Madidi,” which would be a more recognizable name and its
natural association. It should strive to appear in both sections, in any case. Likewise,
Chalalán should strive for having not only its La Paz contact information appear in the
guidebooks, but also its Rurrenabaque information and its website.
3) Internet: Chalalán has a very good opportunity with the internet, though so far, it has just
dabbled in it. By internet, most visitors begin their search with Google. Chalalán is
interested in three keywords of very low usage: “Chalalán,” “madidi,” and “Rurrenabaque.”
It is already placed first for “Chalalán,” thanks to its excellent domain name. But for or
“madidi” and “Rurrenabaque,” it doesn't even place in the top ten, but it could auction for it
without competition, paying a cent or nickel for every hit. Also, Chalalán’s web page, could
use two simple improvements: it should be written in English, and it should include direct
contact information. Internet travellers are usually turned off by indirect bookings.
Given the fact that Chalalán needs only to fill about half of its capacity, it is important to focused
on inexpensive, cost efficient actions that can deliver quick results, such as those described
above. Expensive, long term strategies, such as trade shows and advertising are not
recommended.
Transition to next section . . . .
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SECTION IV
Biodiversity Conservation
“We are an indigenous community that lives in harmony with nature. Thanks to nature, San José exists.
We have a philosophy of conservation.”
Chalalan delegation at Trueque Amazónico, 2003
Protecting Biodiversity in Madidi
Since its creation, the Madidi National Park and Integrated Management Area has suffered from
constant threats from private sector exploitation--both legal and illegal--of natural resources.
Like nearly every natural area in Latin America, protected or not, it faces multiple threats. As
Hamilton (2002) noted, “Mere declaration of national park status does not stop the cat and mouse
game between conservationists and those seeking to exploit its valuable resources.”
Additionally, though it seems paradoxical, dangers to the park have also emanated from the
public sector with the justification of promoting “development of Northern La Paz.” Various
threats to the Madidi National Park have come from the public sphere, including the creation of a
hydroelectric dam in the Bala Straight, the place where the Beni River narrows into a sharp V
formed by two hills, the perfect place for a dam, and what Hamilton (2002) called Madidi’s
“topographical Achilles’ heel.” In one proposal, a 180-meter-high dam would flood 2,505 km² of
forest, including Chalalán.
Petroleum and mining already cover nineteen percent and two percent of the park area,
respectively. Gold extraction operations in the mountains outside the park threaten Madidi’s
watersheds. There are mining concessions covering 35,200 hectares in the national park.
Mercury contamination is already a problem in the area. In 2001, an internal report from CI
showed results of a study indicating that San Jose showed high concentrations of mercury
poisoning (in evidenced in hair follicles).
Fifty percent 50% of the Park is in an area of potential use for oil extraction. In February 2001,
the Vice Minister of Energy and Hydrocarbons announced that exploration would continue in the
Tuichi block by the companies, Repsol Exploration Secure, S.A. and Perez Copmanc, S.A. The
exploration was intended for precisely the area where Chalalán is located. As recently as 2003,
the national government of Bolivia was prepared to authorize several oil companies to carry out
exploratory operations in the Madidi National Park. These operations would include
construction of camps, clearing of access roads and trails, use of helicopters, small planes and
motor vehicles in the exploratory zone, as well as the placement of dynamite explosives
underground. A dangerous precedent was set in the decade of the 1980s when the petroleum
company CGG entered the zone to carry out seismic exploration with the use of dynamite, the
opening of trails, and other activities causing disturbance to ecosystems and wildlife. Another
precedent was the activity developed by the company Total in 1992, which used the village
surrounding Lake Santa Rosa and the banks of the Tuichi River inside the Madidi National Park
as an airstrip and camp. Since then, the park has suffered regular landslides, aggravated by flow
of the Tuichi River.
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Finally, there are initiatives underway to open roads in the park, though these plans will need to
comply with environmental law and conduct environmental impact studies. Most recently, a
couple of communities collaborated with local authorities, including the Prefecture of Madidi,
and logging companies, to initiate plans for opening two roads that cut through the park,
connecting Apolo to Azariamas and Pata, along with four secondary routes. The plans came
with support of the Prefecture of Madidi. In response, the National Organization for Protected
Areas (SERNAP) issued a press release in June 2003, stating the roads were in direct violation of
articles 25 and 26 of the National Environment Law (No. 1333), which stipulates environmental
impact studies must be conducted and authorization from the Ministry of Sustainable
Development granted before any kind of exploitation or infrastructure development can take
place within the Park. While Madidi’s protected status has stopped large-scale logging and land
clearing, clandestine operations continue, and new roads would open the door to even more
activity.
Chalalán has helped protect Madidi National Park in the following ways:
Tourism Income: Chalalán has provided the community of San Jose new cash and wage labor
and therefore diminished local dependence on subsistence activities, including agriculture,
timber exploitation, and cattle ranching. According to the data from SERNAP, the “Rate of Use”
related to the farming (or “chaqueo”) in the Madidi National Park is between an annual volume
of 500 to 600 hectares.
Most farming occurs on a subsistence basis in San Jose, and any income to San Jose is typically
earned through temporary employment in Rurrenabaque or San Buenaventura. Chalalán has
provided one new economic alternative that does not depend either on farming or leaving San
Jose to work in the city. Hunting has been restricted, but game meat does continue to serve as
an important source of protein.
Today, at least at the community level, Josesanos have seen that ecotourism can work for them.
This recognition has validated their appreciation for their forest and for the regulations that went
into effect when the area was declared a national park
Tourism Awareness: Environmental awareness has been increased by Chalalán, and San
Josesanos have learned, absorbed, and now explain to other the explicit economic trade-offs
between tourism and other activities. Conservation has been enhanced by Chalalán because the
lodge has increased local awareness about the pros and cons of different kinds of resources use.
For example, in 1999, CI organized an “environmental education fair” for 45 students and
teachers in San Jose.
In 2000, CI hosted a series of events to market the fifth anniversary of Madidi. In two ports of
entry to the park, San Buenaventura and Rurrenabaque, thousands of people to celebrated
“Madidi Week,” which featured a painting contest for school children (39 winners of 1,500
contestants won field trips to the park), a “Biodiversity Parade,” a puppet show, and a poetry
reading about conservation. In La Paz, the national media devoted headlines to Madidi, with
several in-depth articles the region’s rich biodiversity. In all of the events, Chalalán figured
prominently. Also, in 2001, CI organized a workshop called “Viable Businesses and Protected
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Environments” with the attendance of representatives from six Latin American countries, in
which the linkages between ecotourism and conservation were discussed in working roundtables
by participation.
Finally, all of Chalalán’s naturalist guides (20 were trained between 1999 and 2000) participated
in training courses on the themes of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation.
Teaching materials included recordings of 340 bird species, and color plates of 40 mammal
species and 40 reptile and amphibian species. Even the handicrafts component of the Chalalán
project has contributed to new valuation of biodiversity in relation to tourism. Most of the
carved wooden masks and figures sold to tourists take the shape of tapirs, jaguars, spider
monkeys, howler monkeys, caimans, macaws, toucans, and other “charismatic” species of the
region.
Local Empowerment: Income from Chalalán has helped enable the leaders of San Jose to resist
external agents, including loggers, oil companies, and outside tour companies, seeking to exploit
resources in Madidi. Conservation has been enhanced by Chalalán because the lodge has
empowered San Josesanos to defend their resources. “Even with the national park in place,”
Karen Ziffer of CI-Washington, observed in 1997, “the people of San Jose will be critical to
ensuring that the area isn’t overused or abused by ecotourism.”
In a document entitled, “Proposal for the Defense of San Jose de Uchupiamonas and the Madidi
National Park,” composed by Alejandro Limaco and Guido Mamani in July 2003, stated that San
Jose de Uchupiamonas, is using its own resources to demand of the National Institute of
Agrarian Reform the title and consolidation of its communal territory in the Tuichi Valley. They
noted that approximately $20,000 in profits from the Chalalán Ecolodge had already been
channeled to defining and claiming the territory of San Jose. They lamented that although the
money should have been used for education, health and other projects that serve development
needs of the community, the Community Assembly of San Jose had identified as “priority
action” the consolidation and titling of its ancestral territory, which in addition to providing legal
security to future generations, will secure the ownership of the area used by the Chalalán
Ecolodge.
They then linked the protection of Chalalán and the destiny of San Jose to the protection of
Madidi itself. They argued, the Chalalán Ecolodge is “not simply a profit-making enterprise, but
rather one of the best strategies and tools San Jose has discovered to maintain and conserve its
territory and the Madidi National Park.” Also, they noted, Chalalán is a guarantee for the
survival, development, and future of new generations in San Jose de Uchupiamonas, “in intimate
respect with its environment.” In a dramatic closing, they concluded, “securing and protecting
the territory of the Madidi National Park represents a matter of life and death for the community
of San Jose.” The best defenders of Madidi right now are the residents of San Jose de
Uchupiamonas. The national agency for natural resources in Bolivia has been unable to make
demands of the government, namely because it is a part of the state itself.
They noted it would not be easy. “One of the great risks of defending Madidi,” they noted, “is
the lack of understanding of major sectors of the population who will consider oil prospecting as
an important source of income. Opposing such activity will be perceived as harming national
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interest. For this reason, it may be risky for San Jose to defend the integrity of Madidi. But of
graver danger is the lack of understanding and opportunism of the social sectors of the region,
many of whom support the Park when it is convenient, but show very little overall commitment
to conservation in Madidi. For many, the park is valuable only if it generates profits and
benefits. Any kind of petroleum activity in the region will create great expectation and interest,
especially in the current period of economic crisis and unemployment. The interests of the oil
companies, tied to the most powerful economic and political sectors of the country, make it risky
and dangerous to defend Madidi. San Jose may find itself alone in an unequal battle and thus put
at risk its process of gaining title to its ancestral territory.
Finally, they lamented, it is wrong for San Jose to have to fight to defend Madidi with its own
resources and profits from Chalalán Ecolodge because Madidi is the patrimony not only of
Bolivia but of the entire world. The few but important profits of the company should be used for
education and health, especially of the children of San Jose. It is unjustified to divert such funds
solely to the defense of Madidi.
They proposed the defense of Madidi through legal means, based on rights established in
Agreement 169 of the International Organization of Workers. In addition, they planned to make
demands to international arena, through the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, and
other such entities. They also noted that defense of Chalalán and San Jose, and by extension
Madidi, should include lobbying before executive and legislative authorities and organizations
of international cooperation to help raise awareness about the biological richness of Madidi.
Any campaign to defend of Madidi, they argued, should be waged in various social and political
sectors, using the resources of the internet. The use of the internet can be fundamental to
bringing the struggle to defend Madidi to an international level. San Jose, they said, could
initiate a campaign by contacting its clients from Chalalán, many of whom are influential in
different regions around the world. They closed the letter saying, “We can bring solidarity from
international conservation organizations, convincing them to join the cause for the defense of
Madidi.”
Participation: Because the leaders of San Jose have been active participants in all aspects of
creating and managing Chalalán, all economic benefits from ecotourism have improved chances
for conservation.
The residents of San José have a level of interest and experience in tourism, and its connection to
conservation, beyond that of most other communities within Madidi. Based on the diagnostic
exercise of social actors in Madidi National Park and the Natural Integrated Management Area
conducted by Lehm et al. in 2002, it is apparent that the investment made by the InterAmerican
Development Bank has resulted in success. The Bank’s role in promoting community
development through active community participation and capacity building has assisted in the
community of San José de Uchupiamonas standing out as the most-prepared community within
the area of influence of Madidi for tourism. Further, San José has increased its internal structure,
preparing it for greater involvement in conservation-related development.
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Some Josesanos have stated their understanding about the connections between ecotourism and
conservation very clearly. In ethnographic research in 2003, Josesanos answer the question,
“How has life changed for you since you started working in Chalalán?”





“I take care of nature to sustain tourism.”
“I don’t hunt many animals from the forest, just for eating, but not selling.”
“I can’t hunt or fish now because I have responsibilities.”
“I see natural resources and everything about the environment more positively.”
“I am a partner, and so now I am worried a bout the company and natural resources.”
These are just five answers out of 66 responses (see Appendix for full set of answers) but the fact
that anyone in San Jose answered this way is an indicator of some influence Chalalán has had on
the ways in which people of San Jose perceive and interact with nature and natural resources of
Madidi.
Zenon Limaco, a leader of San Jose and visionary for Chalalán for many has been especially
eloquent in explaining ecotourism’s influence on his own conservation ethic. In a letter dated
April 2002 to organizers of conference, “Ecotourism and Conservation in the Americas,” at
Stanford University he wrote:
“I would like to express my thoughts on development of ecotourism from the perspective
of a community member. Ecotourism can be a reflection of the love of one human being
toward another, and in relation to nature. When a person unites with a another to
conserve nature, the activities and responsibilities it entails can promote self-esteem,
revalorization of culture, and the exchange of knowledge.”
Environmental Education and Public Awareness: Chalalán has contributed to conservation in
Madidi by educating tourists, both national and foreign, and raising public awareness about
Madidi National Park. Guido Mamani and Zenon Limaco invited tour operators and industry
representatives from Rurrenabaque to participate in a service training workshop in Chalalan in
2002. People in Rurrenabaque had been learning from the Chalalan team all along. In the early
years, CI brought in consultants to talk with local officials about promoting the region, setting
and enforcing regulations for industry establishments, especially for safety (Hendrix 1997).
Government Support for Madidi: Chalalán has helped demonstrate the economic importance of
Madidi to Bolivia. The international image that has been generated by the ecolodge as a product
of its presence in travel magazines and books attracts the attention of investors interested in
conservation. [elaborate]
Monitoring: Chalalán has the potential to strengthen the link between ecotourism and
biodiversity conservation by serving as the locus of monitoring activities fauna. The guides and
tourists at Chalalán have a regular presence on trails. They are essentially walking transects
everyday, and though not necessarily engaged in hypothesis-testing and systematic data
collection, they do have the opportunity to observe and track changes in the encounters with
wildlife. The data can serve be combined with more scientifically gathered data to monitor
fluctuations in distribution and abundance of mammal, bird, and reptile species. The guides at
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Chalalan have in fact been monitoring wildlife encounters with the use of 300 data sheets of
observation of large mammals in Chalalán. The plan has been to analyze the data graphically
with the use of geographic information systems, or GIS.
Outside experts and the community members have reported a resurgence in sightings of animals
that were thought to have gone locally extinct. For example, normally shy spider monkeys are
now commonly seen near the lodge. In 2001, tourists were able to photograph a rare Andean
spectacled bear on the banks of the Tuichi River just two kilometers from Chalalán (Hamilton
2002).
What animals should not be hunted?
(N=66 respondents)
Deer
Tapir
All animals
Other *
Giant otter
Birds
Jaguar
Monkeys
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
* The category “Other” included ocelot, anteater, capybara, bear, peccaries, all of which were
mentioned once or twice.
Evaluation of wildlife was also conducted by CI-Bolivia in San Jose because it lay within the
integrated management area of Madidi. They analyzed the information from 1999 and 2000, and
found that hunting was important, and in a sample of 96 individuals from San Jose, 82%
indicated a preference for eating large mammals. Of the 15 species hunted, the most frequent
were white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) and (Mazama sp.), and nine species of birds,
including parrots and macaws, and currasows and guans. Most hunting is for subsistence
consumption, according to 87% interviewees. In terms of encounter rates, researchers found no
difference between year one (1999) and two (2000). Qualitatively, however, researchers noted
the appearance of additional species, including the river otter (Lutra longicaudis) and the bush
dog (Speothos venaticus). The species observed with greatest frequency at Chalalán are: brownfronted capuchin monkeys (Cebus paella), squirrel monkeys (Saimiri boliviensis), spider
monkeys (Ateles chamek), and red howler monkeys (Alouatta seniculous).
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Reasons stated for not hunting
N=53 responses
Difficult to find
Not good for eating
Tourism
Need to conserve
0
5
10
15
20
25
Are there places where you do not hunt?
N=66 responses
Yes
No
94%
6%
Among respondents, 71% (47/66) specified Chalalán by name as the area where they do not
hunt. Other responses were “Madidi,” “the Park,” or “places too far away for walking.” Clearly,
a majority of community members perceive Chalalán as an area reserved for tourism and off
limits to hunting and other kinds of resource use.
According to field observations taken between October 1998 and February 1999, there appear to
be changes in faunal populations. David Ricalde and Chalalan guides walked with tourists,
making observations of twenty key species of interest, both for tourism and formerly (before
1992) for hunting. They determined that in any giving itinerary of 4 days/3 nights tourists are
likely to see at least two primate species. Those who stay longer would be likely to see at least
four primate species. They concluded that observations of indicator species were increasing.
Anecdotally, community members noted changes since 1995, saying they were seeing more
species, more often, especially monkeys, tapirs, peccaries and large birds.
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Species
Estimated Likelihood of Seeing
Species in 4D/3N at Chalalan
PRIMATES
Spider Monkey (Ateles paniscus)
Red-Howler Monkey (Alouatta seniculus)
Brown-Capuchin Monkey (Cebus apella)
Common Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri sciurus)
TERRESTRIAL MAMMALS
White-lipped Peccary (Tayassu pecari)*
Collared Peccary (Tayassu tajacu)
Tapir (Tapirus terrestris)
Jaguar (Pantera onca)*
Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) *
Short-eared Dog (Atelocymus microtis)*
Red-brocket Deer (Mazama americana)
LARGE BIRDS AND OTHER ANIMALS
Razor-billed Curassow (Mitu tuberosa)
Pale-winged Trumpeter (Psophia leucoptera)*
Spix’s Guan (Penelope jaquacu)
Common-Piping Guan (Pipile pipile)
Blue and Yellow Macaw (Ara ararauna)
Red and Green Macaw (Ara chloroptera)
Cuvieri’s Toucan (Ramphastos cuvieri)
Yellow-ridge Toucan (Ramphastos culminatus)
Black Caiman (Melanosuchus niger)
> 50%
> 60%
95%
95%
< 10%
< 10%
> 15%
< 10%
< 10%
< 10%
20%
> 45 %
<5%
100 %
100 %
100 %
100%
100%
100%
100%
* Species rarely seen in context of hunting, extensive agriculture, timber extraction, etc.
Species considered indicators well conserved Amazon rainforest.
Rare species
Conclusion and transition to next section . . .
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
SECTION V
Lessons from Chalalán
Based on Insights from Candido Pastor
“Chalalán was the pioneer, the offspring of an improbable union between a poor, isolated village and
two powerful international institutions. The Josesanos, Conservation International, and the IDB learned
from each other, and together proved that community-based ecotourism can succeed.”
Hamilton (2002)
Meaningful Community Participation in Biodiversity Conservation is Possible
Communities can be motivated to engage in biodiversity conservation if and when alternative
economic alternatives are offered, basic local needs are addressed, and the community is already
predisposed to the need for managing natural resources.
Local Ecological Knowledge is a Foundation for Ecotourism
Ecotourism must be rooted in a deep respect to the environment. Such respect is often embedded
already in local peoples’ perceptions, uses, and valuations of biodiversity. In a western mindset,
respect may come emerge instead from environmental education. In either case, respect should
be the foundation of ecotourism, from the beginning and throughout the process of planning,
construction, management, and evaluation.
Ecotourism Is Not a Panacea
Ecotourism activities cannot solve all of the problems of all the actors involved in any enterprise.
As an economic alternative, ecotourism has limited opportunities for employment, and profits are
rarely, if ever sufficient enough to address the full range of local needs.
Complementary Projects Can Help Address Community Needs
Agriculture and the collection of forest products is integral to life itself in most rural
communities. Regardless of the business or financial success of any ecotourism lodge in meeting
peoples’ economic needs (i.e., cash income and employment), agriculture is as much a lifestyle
choice and way of life as it is a subsistence strategy. For these reasons, ecotourism is unlikely
ever to replace agriculture or the extraction of forest resources. It is therefore necessary to
consider how best to strive to make agriculture and forest extraction more sustainable and
complementary to ecotourism, rather than to plan how to replace one with the other. In fact, the
demand for agricultural and forest products—especially agroforestry and non-timber products—
can be enhanced through ecotourism, thus creating complementary economic activities in the
local community, such as sales of handicrafts and other value-added items crafted from local
materials.
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Ecotourism Cannot Work Everywhere
Despite ongoing challenges and setbacks, Chalalán is an example of ecotourism that has worked
effectively as a tool for conservation and community development. But Chalalán is not
replicable in all places. Location is critical and must have--or be able to create--the right array of
factors, including market demand, accessibility, healthy populations of flora and fauna, local
leaders able and enthusiastic enough to invest considerable energy, time, and trust in the process,
investors willing to help support the project, either through financing or training, and a whole
array of other political, economic, social, and ecological factors at the local, regional, national,
and international levels. Ecotourism certainly promises a lot, both to people and nature, and
Chalalán is an especially noteworthy example of a community-based ecotourism lodge that has
delivered on its promises. But the example is not easily replicable, or even possible, in other
places.
Never Underestimate the Power of a Few Individuals
As in any form of social change, paradigm shift, or community “awakening,” effective
ecotourism often depends on the vision, dedication, leadership, and charisma of a few key
individuals. By all accounts, Chalalan is a community ecotourism project that truly owes its
success to the support and work—at times enthusiastic, at times disgruntled—of a majority of
residents of San Jose. And yet, had it not been for the faith and perseverance of the Limaco
family, especially Zenon and Alejandro, and Guido Mamani, Chalalan would likely be little
more than a few bunkhouses on the banks of the Tuichi. The effectiveness of any communitybased ecotourism project will likely depend on the Zenons, Guidos, and Alejandros. Once such
leaders are discovered, it is especially effective for outside supporters to invest extra energy in
supporting them.
Leadership of Chalalan
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Photo: A. Stronza
See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
Ecotourism Can be Empowering
Community-based ecotourism is a potentially powerful strategy for connecting the business of
tourism with local goals for sustainable development and long-term biodiversity conservation.
Because community-based ecotourism is more likely than other forms of tourism to build new
skills and leadership in communities, it arguably has better chances of also building
environmental stewardship. Community-based ecotourism can deliver economic benefits as well
as strengthened self-esteem, effective local leadership, and even empowerment. These changes,
in turn, are pre-requisites for sustaining strong local institutions and strategies for managing and
protecting natural resources.
But Communities Need Support
Even if community-based ecotourism can be a good model for connecting tourism with
conservation and development, most communities may need some kind of support to create and
manage their own operations. Communities like San Jose are clearly able to manage lodges like
Chalalán on their own, but the initial assistance in product design and investment, marketing,
formulating business strategies, building professional protocol, handling conflicts, and other
administrative and managerial skills are critical.
Learning Curves May be Steep
The project has strengthened ties with the market economy and western world. Unquestionably,
these ties have led to various forms of cultural change in San Jose. Chalalán leaders in particular
are now quite familiar with a variety of concepts that are decidedly western, including “quality
control,” “market niche,” “cost-benefit analysis,” and “strategic planning.” Candido Pastor of
CI-Bolivia has noted that this these changes were given little attention by project planners in the
beginning, especially relative to more pressing concerns of financial maturity and stability, and
the environmental sustainability of the lodge.
In addition, there were fundamental challenges in preparing the leaders of San Jose to assume
lodge management over a period of just a few years. Education levels in San Jose are relatively
low: the mean number of years of education completed by 66 adults interviewed in 2003 was 7.8.
The learning curve for anyone taking on a new business is steep. In the case of Chalalán,
members of San Jose had to learn how to manage a business while they were also adjusting to a
whole new way of earning a living and interacting with each other--from friends, family, and
neighbors, to business partners, employees, and managers.
A “Technical Team” Should include Biologists and Social Scientists
Ecotourism is a business. Therefore it depends on the support, expertise, and acumen of business
people. As community-based ecotourism is aimed at connecting business success with
additional goals of biodiversity conservation and sustainable community development, a
technical team for ecotourism should include members with expertise in many areas, including
biology, population ecology, economics, cultural anthropology, social organization, conflict
management, etc. There are many “bottom lines” to keep an eye on in community-based
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
ecotourism, and the make-up of a support team should reflect the many kinds of cost-benefit
analyses to conduct.
To Potential Partners: Listen, Respect Local Processes, and Be Patient
Private and non-profit partners to communities may be eager to initiate the processes of training,
building capacity, and teaching community leaders how to run an ecotourism business of their
own. The teaching, however, should ideally work within a context of respecting local leaders,
local processes for making decisions, local institutions, and local knowledge. Invariably, any
effort to work within local approaches to getting things done will take considerably longer than
standard western business practices. Factor in the extra time it will require, as this is a
prerequisite for making the community-based operation manageable, “transferable,” and
ultimately sustainable. Likewise, expect heterogeneity in communities that appear, at least on the
surface, or in the beginning, to think and act in unison. Conflicts are likely to emerge, especially
as new opportunities and responsibilities are introduced in the context of a new project. The
disputes over who participates, who is a partner, who benefits, and who pays are inherent to the
process of establishing a community-based business, and managing such discussions and
conflicts should also be factored in as start-up and fixed costs. As one consultant to Chalalán
noted, “Projects of this nature typically require intensive involvement by project staff”(Alcantara
et al. 1998).
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
APPENDIX I
CHALALÁN CHRONOLOGY
1991
Publication of CI RAP Team report, “A Biological Assessment of the Alto
Madidi region, and Adjacent Areas of Northwest Bolivia;” recommends creation
of national park in Madidi and additional protected area for ecotourism
1992
San Jose becomes host community to backpackers, with bunkhouse for 30
backpackers; three leaders: Guido Mamani, Zenon Limaco, and Alejandro
Limaco begin planning an ecotourism company with Colibri Tours (Oscar Saenz)
1993
San Jose collaborate with Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg (rescued by people
of San Jose in 1981) to seek support for Chalalan
1994
CI Debt-for-Nature swap funds, $25,000, channeled to Madidi and San Jose by
Jim Nations, Carlos Ponce, and Guillermo Rioja (all of of CI), used for
community development, including a health post, two boats, and the production of
a film
CI, with San Jose seek support from IBD for ecotourism
1995
IBD funding for: “Program of Sustainable Development and Ecotourism in San
Jose de Uchupiamonas and Establishment of a Protect Zone of the Proposed
Madidi Park” (ATN/ME-4757-BO),
Construction of Chalalán, training and capacity-building in San Jose initiated
Comite Consultivo, a community decision-making council, created to participate
in and oversee lodge planning and construction
Hauser logging company in Chalalan territory; CI negotiate for removal
Sept.
Madidi National Park created
1996
Marketing activities initiated, though Chalalán’s infrastructure was still under
construction
1997
Chalalán opened, but only informally, received first three groups
Sept.
Information office about Chalalán opened in Rurrenabaque
Agreement with GAP Tours of Canada
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
1998
Chalalán opened officially; receive 186 tourists
April
Field study in San Jose gauges community acceptance of Chalalán; majority
indicate little knowledge of Chalalan
CI-produced video by Haroldo Castro: Madidi
1999
Changes in CI-Bolivia team of consultants
May
Candido Pastor hired as CI Coordinator for Chalalan
June
Zenon Limaco hired as Local Coordinator
July
Program for Monitoring & Evaluation of Wildlife initiated with Chalalán guides
participating
August
Request for San Jose for document from IBD and CI promising transfer of shares
to the community
Sept.
Participation in Latin American Travel Mart, Guayaquil, Ecuador;
work begins with tour operators, agreement with America Tours of La Paz
Sept.
Progress report from Limaco speaks of “problems” between CI and San Jose
Oct.
Second phase of project, and initiation “planning, follow-up, and monitoring;”
signing of agreement between CI and San Jose
Kellogg School of Management conduct research on handicraft market
Dec.
Limaco progress report advises outside consultants to integrate more with San
Jose, and take time to build trust.
Dec.
Chalalán gains formal status as “Sociedad Anonima” Chalalán Ecolodge, S.A.
Establishment of the company (shares: 99.9% CI, 0.05% OTB, 0.05% Church)
Dec.
12 new guides from San Jose complete training; 4 begin full-time with Chalalán
Dec.
Year total: 700 tourists (17% from direct sales; America Tours: 329 tours)
2000
First year of profits, used to build office in Rurrenabaque, not distributed to
families in San Jose
Creation of model: community company (50% to “OTB;” 50% San Jose families)
June
Salaries for General Administrator and boat driver assumed by the lodge.
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
July
Establishment of the first directorate
Oct.
Half of all shares of Chalalán transferred to San Jose
Dec.
Year total: 815 tourists (23% from direct sales)
2001
Feb.
Two guides from San Jose participate in guide training course in Tambopata,
Peru, organized by Rainforest Expeditions
2002
Mar.
Second transfer of shares to families (CI no longer has any shares).
2003
April
“Trueque Amazónico” workshop held in Chalalán with delegations from Kapawi
Ecolodge in Ecuador and Posada Amazonas in Peru
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
APPENDIX II
A Letter by the Villagers of San Jose de Uchupiamonas
(Included in marketing materials for Chalalán)
This is the story of a dream come true—a dream that began in the depths of the Bolivian Amazon,
in the village of San Jose de Uchupiamonas. We, the Josesanos, have lived surrounded by the
jungle for the past 300 years. The jungle sustains us, providing us with the necessary resources
for survival.
Our village is located 8 hours upriver from the closest town, making it difficult to sell our products
to the outside world. For this reason, we have looked for alternative economic options for our
young people, to keep them from migrating to other locations. Additionally, we have seen that many
economic alternatives put our forest in danger.
We want to conserve our forest for our children and our grandchildren so that they too can enjoy
the nature that surrounds us.
In the mid-80s, tourists began visiting the Tuichi River Valley. Many of them were drawn by the
lure of adventure described in the book by Yossi Ghinsberg, an Isreaeli tourist who was lost in the
Amazonian jungle and eventually rescued by local people. Because of this tourist flow, some of our
community members began to work as guides for the groups that arrived at our doorstep.
From this experience, a group of visionary community members in San Jose decided to build an
ecolodge, Chalalán, the result of their dream, is not just a source for jobs, but also provides us an
incentive to conserve our environment, which is what attracts the tourists.
Thanks to the financing of the InterAmerican Development Bank and the technical assistance of
Conservation International, we constructed the cabins along the Chalalán Lake, inside the
Integrated Management Area of Madidi National Park.
We understand that tourists come to visit and enjoy our pristine natural surroundings, experience
our culture, to learn about our ecosystems, to taste our traditional cooking, and to rest in the heart
of the Amazon forest.
It is our goal that Chalalán becomes an unforgettable place in the Bolivian Amazon that provides
tourists with comfort, excellent cuisine, environmental education, cultural exchange, and activities
in the rainforest, such as hiking, river cruises, and wildlife observation.
We look forward to your visit to Chalalán!
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APPENDIX III
Letter to Residents of San Jose From
Chalalán Project Team Regarding Transfer of Company Shares
Dear Josesano,
Thank you for your efforts. And to all Josesanos, an eco-lodge has been has been built for
tourists. Tourism will bring not just resources to the community, but it also improve your life. It
will also allow protection and conservation of the forest for your children and grandchildren.
However, the benefits will arrive only thanks to your effort and those of all Josesanos through
the proper management of the Chalalán Eco-Lodge, S.A.
With this in mind, it is very important to know that:
1)
The ecolodge is a “sociedad anonima” that has as social capital the sum of one million,
two hundred thousand bolivianos (1,200,000 Bs.)
2)
This quantity of money is represented by twelve thousand shares (titles that
representative of money). Each share is equivalent in worth to 100 Bs. and if we multiply the
quantity by 12,000 shares, we know we are talking about social capital.
3)
Thinking that business in the lodge will grow more, the calculated amount of capital
authorized is the sum of two million, four hundred thousand (2,400,000 Bs.)
Who is the owner of the shares?
So that the eco-lodge (and the other projects) become a reality, the Interamerican Development
Bank (IDB) and Conservation International (CI) and the community of San Jose de
Uchupiamonas have agreed to the following:
IDB will deliver the money to an organization that has experience and knowledge in overseeing
the work in such a way as to manage resources appropriately and also build the lodge, and San
Jose can benefit from it to improve their quality of life. CI has managed most of the money
during the time of construction and for this reason has been owner of eleven thousand nine
hundred and ninety-eight shares (11,998). The Territorial Organization of Bases (OTB) of San
Jose has one share (1) and Sr. Jakov Kaspar Shurman Zeder also has one (1) shares, making
12,000 share in all.
Now it is your turn, San Jose de Uchupiamonas!
Now it is your turn and all of the community’s to assume responsibility for the Chalalán
Ecolodge, S.A.
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1)
Conservation International has handed over a part of its shares to the OTB of the
community. With these shares, the OTB now has a total of 6,000 shares, which represents half
of the total share. However, at the same time, the OTB must also hand over its shares, through
its representative, to an institution of the community that is recognized and represents the
interests of Josesanos. That institution will have 6,000 shares, half of the total.
2)
The second part of the shares of Conservation International has been delivered to
interested community members, becoming new shareholders in the Chalalán Ecolodge, S.A.
These community members will have the second half of the shares.
Important: 1) The shares with title that represent a certain amount of money of the partnership’s
capital, so what community members receive is a title, not money. 2) No community member can
have more shares than the other because the shares were distributed equally.
New shareholders? The 12,000 shares of the Chalalán Ecolodge, S.A. now have owners.
However, you still cannot work in way that the ecolodge grows, and so the value must increase.
This increase will make the number of shares also increase, which signifies an opportunity more
individuals to acquire shares.
What do you need to be a shareholder?
1)
First you must be sure that the company is offering new shares;
2) If this is the case you must present in writing to Sr. Freddy Limaco your intention of becoming
a shareholder;
3) After you must present to the directors of the company:
o A list of and legal documents of persons who are your dependents (spouse, children, or
other persons in your house).
o The address of your house, according to the community census (explanation of where
your house is, with a drawing)
4) You must present at least one of the following documents:
a.
Photocopy of your identity card or national voter’s registration
b.
Birth certificate
c.
Marriage certificate
d.
Family card
Important:
All of the information your present, whether it’s in written or spoken form, must be true;
otherwise you can not be shareholder and may be expelled from the company. You cannot be a
shareholder if you are not identified in the community census, however, the board may review
requests.
If you have been accepted as a shareholder: As Conservation International is distributing
shares, you must have a document to prove your status. Once you have been accepted as a new
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shareholder you must complete a contract of. In this will be noted your name, age, nationality,
marriage status, and explanation of your position as head of household (i.e., if you are father,
mother, grandparent, etc.), amount and number of shares you are receiving, and the place and
date of your purchase.
Now if you belong to Chalalán Ecolodge, S.A.
The Chalalán Ecolodge, S.A. will archive all of the documents you have presented, the
number of dependents, and the number of shares you possess.
You will be registered in the share book, along with your name, nationality, location of
your house, number of shares, and the date you acquired them.
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APPENDIX IV
Typical Itinerary
Program of Suggested Activities in Chalalán
5 days/4 nights
Day 1—Rurrenabaque
11:00 am
3:00 pm
Airport arrival in Rurrenabaque, transfer to your hotel in town
Afternoon activities in town—visit to Tacana Indian Museum and Craft Shop
Day 2—Rurrenabaque—Chalalán, Madidi National Park
7:00 am
12:30 pm
1:00 pm
3:00 pm
4:00 pm
7:30 pm
8:30 pm
Travel by boat to Chalalán
Short hike from Tuichi river to ecolodge
Lunch
Presentation of Madidi National Park and the Chalalán project of San Jose de
Uchupiamonas
Hike on the Chichilo Trail and visit to the Madidi overlook for a view of the park
Dinner
Night hike to view nocturnal animals, such as frogs, birds, and insects
Day 3—Chalalán, Madidi National Park
7:00 am
7:30 am
12:30 pm
2:00 pm
4:00 pm
7:30 pm
8:30 pm
Breakfast
Hike on the Silbador, Mutua, and Anta Trails, focused around medicinal, exotic, and fruit
plants of Madidi
Lunch
Free time
Hike on the Wichi and Jaguar Trails, focused on the theme of plants used to make
handicrafts, and birdwatching
Dinner
Traditional night—tales and legends of the San Jose community
Day 4—Chalalán, Madidi National Park
7:00 am
7:30 am
11:30 am
5:00 pm
7:30 pm
Breakfast
Hike along the Wabucuru and Marimono Trails, focusing on the ecology of Madidi,
wildlife, visiting a recently discovered archaeological site, and the Eslabon River
Lunch at the archaeological site, return to Chalalán
Handicraft workshop
Traditional farewell dinner
Day 5—Chalalán—Rurrenabaque
5:00
5:30
6:00
9:00
Breakfast
Short hike to Chalalán port on the Tuichi River
Boat voyage to Rurrenabaque
Arrival in Rurrenabaque and transfer to airport
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“Chalalán is the first international-quality ecolodge to be owned and operated by a
community, fulfilling the true concept of ecotourism.”
(from Chalalán brochure)
Typical Activities at Chalalán
Guided Nature Hikes




A professionally-trained local guide will accompany you through varied forest habitats
25 km of marked trails
Expert knowledge of tropical forests and wildlife
Frequent sightings of spider monkeys, capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys, squirrel
monkeys, tapirs, caiman, peccaries, and capybaras
Birdwatching
Over 340 bird species live in the vicinity of Chalalán, including macaws, hoatzins,
toucans, and hummingbirds
Swimming and Relaxing
Swim in the pristine Chalalán Lake, or relax in a hammock to the forest symphony of
howler monkeys, macaws, and frogs
Canoe Trips
Enjoy canoe trips on Chalalán Lake at dusk, when birds and troops of monkeys are
active, or after dark, when caiman are easily spotted
“We live in the rainforest, we eat, we cure ourselves, we dress with what the rainforest
gives us, we know that the trees, the plants, the animals are possessed by supernatural
beings that can punish us and make people fall sick for reasons that only they know”
(Francisco Navi, shaman, San Jose de Uchupiamonas).
(from Chalalán brochure)
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See the Amazon Through Our Eyes
APPENDIX V
Encuesta Para Agencias De Viajes
(para estudio de Javier Gordillo y Kurt Holle, Rainforest Expeditions, May 2004)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Número de personas que envía a destinos bolivianos cada año
De los grupos que envía a Bolivia, cuáles son los 3 destinos más importantes?
Aproximadamente qué porcentaje de sus turistas usted envía esos destinos? y a Madidi?
Por favor señale cuáles son las 3 necesidades más importantes que sus clientes exigen
para un alberue de selva (Opciones iban desde Vida Silvestre, Alojamiento, Guías,
Precio, Acceso, Educación, Cultura, Oportunidad de Autoconocimiento)
5. Basado en sus percepciones, rankee los albergues como el número 1 y 2, en los siguientes
rubros:
a. Guías
b. Comida
c. Vida silvestre
d. Alojamiento
e. Apoyo a comunidades
f. Educación/investigación
g. Acceso
6. Cuán frecuentemente un cliente le pide un albergue específico ANTES de que usted le
ofrezca alguna opción?
a. Muy frecuentemente
b. Frecuentemente
c. A veces
d. Casi nunca
e. Nunca
7. Qué albergue usted recomienda en la región Madidi?
8. Qué albergue usted recomendaría para:
a. Un Mochilero
b. Un birdwatcher
c. Una familia
d. Un turista de nivel medio-alto interesado en lo cultural
e. Un excéntrico
f. Un Aventurero de bajo riesgo
g. Un fotógrafo
h. Un Académico o investigador
9. Qué precio tiene para su operador en Madidi?
10. Chalalán es más caro o barato que su operador en Madidi por?
a. 0-20%
b. 21-40%
c. 41-60%
d. 61-80%
e. 81-100%
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