|
|
|
|
|
|
Communities
From its inception, the Explorer’s Inn has been deeply committed to supporting local communities and ensuring that the benefits of both our business and our conservation work are shared with them as much as possible. In addition to employing local people and sourcing most of our supplies from nearby family producers, we also support local communities in their efforts to achieve community-based sustainable development.
More than 90% of the Explorer’s Inn rainforest staff come either from communities along the Tambopata river or from Puerto Maldonado. Most of the perishable food items, in particular fruit, vegetables, grains and tubers such as potatoes and cassava, are sourced locally. Even our boats are still made the traditional way, from a hollowed-out tree trunk, by local boat-wrights in Puerto Maldonado, although comfortable seats have now been added to these dugout canoes!
We also go out of our way to help create sustainable economic opportunities for local communities. Whilst staying at the Inn, guests can visit and interact with local families who benefit from cash payments per visitor as well as from the sale of handicrafts to guests. All craftwork sold in the Inn’s shop is sourced locally in the Tambopata area, with many of the items made by native indigenous artisans — often women —  including necklaces, earrings, basketry, bows and arrows, and many other items painstakingly made from sustainably-harvested forest products collected from the local area.
The Explorer’s Inn is also well known locally for taking on recently qualified local guides from the ecotourism guiding schools in Puerto Maldonado, and providing them with training in languages, natural history and ecology, with the help of our experienced guiding team, Resident Naturalists and other visiting research scientists. Indeed, most rainforest guides in Tambopata have passed through the Explorer’s Inn at one stage or another during their career.
Through strategic alliances with nonprofit organizations, such as Fauna Forever and Trees-Peru, the Inn also supports a range of community- and family-based projects. These include: The development of rural guest houses or home-stays in communities, with the lodge providing logistical support, tourism know-how, contacts and marketing channels;  the establishment and maintenance of conservation corridors on family-owned lands in exchange for monetary, educational and health benefits (also funded by donations from guests). These corridors serve to bridge the deforested gaps between the Tambopata National Reserve and the intact forests of protected areas and Brazil-nut concessions to the north and west of the lodge; and small-scale construction and maintenance projects on community-managed infrastructure undertaken with the help of the Inn’s volunteers and resident naturalists.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Red and Green Macaw (close-up) 5
Red-brocket Deer 2009-04-09
