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The Napo Wildlife Center is a successful, 100% community-owned lodge that was designed and built with major donations in 2001-2005 from Tropical Nature and donated labor from the community.
This 11-room lodge protects the vulnerable northern border of Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park and generates $50,000 per year in visitor fees to help protect this, the country’s largest Amazon reserve. This total represents 100% of the visitor revenue for the park. These fees come from two sources: overnight fees charged to the NWC lodge guests and day-use fees charged to guests from lodges located outside the park who visit the community’s observation blind to view the community’s parrot clay lick. TN designed and financed this parrot lick observation system, which for the first time managed to harness these outside lodges to help pay for park protection.
In recognition of Tropical Nature’s success in converting an indigenous community from a threat into the greatest protector of the park, in December 2006 the head of the Ecuadorian park service congratulated Tropical Nature and invited us to duplicate this success in other rural communities throughout Ecuador. The community of 30 families that owns NWC has seen its community revenues leap from the pre-project total of $5,000 per year to the current total of $150,000. Additionally, the community no longer hunts animals or cuts forest inside the park for agricultural plots. |
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