PARA LOS FUTUROS PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

PARA LOS FUTUROS aired as a part of the PBS series Natural Heroes last spring. The documentary was produced over the course of four years of living with and visiting the Quichua people of Añangu in Ecuador. A complete behind-the-scenes look at the making of the documentary can be seen on the Para Los Futuros DVD.

Everyone knows about the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest. That a “football field a day” is disappearing…and has been since the early nineties when successful marketing campaigns convinced first-worlders to care. It seems innumerable organizations have popped up, all keen to point out the problems. Between the pressures of oil extraction, unstable third-world governments, unstoppable logging, and urban settlers pushing boundaries farther and farther into the forest, the issues seem practically insurmountable. But what about the people for whom the rainforest is home?

The documentary Para Los Futuros: The Napo Wildlife Center tells the story of a modern-day rainforest community as, over the course of several years, they work to both change their lives and, at the same time, maintain their culture and habitat by building an eco-tourism lodge. It is a personal story of the daily life of these indigenous families, as they pin their hopes on the construction of a remote hotel and the tourists that-–they hope–will come from the North to spend their money.

Their options for improving their lot are few, and offers from oil companies and loggers to buy their land keep rolling in. They are torn by conflicting needs: for money with which to buy school supplies, food and medicine—and the deep knowledge that their piece of forest is the only asset they will ever have, their only bargaining chip. Once it is gone, they join the ranks of the simply impoverished. Intact, dignity survives and along with it a rich history of jungle knowledge passed down from generation to generation, beginning with their Incan ancestors who fled the Andean highlands with the invasion of the Spanish conquistadors to settle in the Amazonian lowlands. Like any other people, they are both simple and complex, and it is through their faces and voices that we understand their hopes and dreams, and the challenges of living in history in an ecosystem on the brink of destruction.

Between logistical problems, keeping the project afloat during its first year of operation, and the ongoing pressure from the oil industry (a brand-new pipeline was just built downriver from the community), hurdles pepper the future of this project. Can the community, with help from their partners, turn this lodge into their bread and butter…and show the world that the rainforest, its people and the modern world can co-exist?

Buy the film to find out!