Excerpts from my diary, Jan 2026.
I was recently in conversation with an old friend, remembering the many journeys Ya'Acov and I have been privileged to make into the Ecuadorian Amazon, a place that has shaped me and us so deeply. We go there to stand alongside the Sapara and Achuar peoples in their long commitment to protecting the forest, as well as to experience the forest itself.
My friend’s daughter asked something that stayed with me. She wondered whether this was another example of the Western “knight on a white horse” impulse; going in to “help and save”.
The answer is “No”, though that is, of course, something we have to be aware of in ourselves and the people we bring there, amongst other possible unconscious and unhelpful motivations. And this is exactly why we feel such deep trust in, and commitment to, the Fundación Pachamama (the Ecuadorian wing of the global Pachamama Alliance).
The Pachamama Alliance was not born from outsiders trying to save the Amazon. It was initiated in the early 1990’s by the Achuar themselves. A people indigenous to the Ecuadorean and Peruvian Amazon who had never been subjugated, so formidable that even the conquistadores learned it was wiser to leave them alone.
Through dreams and visions, around 1990, the Achuar recognised that their way of life, and the forest itself, was under threat from oil extraction, deforestation, and mining. Their response was remarkable: they reached out for allies from the very world that endangered them. From that courageous and unusual choice, the Pachamama Alliance was born.
As we fly to Quito we are full of wonder and gratitude that once again we will be able to experience the extraordinary Amazon forest and to be with and stand alongside the Sapara and Achuar peoples in their long commitment to protecting their forest home.
We go with the Fundación Pachamama, the Ecuadorian wing of the global Pachamama Alliance. We will visit communities deep in the forest who own and run their own eco- tourism centres. This is one way for the local communities to generate their own sustainable economy: both respecting the integrity of the forest and at the same time sharing the teachings of the forest with people from the rest of the world.
All of this stems the vision that it is the integration of the best of indigenous wisdom with the best of the understandings from the modern world which will pull us through. When I first heard Domingo Paes (an Achuar leader) say this, I felt my spirit jump and my life change. Simply, “Yes!”
So we go to the forest not as saviours or as people needing to be saved, but as partners, as allies, as people who can learn from each other and share something mutually enriching., the Pachamama Alliance was born.
We are now driving from Quito, on our way to the Amazon forest on our little bus, down the avenue of the volcanoes to the edge of the forest. So many feelings.
I feel privileged, grateful, curious, and so happy to accompany such an incredible group of individuals on this journey which, we are learning, means so much to each and every one of us.
On our way to the jungle we stop for lunch with Alonso and Julia at their beautiful little place in the Andes, on our way to the Amazon forest. It’s Alonso’s birthday, and he shares his ever growing awareness of the sacred that is everywhere, in every part of nature. I’m reminded of Marcus Aurelius’s words; “Everything is connected, and the web is sacred”.
Going into the forest, we travel down the “route of the waterfalls" towards the Amazon basin, aware of how the waters that flow through the jungle in the vast rivers come from the highlands, flowing through towns and cities and agricultural land.
We are all inter-connected, which is such a beautiful thing and at the time makes us all mutually vulnerable to each other.
We’ve now been in the immensity of the Ecuadorian Amazon for several days now. Feeling so much and so many emotions as we prepare to fly on tiny planes into the jungle. As we flew out from the land of roads into the deep Amazon where there is green forest as far as the eye can see in 360 degrees, one of the participants said: “I feel we are seeing the living skin of the earth” (Bouchra).
Our hearts so deeply touched by how we’ve been greeted, taken care of, loved by the Yanchama Cocha Sapara community and Naku project, and the Sharamentsa Achuar community we are now visiting.
We’re learning to welcome our wobbliness and our strength as we meet such “gentleness and strength, such joyous seriousness” (Magdalena). We are amazed, awed, humbled and grateful.
Our Achuar host at the “Community Tourism Centre” (Sukut) here at Sharamentsa told us that his father (the shaman and elder Entsakua) taught him, as was taught to him by his elders, the 3 pillars of life:
- To be responsible,
- To continue to move forward
- To serve your village, serve the people.
What a beautiful strong and meaningful recipe for dignified, meaningful life.
We’ve just come out from the immensity of being deep in Achuar territory of the Ecuadorian Amazon in the area of the pioneering Kapawi Eco Lodge.
What each group member has experienced is uniquely personal. I won’t even try to generalise. I simply want to say "Thankyou!" to the deep dancing, deeply engaged participants of this journey whose group spirit was connected with the indigenous concept of reciprocity; not only asking “What can I learn, gain or receive?” but also “What can I give? What is mine to contribute?”
Ya’Acov and I feel privileged to play a small part in fulfilling the prophecy of the Achuar ancestors who foretold: “The forest will stand. The forest will stand because we Achuar will stand together with allies from around the world”.
We’ve learnt once again how crucial different projects are: The Community Tourism Centres, the Jaguar Credits system, (now called “Sharam”) giving support for the people, their culture and evolving way of life as guardians of the forest, alongside their protection of bio-diversity. We’ve learnt how inseparable these things are, so that the people of the forest don’t have to sacrifice their sacred relationship with the forest in order to thrive as human beings within the modern world , to have sustainable jobs for their young people within the forest, and to take care of their families, whilst fulfilling their ancestral role as guardians of the living earth.
Fact check: Indigenous peoples make up approximately 5% of the human population on earth, and take care of about 85% of the biodiversity on earth.
We are so glad to be part of the Fundacion Pachamama as it evolves its understanding of and practical contribution to these projects in co-creation with the local communities and regional Indigenous federations.
As we make our way home to the edge of Dartmoor, UK, we’re feeling immensely grateful for the warm welcome, friendship and sense of comradeship we’ve experienced in the Amazon from the different indigenous nationalities and communities we have visited: Naku and Llanchamacocha in Sapara Territory, and, in Achuar territory; Sharamentsa, Wayusenstsa and Kapawi Eco Lodge.
Each place so very different, and yet everywhere such warmth, kindness, strength, sensitivity, patience and gentle humour, such care for us, their guests, and such passion for their role as protectors of the forest from all the different extractivist industries which would bring such destruction to the rich biodiversity of the forest and to the cultures which are totally intertwined and interdependent with it.
Though I’ve now been so many times, this is part of what I learnt this time. I’m immensely grateful and glad to be part of the international movement of allies with the Fundacion Pachamama. If you’d like to support this ground breaking (or rather, ground sustaining) work, find out more!
