Witnessing A Fragile Forest in Full Bloom: the Guayacan Trees of Ecuador’s Dry Forest

When Angie Melendres Velasco remembers her childhood in the rural community of Segunda y Cajas, in Huancabamba, Piura, her eyes light up enthusiastically. “I’m from Sapalache, and what inspired me to become a Future Forest Ranger was my father’s passion for exploring nature. He always went to new places, like Chinguelas, and told us what he found—plants and little animals. That’s where my curiosity was born to explore and protect biodiversity,” she recalls.  

She was only 16 when she joined the Future Forest Rangers, a Nature and Culture initiative that supports youth to discover, care for, and monitor local ecosystems. Excursions with Future Forest Rangers helped strengthen her training. Angie learned to watch birds, identify species, recognize threats, and above all, to look at the forest with respect and a sense of belonging.

“Being a Future Forest Ranger taught me that our forests are a source of life and of our future; it was there that I understood that every tree and every bird is part of us,” she remembers. 

At 25, Angie has already built a wide range of experience. She volunteered at the Tumbes Mangrove National Sanctuary, where she learned about managing coastal ecosystems. Through the Women in Nature Network (WiNN Perú) project, implemented by Nodo Conservation, she received a fellowship to monitor emblematic species such as the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque) and the Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus). She also earned a fellowship to study primates at the Cocha Cashu Biological Station. 

These opportunities deepened Angie’s passion for nature. Today, that passion drives her to spend hours walking through the forests and páramos of Sapalache—an ecosystem she knows like the back of her hand.

“Now I’m confident enough to venture out alone,” she says, “I can walk for hours, put my knowledge into practice, and contribute to the technical work that conservation demands.” 

Her love of nature runs in the family. Her father is a farmer, her mother an artisan and defender of ancestral knowledge. “My mom is a lover of plants and also a conservationist. She helped me choose my career in environmental engineering,” Angie explains, noting that her mother’s example as a community leader shaped her path as much as her father’s adventures did. 

One of Angie’s fondest memories is the day she got lost in the forest as a child while chasing butterflies. “I wasn’t afraid—I was curious,” she recalls. “Instead of looking for my grandfather, I climbed a big tree. From there, I could see everything around me, and it was wonderful.” That same spirit of discovery stayed with her years later, when her community, Segunda y Cajas, celebrated the creation of the Chicuate Chinguelas Private Conservation Area—a community-led protected area. With more than 66,000 acres of forest and páramo, it is one of the largest in Piura, established with technical support from Nature and Culture International and funding from World Land Trust. 

She has a deep connection to wildlife.

“My favorite species is the Neblina Metaltail hummingbird, because of its energy, joy, and the way it symbolizes freedom. It goes from flower to flower but always has a place to return to,” she says with a smile. She also dreams of one day seeing the mountain tapir, “a species that plays a vital role in our ecosystem. That’s why I work to protect its habitat—to help safeguard its home.” 

Today, Angie walks the same trails that amazed her as a child and that, as a Future Forest Ranger, she learned to value. But now she does it with a firmer conviction: to protect them forever. 

From Future Forest Ranger to Forest Defender

As an environmental engineer, Angie is now a part of the Nature and Culture team and is working in partnership with the Regional Government of Piura to establish the Andean Páramos of Huaringas Regional Conservation Area, with financial support from Andes Amazon Fund. This proposed area will connect to the Andes del Norte Corridor, which in turn connects to the larger Andean Bi-national Corridor between Peru and Ecuador—a living corridor of biodiversity, and hope. 

Angie’s journey has been one of continuous learning—starting out as a volunteer park ranger, then working as a field technician to help create a Private Conservation Area, and now contributing to the establishment of a Regional Conservation Area. Each step has built on the last, shaping her into the leader she is today.

Angie’s experience is becoming an inspiring example for students and women leaders in her community to engage in ecosystem conservation, a legacy tied to their culture and traditions. 

The curious girl who once climbed trees has grown into a young leader inspiring new generations to love and protect nature.

“I grew up seeing my community united to protect our ecosystems. Now I am the one defending them”. 

In the heart of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest lies the community of the Indigenous Ikitu people. Nature and Culture International has established a longstanding relationship with this community located east of the capital city of Loreto, Iquitos. Recently, Milton López, a local communicator for Nature and Culture, journeyed to speak with Marcelo Inuma, the great-grandson of the last chief of the Ikitu people.  

According to Peru’s Ministry of Culture, there are just 693 Indigenous Ikitu individuals left in all of Peru. An elder from the Ikitu community lamented that since the passing of their last Kuraka, or chief, in 1940s, the Ikitu have gradually lost touch with their identity and traditional customs due to the encroachment of loggers and land traffickers. Today, they are striving to reclaim their heritage through the strengthening of local organizations and community governance. Nature and Culture International is backing their initiative to revitalize their culture. 

While gathering the last irapay leaves for the new hut that will house an Ikitu statue, Marcelo Inuma, an elder from the San Antonio de Pintuyacu Native Community shares, “I am of Ikitu descent; my great-grandfather was Súkani. He was a very powerful man. Invincible.” The sculpture has been part of the community since 1987, but it was abandoned and began deteriorating due to exposure from the elements. Building a hut for the sculpture marks the beginning of a series of activities through which the Ikitu people are striving to reclaim their Indigenous identity in San Antonio. 

Preserving cultural heritage for indigenous communities is integral to our conservation efforts. It is essential for building community resilience to encroaching extractive activities and the effects of climate change. It helps to sustain biodiversity, maintain ecological balance, and promote sustainable resource management because Indigenous communities possess traditional knowledge and practices that have been developed over generations for living in harmony with their natural environment. 

The Ikitu and a colonialist past 

Marcelo Inuma recalls his ancestry as the great-grandson of the last kuraka of the Amazonian Indigenous Ikitu people. According to the Ministry of Culture’s Indigenous Peoples Database, the Ikitu inhabited the Nanay, Pintuyacu, and Chambira river basins in the Loreto region for centuries. However, in the 17th and 18th centuries, Jesuit missionaries forced them to evangelize. Between 1740 and 1767, their populations were consolidated into eight designated settlements or missions. One of these concentrated settlements was San Pablo del Napeano, later known as the Settlement of the Ikitu, which eventually lent its name to the present-day capital of Loreto, Iquitos. 

In 2022, Nature and Culture backed the development of a bilingual graphic novel (in Spanish and Ikitu) titled “The Last Kuraka.” The comic tells the tale of Súkani, the renowned leader of the Ikitu people who was captured by colonial traffickers aiming to take control of their land. 

A cultural revival of the Ikitu  

“We planned to build this hut as a community. The statue of César Paico is already here; we had it, but it was abandoned. Now that the hut is built, we are going to place the statue beneath it, for everyone to see. Here, people can also rest, this little shelter is going to have all the comforts for our community,” adds Marcelo Inuma, who was also a community leader or “apu” of San Antonio, situated in the Pintuyacu basin.  

Confronted with the loss of their ancestral knowledge, the elders and leaders of the Ikitu community in San Antonio, along with their political representatives, decided to form a Culture Committee. Marcelo Inuma is a member of this committee, tasked with the important responsibility of gathering and preserving songs and cultural artifacts. In doing so, he plays a role in revitalizing the rich cultural legacy passed down by his great-grandfather, Súkani. 

Other members of the committee include Inés Pacaya Inuma (Historian); Silvia Díaz Saboya (Dance and Traditional Clothing); and Nelson Pacaya Inuma (Bilingual Hand-Lettering Specialist). 

Nature and Culture collaborated with the Culture Committee to create a comprehensive plan aimed at reclaiming Ikitu culture and reinvigorating the use of their language. This plan includes various strategies to ensure that the entire community embraces the Ikitu language and culture once more. These strategies involve organizing instructional workshops, providing bilingual teachers and Ikitu learning materials to the community’s children to help them become proficient in their native language, and broadcasting radio programs about their people to raise awareness of their cultural significance among the population of Loreto. 

In the long journey of recovering Ikitu knowledge in San Antonio, the responsibility falls not only on the Culture Committee but also on the entire community. For example, another advocate for Ikitu culture is César Paico Llona, who, at 17 years old, served as the model for the very sculpture now housed in the hut. Crafted by artist Felipe Lettersten in 1987, the sculpture symbolizes the community’s dedication to preserving their heritage. 

Ancestral knowledge for future generations 

Despite being one of the most recognized Indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon, the Ikitu population is still among the most vulnerable and least populous. The situation is compounded by the fact that very few people speak their language. According to a national census from 2017, only 519 individuals reported speaking the Ikitu language. 

However, this was not always the case. In the year the Ikitu statue was built, the situation was different. “We’re talking about 1987. More people spoke Ikitu back then. San Antonio was much smaller, the area behind it was not inhabited, and the main port that exists today did not exist, nor did the staircases; they were elsewhere. It was common knowledge that there was a statue and that it was tucked away. Originally, I personally erected it to be at the port,” recalls César Paico. 

On October 12th of last year, Nature and Culture supported the Fourth Amazonian Ancestral Knowledge Gathering in Iquitos, an event that brought together elders from seven Indigenous Peoples of Loreto. At this gathering, Marcelo Inuma and his niece Margarita Beuzeville were present and the Ikitu elder shared his story: “I come from a mother who spoke Ikitu and understood Spanish, and grandparents who spoke Ikitu exclusively. My grandfather never spoke Spanish. I was raised speaking the language and using natural medicines with them. No one was ever lacking during their “minga” (collective work). Everyone shared.” 

Currently, in the Ikitu village, only two wise men are recognized by the Peruvian state. “But they are already old; they are over 70 years old. I am left as the only wise man and interpreter-translator of this language. I write, speak, translate. What we want is to revitalize all these customs we had before, and for me not to be alone,” concludes the wise Marcelo Inuma. 

Communal authorities and Ikitu wise men hope that with the realization of the various mentioned activities such as teaching Indigenous culture and language, the production of bilingual materials, and the revitalization of the language through radio transmission, Peru and the world will learn about the existence and importance of the Ikitu in the past, present, and future of national history.