Our History
Below is a timeline of our history since 1989 – but we are far from finished
There is much more to come. We plan to open the fourth lodge, along the same lines as the three we already manage. We are deep in research, to find ways to make our current and future lodges and operations more energy-efficient and low carbon emission.
We want to help develop home-stay products elsewhere in the Amazon, as we believe this has good potential with less accessible regions (aka – most of the Amazon). We also want to provide our guests with opportunities to shop for beautiful Amazon jewelry, handicrafts, and wood decorations produced by native communities, when visiting our lodges. We hope to help our guests positively impact every corner of the Amazon. Join us for the adventure – your patronage, ideas, and support are always welcome!
2020
Posada Amazonas receives the CANATUR National Tourism award
For the first time, we closed lodges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We pause our science and conservation projects until conditions are again conducive to resuming them.
In May, we create our first virtual tours to the Peruvian Amazon, with the goal to keep connected people from around the world with the Amazon rainforest.
In November, we reopen 2 lodges Posada Amazonas, the main economic source for the Ese Eja Native Community of Infierno and the Tambopata Research Center, aiming to continue to execute Wired Amazon, our program of scientific projects for conservation.
2019
We are turning 30 years old and we celebrate with our allies and explorers from around the world through different tourism activities and promotions throughout the year.
2018
We renewed our contract with the Native Community of Infierno for another 11 years. Illegal mining and citizen insecurity hit our destiny hard.
2017
We renewed TRC, obtained permits to improve TRC facilities and provide guests with a much more comfortable experience within the environment determined by the Tambopata National Reserve. We discovered 16 new species for science.
2016
We created Wired Amazon, the first citizen science initiative where tourists actively participate in scientific research with the desire to accompany us in our constant struggle to save the Peruvian Amazon.
2014
Secured financial resources to improve Posada Amazonas, the community’s own Centro Nape, and other individual community member initiatives
2013
We successfully extended the joint venture agreement with the Community of Infierno to jointly operate Posada Amazonas, taking the partnership three more years until 2019.
2011
We put a great new product out to test – photo workshops which include top-notch equipment – 600 mm lens, robotic tripod mounts and extreme macro lenses.
2010
We started talking to the community of Palma Real, a traditional native community of Ese’eja. We spent more than a year explaining the nuances of tourism companies to a committee of elected leaders.
2009
We embarked on a difficult course of action: Rainforest Alliance verification. It takes us two years, but we did it! In the same year, we strengthened our commitment to conservation and secured another ecotourism concession along the buffer zone of the Madre de Dios River, which covers the park and the national reserve.
2008
We are hired as marketing and product development implementation consultants by iSur, the non-profit arm of the Interoceanic highway concessionaire. Our goal is to help eighteen home-stay owners from the Tambopata and Madre de Dios rivers improve their products and gain market share and profitability. This helps consolidate the buffer zone of the Tambopata-Candamo National Reserve, and Bahuaja Sonene National Park.
2007
And this year, we finally won our ecotourism concession for the area around TRC! It’s where we’re meant to be.
2006
The Posada Amazonas management contract stipulates that the community cannot initiate other tourism operations while we are there; the intention was to prevent establishments from appearing that were not consistent with our ecotourism principles. However, we have built a third lodge – Refugio Amazonas. So we revoke the clause and ensure that there is an understanding of the importance of managing tourism volumes, maintaining the principles of sustainability, to protect key community resources, thereby enabling the community to build shelters on its own.
2005
We built and opened our third lodge on the Tambopata River, Refugio Amazonas. It is on private land in the middle of a riparian community (second or third-generation settlers). We make new friends with Brazil nut farms and concessions
2004
We develop kayak, biking, and canopy climbing for adventurous folk. Yet more fun!
2003
We are forced to move the first lodge: the Tambopata Research Center. The river moved 100 meters horizontally during the last decade and passes right in front of the entrance. We dismantled it with care and rebuilt it with the same taste, but with renewed materials, about 600 meters from the river’s edge.
2002
More decisions at our council meetings with the community. As the community gains experience and more knowledge, we work better together, in collaboration.
2001
We finish paying loans taken to build Posada Amazonas. The first dividends are distributed to the community.
2000We helped restore Centro Ñape, the ethnobotanical center of the community, and began visiting it with guests. Centro Ñape receives an entrance fee for each guest who visits it. This entrance fee maintains a staff and infrastructure that serves local residents who require traditional medicine.
1999
We bring Dr. Donald Brightsmith on board to continue executing the Macaw project. More than a decade later, the macaw project has produced dozens of peer-reviewed publications and is supported by the Schubot Center for Avian Veterinary Sciences at Texas A&M University. Conducts cutting-edge research with a large number of graduate students and volunteers throughout the year.
1998
We open Posada Amazonas in April. We began monthly meetings of the «Control Committee»; to make decisions regarding shelter administrations with the community. Community representatives pirate it with company representatives. These meetings continue to be a basic element of today’s meeting.
1997
On behalf of the community of Infierno, we obtain funds for the construction of Posada Amazonas. This marked the official start of the joint venture between the Community of Hell and Rainforest Expeditions, and what a ride it has been! We also built our first canopy tower for tourists to see a harpy eagle’s nest.
1996
Eduardo spends six months in Infierno, explaining the ecotourism project to community members, going house to house. The draft was approved almost unanimously in May. We signed a 20-year contract for the management of a community shelter. That same year, the government created the Tambopata National Reserve and the Bahuaja Sonene National Park. Finally, the clay lick is officially within a protected area.
1995
We received a letter from the Community of Infierno, looking for ways to expand benefits more broadly throughout the community. Could we hire more community members at TRC? Could we expand our levels of cooperation? Our association began to grow with Hell. We asked them if they would like to join us in an association on community lands. Could this be a joint venture in creation?
1994
We are in the December issue of National Geographic magazine, thanks to the famous photographer Frans Lanting, who did an incredible job with macaws. We have our first year completely accommodating guests. Many of them have parrots and macaws at home and are fascinated by licking clay.
1993
We update TRC. We learn from our guests that contact with the forest from the hostel is a great advantage. Therefore, we decided to leave out the fourth wall (the one facing the forest). It becomes a signature feature of Eduardo’s architectural designs in this lodge and its future lodges.
1992
Rainforest Expeditions, our company today, was founded by Eduardo Nycander, who provides TRC and all existing concession agreements. In 1993, he invited Kurt Holle and then a field research assistant from the macaw with the project, to join him. Since then, we have continued to build the company with the support and passion of a loyal and hardworking team. During this year, we also incubated macaw eggs with a low probability of survival in the wild by giving birth to the first generation of Los Chicos.
1991
Tambopata Nature Tours was founded by Eduardo Nycander, and two other partners, to build what became the company’s first lodge: the Tambopata Research Center (TRC). As an architect specializing in indigenous Amazonian construction techniques, Eduardo designs TRC to integrate with the local environment, using traditional materials.
1990
Tambopata Research Center is complete! An elevated floor on piles, a palm roof, no walls, mattresses on the floor, a mud stove and latrines, just the basics. The 1. 5 million hectare conservation unit called Tambopata Candamo Reserved Zone is declared by the Government of Peru, with TRC in the middle. Unlike a National Reserve, a «Reserved Zone»; is provisional. Eduardo starts TRC macaw research. With a team of enthusiastic and courageous research assistants, we hung burnt PVC pipes 30 meters above the ground to complement natural nesting sites.
1989
Eduardo Nycander is invited to an expedition organized by the Wildlife Conservation Society to the little-known Colorado clay lick on the Tambopata River. As a wildlife photographer, he was overwhelmed by the enormous layer of clay and the incredible amount and variety of parrots that visited. Concerned about his protection, he identified a considerable patch of pristine forest near the clay layer to build a research center, protecting it from the threats of illegal hunting of macaws. This also included an application for a 10,000-hectare forest concession to legally protect as large an area as possible.