For our wonderful three days on Lake El Dorado, we were lucky enough to be staying with Antonio Pacaya at the spacious Cantagallo Ranger Station. Antonio is one of the original founders of the Yacu Taita Project. Yacu Taita means "Father of the River" in the Chechua language. The purpose of this project is to improve the economic situation of the participants while sustainably managing the resources in the area. The project was started over 12 years ago by Antonio and 39 others. Today, only six of the original people are still involved, as well as ten members, all from Manco Capac.

At this station, they focus mainly on two of the prominent fish in the lake, the arawana and the arapaima (paiche). They gather the young fish and sell them to businesses that provide the fish to pet stores - many in the United States. The businesses they work with give them money up front for the fish, which allows them to keep the project funded and running while they do the work. They are not paid otherwise and there is no other outside funding for the project.

There is a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Pronaturaleza which helps train all the people working on the project. These people learn how to sustainably manage the resources and work with the fish. Here at Cantagallo, they are building some tiled tanks to begin raising fish, which will allow them to better manage the fish population in the lake and make sure they don't deplete the numbers while maximizing the number of fish they can sell.

Antonio spends 12 days out of every 45 days here at Cantagallo - he rotates out with the others in the project. The rest of his time is spent living with his five daughters and one son in Manco Capac. There he farms bananas, corn and yuca.

Antonio has lived in Manco Capac for 35 years and I couldn't help but ask him about his last name: Pacaya, same as the river that gives half of the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve its name. He said that he belongs to an ethnic group called Cocama/Cocamilla. A long time ago one of his distant relatives got lost on the river and that's how it got named the Pacaya River.

It was great to learn about the Yacu Taita Project and the interesting life and work of Antonio Pacaya.

Jennifer

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Antonio Pacaya was our host at the Cantagallo Ranger Station

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Jesse stands with a net and box used to collect the arawana.

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Antonio and other people from Manco Capac use these boxes to collect small fish which they sell to the pet trade.