The Tapiche Reserve is a private conservation property preserving increasingly scarce primary rainforest in northern Peru. As the only conservation property among a sea of logging concessions, we struggle to monitor poachers and loggers on the property. We're proud to have brought more visitors to the property this year than ever before, but poachers and loggers are pushing back. We need your support to turn this area around and help us provide an eco-friendly alternative to poaching and logging!

From July to September every year, poachers from neighboring communities Iberia upstream and Esperanza, Nuevo Progreso and San Salvador downstream sweep our beaches each night for turtle eggs, despite the endangered status of the turtles and the fact that they are trespassing. If they come across a female in the process of laying, they wait for her to finish laying before taking the eggs and killing her, effectively ending a full life cycle. Every night we tell trespassers what everyone already knows, which is that the property is private, we ask them to leave, and we wait until they do. We speak to them unarmed and do not make physical contact. Our property is one of the last in the area where turtles nest, and we have taricaya, cupiso and charapa species.

The low water level of this season also concentrates fish in the lagoons. Poachers come to the reserve to hunt paiche (Arapaima), one of the world’s largest freshwater fish and also considered an at-risk/endangered species. We’ve found poachers taking 20cm-long baby paiche in their boats. In the late afternoon, we see at least 5 boats at the upstream border of the reserve and 5 downstream, waiting for nightfall to begin poaching. On an average night, we encounter about 15 boats trespassing, seeking turtle eggs or paiche.

In July 2015, local officials came to the lodge and told Murilo Reis, director of the reserve, to let trespassers do as they please.  Murilo reported to local police headquarters in Iberia the next day, as the chief of police demanded. Upon arrival, the chief asked for a “donation" to support the police department as well as some paiche for a town party. Murilo refused. The chief then said Murilo did not have the authority to ask the poachers to leave our private property.

Murilo is also being accused of killing a local man that he has never met. The case was already investigated and closed last year, but a petition was started among the locals to re-open the case with the intent of prosecuting Murilo and putting the Tapiche Reserve out of existence.  

Right now locals poach turtle eggs and paiche, but other times of year they take trees, other fish, monkeys and other land mammals like tapir, peccary, deer, rodents, etc. Local authorities have never made any effort to help us, but the recent bullying and intimidation tactics have reached new heights.

We not only hope that this murder accusation is dropped, but we hope to gain some support in the area, whether through government or via partnerships with external organizations. This will require awareness and advocation on both the local and international level. 

We hope you will show your support in our conservation work. We understand that locals currently do not have much choice besides poaching and logging for survival. In fact, the government encourages people to take from the jungle as an economic resource without proper management or supervision. We want to offer locals an eco-friendly alternative, but current politics and cultural attitude are working against us. We are tired and need help if we are to continue our conservation work in this fragile area.