Posada Amazonas has some exciting years ahead. The lodge is working at an average annual occupancy of above 70%, which is virtually unsurpassable. Rainforest Expeditions has just opened a third lodge, Refugio Amazonas, which will absorb Posada Amazonas huge waiting lists. Thus, commercially, Posada Amazonas can always tinker with its infrastructure, products and services but it has no major tourism related projects which will change it drastically. For example, this year´s projects iunclude the maintenance of beams and the improvement of laundry services through the use of solar dryers. Projects in the near future will look much the same.

The challenges for the project do not necessary lie in the tourism operation angle but in the communal angle. Two huge undertakings need to take place. The first one is continued capacity building. The second is enhancement of economic opportunities. So far we have succeeded in building capacity to cover all the operational lodge positions, except for manager. We have also haphazardly developed leaders through the CC, travel and the Trueque Amazonico. However it is important to implement a strategy that will produce leaders with a degree of cohesion to the community fabric. Since the manager at Posada Amazonas is in essence a leader, we have secured funding from the Interamercian Foundation to develop a two year program where twenty to thirty individuals will benefit from a curriculum specifically designed for community leaders from a Bolivian University. Topics such as accounting are mixed with gender issues and hr management during week long workshops given once a month for more than two years. In between some of these workshops we contract specialists on topics ranging from communal law to sustainable agriculture to basic computer skills. Thus after two years we hope to a have a handful of committed and trained individuals with the capacity, commitment, and fiber to the handle both the organizational challenges of the community as well as its commercial opportunities.

A second challenge is the multiplication of the economic impact. Posada Amazonas profit potential is reaching its peak, both in terms of employment and profit. It will increase marginally as per person prices are raised and RFEs lodge chain continues to grow, but it will not be enough to make a meaningful difference from the present. So more cords need to be established between tourism and the economies of the families, and more importantly, these cords need to outgrow tourism eventually so that stability is achieved. Many such initiatives are now under away, and the projects concentrates on keeping them alive and finding them new opportunities. The project also concentrates on developing new initiatives. For example, five such initiatives currently in place are the Ñape ethnobotanical center, the port, the handicraft workshop the fruit plant and the fish farm. The Ñape center produces about $12,000 of services. However, we are working (very slowly) to develop with them a service that they can take to other lodges in the region, and double or triple their income. We are also working to establish a line of products which can be sold to tourists, such as wrinkle creams or relaxants. These are the same concepts we follow with the other initiatives, always allowing the committees behind each initiative to take the lead and execute their ideas. A person contracted by the project, a Project Coordinator, facilitates the realization of these little dreams.

Finally, the foremost challenge we will be facing in the near future will be the construction of the Interoceanic Highway forty kilometers from Infierno. This highway will connect the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil to the Pacific Ocean in Peru. It will change the way the state of Madre de Dios looks. We are taking two measures to counter this threat. The first, is that the community has asked and obtained from the government an ecotourism concession which essentially seals the unprotected border of the lake. This should assure the lake does not suffer encroachment from the Interoceanic Highway. The second is that RFE is securing alliances with communities further upriver from Posada Amazonas to assure that the land between Posada Amazonas and the Tambopata National Reserve remains protected. With its new lodge, Refugio Amazonas, Rainforest Expeditions plans to establish the same connections that have worked well at Posada Amazonas, with four small communities around the new lodge. These four communities comprise the entire population between Infierno and the begin of the TNR. By allying with them and securing their support for the conservation of the forest, we will be in essence producing a buffer zone to the Interoceanic Highway.