Summary & Introduction from Dilwyn

How Yorini and Dilwyn met in 1978

I have known Yorini for 28 years, since he was 6 and I was a young 21 year old anthropologist.  On that first trip of mine to the Ashaninka back in 1978, Yorini attached himself to me, taking care that I didn't step on snakes or get lost in the forest.  He showed me how to catch fish by hand and how to smoke them properly.  Yorini also used to cure tobacco to feed my bad habit.  In short, he made life easy for me. So, a visit to the UK, not least to repay his hospitality over the years, has been a long-standing promise.  We organised his visit for the autumn of 2006, around his own busy schedules, without financial assistance
from official bodies or NGOs. 

Yorini is a very bright young man and, although not politically inclined, has developed as one of the Ashaninka's foremost ambassadors with links to the outside world.  For the Ashaninka, the outside world starts as soon as you go up or down one of the main rivers.   Rivers define their territory and nearly every community name relates to a specific local river or stream.  During the late 1980's and early 1990's, as a very young man, Yorini was instrumental in connecting together many of the Ashaninka communities, at that time scattered throughout the upper forested slopes, on the run from the encroaching and deadly hostile forces of the Shinning Path terrorists and their colonist, cocaine producing allies. 

Yorini got to know the forest trails better than most at this time, even leading a group of over 100 Ashaninka, including women and children, to relative safety over the watershed between the Ene and Urubamba rivers.  This was a journey of several days and he was the only Ashaninka to have made the mountain crossing before.  In the last few years,  Yorini's local knowledge has been used to map the Ashaninka territories in the Ene region on behalf of INRENA (the National Institute for Natural Resources) and the Ministry of Agriculture.  The mapping brings together years of work by ACPC (an NGO that works with the Ashaninka and in the region) in establishing the new National park of Otishi, a buffer zone of Ashaninka Communal reserves and de-lineated boundaries between Ashaninka titled communities and their neighbours.  In this work, Yorini became familiar with the use of GPS and now knows even more about the Ashaninka territory. 

In 2005, Yorini went on a funded cultural exchange visit to the Ashaninka settlements in Western Brazil.  This exchange visit was inspired and coordinated by New York photographer and friend of the Ashaninka, Angela Cumberbirch.  The Brazilian Ashaninka population migrated from the Perene in Peru at the start of the 20th century during the peak of the peak of the rubber boom.  They moved hundreds of miles overland through forests and across invisible internationbal borders to escape the ravages and slave trading which was rife.  The meeting of the Peruvian and Brazilian Ashaninka proved a great success.  Yorini, in particular, noted how well organized the Brazilian Ashaninka are in terms of education and agro-foresty.

Ecotribal's small group eco-tourism expeditions into Ashaninka territory are organized with Yorini and his community and offer immediate annual income which is a direct alternative to selling their more valuable trees, the greatest threat to these forests in the early 21st century. In this way we hope to help maintain Ashaninka control over their land and also halt deforestation.  Yorini is also working on re-forestation; he already has over 80 well established mahogany saplings.  

Yorini's Visit to the UK – how and why

We thought it was time for Yorini to literally see where Ecotribal is coming from and bring him to the UK.  Ecotribal was established as a Ltd. company, because there is so much to do on the ground right now.   There is inevitably always a time lag between project proposals and funded NGO action.  Meanwhile, the actual and immediate needs of the subject communities continue unaided.   By the time an NGO gets funded to do something that has been identified it may already be several years behind the reality of needs in the communities.

EcoTribal is essentially a mechanism for the Ashaninka (and other tribal communities with difficult access to markets) to assist their efforts in making a living and maintaining their culture, independence, territory and the environmental integrity of their stunning rainforest by developing fair and sustainable trade.  Ecotribal's main roles are to help where necessary with development and organisation at community level whilst also focusing on establishing outlets and markets for their sustainable products (artesania made from seed jewellery and organic cotton; chocolate beans, sesame seeds, rainforest medicines and coffee).

As well as wanting to meet with NGO's and relevant companies while in the UK, 
Yorini had some practical targets to achieve (see Aims).   While here he also visited a lot of old friends, people who had been out to the Ashaninka over the years (mainly anthropologists and development workers).  Yorini and I recorded material for a joint book during his stay.  The focus of this entho-historical work is to cover western civilisation's frontier sweeping over the Ashaninka during the last 30 years.  We are now looking for a friendly publisher.

In between all the meetings and visits, Yorini also managed to develop and put down on paper an integrated set of project proposals carefully reflecting his Ashaninka community's views and requirements.  He even talked the ideas through with other Ashaninka leaders via the solar powered satellite phone link which now connects Cutivireni with the outside world.  For the first time, too, he was able to sit face-to-face with a wide range of representatives from organisations who were able to give direct feedback on his ideas and offer advice on how to move things forward. Yorini taken his project proposals back to the Ashaninka communities in the Ene Valley for feedback and updating before using them to attract funding from Peru and the UK. 

The first proposal – to establish an Ashaninka Producers Association – has already been completed by Yorini and, following his consultation with the community, forwarded via Ecotribal to the Rainforest Foundation UK for consideration.

All in all it was a very busy month with little time to relax.  It's a shame that Yorini's visit was not in early summer when the weather may have been better and the environment more hospitable and blossoming.  Maybe, Yorini's lasting impression of the UK compared to the jungle were influenced by the season of his visit: "here everything is closed in and focused indoors whilst at home everything is open and takes place outside."

Dilwyn Jenkins (Ecotribal Director)