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—About

— Our Story

This idea started in 2019 by prototyping and testing a bioeconomic model with Kichwa and Waorani communities based on educational tourism and community-based conservation and climate initiatives. Our team, led by Prof. David Manuel-Navarrete, was granted a Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes award to create the physical and human infrastructure to implement the bioeconomic model, which has allowed hundreds of American students and researchers to travel to these communities (only accessible by river transportation) to learn from, research and network with Amazonian indigenous people. In the process, crucial income has been generated to support rainforest stewards and protectors. In 2021, we earned a Walton Sustainability Solutions Service grant to design a solar-powered canoe prototype. In 2022, Women and Philanthropy and Tamalpais Trust, a family trust focused on indigenous-led initiatives, funded the assembling and testing of the prototype.

— Our Partnerships

We promote collaborations between universities and Indigenous communities to:

  • Integrate ancestral ecological expertise with modern conservation technologies.
  • Contribute to co-produced solutions, like the Limelight Solution Team’s win in the XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
  • Demonstrate the power of Indigenous knowledge in driving cutting-edge research in biodiversity monitoring and sustainability.

Solar Canoes Against Deforestation Team after successfully testing the canoe prototype in July 2024

— Our bioeconomic model

  • It is based on Iyarina’s center for learning more than 2 decades of experience
  • Focuses on education services to benefit Indigenous communities.
  • Creates sustainable income streams from biodiversity conservation.
  • Reduces reliance on extractive industries.
  • Contributes to upskilling local talent.
  • Creates employment related to deployment, improvement, and maintenance of the canoe system.
  • Supports Indigenous cultures and knowledges.
  • Connects communities in a shared endeavor of collaborative sustainability innovation.

© 2025 Solar Canoes Against Deforestation

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