From 2021 through to 2023, BCC campaigned for the SËRA Foundation, a group of young forest defenders of Siekopai nationality, indigenous to the Ecuadorian Amazon. We worked closely with the community of Siekoya Remolino and were honoured to support the remarkable young leaders of SËRA in their struggle to protect their ancestral land and culture from extractive industries, such as oil and palm oil.
Over the course of three years we have had the pleasure of helping the Siekopai secure for themselves a future where they can financially sustain their way of life in the rainforest without resorting to the felling of trees or planting monoculture crops in place of native jungle. We have been honoured to have helped the community pursue innovative ways of combining modern technology and techniques with their ancestral knowledge to secure a future which celebrates and protects their indigenous land and culture.
Siekopai
Campaign
“While Indigenous people represent less than 5% of the population, they safeguard 80% of the planets biodiversity within their territories yet make up 40% of the total environmental defenders killed worldwide.”
Global Witness, 2020
Plants of Resistance
The Siekopai’s Story
Once living across an immense 7-million-acre territory that stretched from Ecuador into Colombia and Peru, the Siekopai are an indigenous nationality whose number has dwindled from 30,000 to just 1600. They currently survive in a 50,000-acre fragment of rainforest, surrounded by oil exploitation and oil-palm monoculture plantations.
Due to increasing environmental issues such as contamination and logging, vital food sources are becoming scarce. The Siekoya Remolino community is under enormous pressure to fell its forest to make way for oil-palm plantations. In order to keep resisting financial offers from extractive companies, alternative sustainable sources of income are urgently needed.
To resolve the dual challenges of food security and sustainable income, the Siekopai are turning to the plants and trees within their territory. With traditional uses for over 1000 medicinal plants, the Siekopai have an encyclopedic knowledge of local flora.
One solution is the morete palm (Mauritia flexuosa), a native and keystone species that takes up to 20-25 years to mature. Its fruits can be used to make a wide variety of products such as juices, jams, desserts and oils for cooking and skincare. Morete products are in high demand in Ecuador, as the fruit is known for its delicious flavour and medicinal qualities.
While the morete palm grows abundantly in the Siekopai territory, the tree is tall and has no branches, making the fruit difficult to pick.
In the interests of conserving their territory, the residents of Siekoya Remolino are unwilling to fell the trees, leaving the fruit unharvested; an untapped and valuable resource.
BCC first connected with the SËRA Foundation in 2021 through Bethany Pitts, who has a close relationship with the community and began a fundraising platform for them in 2020.
We came to understand their ambitions and goals for the Siekopai nationality as a whole. It was decided that the best way in which we could help initially was to raise £5,000 to fund transport costs for members of Siekoya Remonlino to visit neighbouring indigenous groups, making contacts and sharing ideas. An important destination on this tour was the Pambolino forest school, as this could provide a tried and tested framework for the forest school which, at that time, the Siekoya community had in the works in their own village.
2023 was the year of the Big Canopy Campout expedition to Ecuador which aimed to build upon the work of the previous years, bringing to completion the ideas brought to light through our discussions with the SËRA Foundation during the previous year. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and supports, we could facilitate a team of arborists, herbalists and videographers to travel to Siekoya territory to run an extensive rope-access workshop and develop new ideas for products which could be created from the flora of the rainforest. The workshop successfully trained men and woman from the community to safely climb the Morete palm - a local species of tree which grows fruit in abundance amongst its upper reaches. With these modern techniques, and with the assistance of modern climbing equipment, this newly-founded team of indigenous tree climbers will be able to harvest the Morete fruit without felling or damaging the trees, fruit which can then be processed into products thanks to the ever-growing knowledge of the community’s laboratory team.
As a final success for 2023, enough money was raised to fund the building of a purpose-built laboratory for the village, owned by the Siekopai with the sole intention of creating a stream of revenue for the community. Following a period of extensive planning and preparation, work is now underway to construct the laboratory, which will be able to create products that meet the required criteria for national and international sale. In total, £20,000 was raised throughout 2023. Our incredible BCC community, and generous sponsors, made this possible, and as a result the Siekopai continue moving ever-closer to a financially stable future, where their land and way of life is protected for generations of indigenous forest defenders to come.
Throughout the following year, we continued to raise funds to help the Siekopai, while also taking the opportunity to discuss with the SËRA Foundation how we could be of most help going forward. Through these discussions it became clear that our fundraising could greatly benefit the Siekoya Remolino community to help kick-start initiatives which could lead on to become sustainable sources of income. Consequently, much of the money raised during 2022 went towards funding workshops which trained members of the community to distil various plants into essential oils, harnessing the knowledge passed down by generations of Siekopai into a potential source of income for the Siekoya.
Past campaigns
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After the success of our 2021 & 22 campaigns, BCC were delighted to continue supporting the SËRA Foundation in 2023.
in 2023, Big canopy Campout successfully raised $20,000 for the SËRA Foundation. $12,000 of this was used to fund the creation of the first indigenous owned laboratory. The rest of these funds were used to supply the community with necessary climbing equipment and training to achieve sustainable harvesting of the morete fruit.
The training and equipment BCC provided through sponsorship and fundraising will now help the community to generate their own funds and avoid selling their native land.
BCC will continue to follow and support the SËRA Foundation as a thank you for allowing us into their inspirational lives.
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In 2020 BCC were DELIGHTED to support Bob Brown Foundation and join them in the fight to protect one of the last remaining areas of temperate rainforest in the world, takayna / Tarkine.
As a constant source of inspiration since BCC began in 2017, Bob Brown Foundation continue to encourage the community of forest ambassadors with their consistent and determined frontline action protecting the environment.
Their grassroots activism based on a solid foundation of science and research is exactly the kind of organisation that BCC wishes to stand alongside in our bid to promote people and projects protecting the future of our forests.
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In 2017 Big Canopy Campout was created in response to a World Land Trust project protecting primary rainforest in Borneo. For the next two years BCC raised funds towards the preserving of these natural habitats.
World Land Trust (WLT) is an international conservation charity that protects the world’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats.
Working through a network of partner organisations around the world, WLT funds the creation of reserves and provides permanent protection for habitats and wildlife.
Do you have a story you’d like to share?
We are always looking to share stories from those working to protect our native forests and all that live amongst them. Whether it’s a story of ongoing resistance, success, disappointment or hope please get in touch so we can support, feature and share your work.