Bolivia Plans ‘Ecological Tourism’ Park : Wilderness: Rain forest is home to hundreds of bird species, dozens of orchid varieties, crocodiles, river otters and dolphins.

The government is teaming up with private investors to build a program of “ecological tourism” it hopes will bring in $1 billion a year. An important part of the plan is this huge wilderness park, the size of West Virginia, carved out of a remote area on the border with Brazil in 1976.

During a boat trip on the Guapore River, through dense rain forest, a group of environmental scientists and other visitors saw 60 species of birds, dozens of types of orchids, crocodiles, river otters and dolphins.

The park, named for a Bolivian scientist murdered by drug traffickers in 1986, contains more than 500 species of birds, as many as all North America, said Guy Cox, a British ornithologist studying at Louisiana State University.

Cox is investigating the effects of logging in adjacent areas on the bird population. The project is financed by the Nature Conservancy of Arlington, Va., and the Parks in Peril program of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“Bolivia is among the countries with the most diversity in the world, with over 40% of the bird species of South America found within its boundaries,” Cox said, following a macaw through his binoculars.

Visitors to the park fly from Santa Cruz across nearly 400 miles of farmland and forests to a camp run by the Friends of Nature Foundation, founded in 1989 to preserve Bolivian wilderness areas and open them to scientists and limited tourism.

The foundation, also financed by the Nature Conservancy and USAID, built the comfortable Flor de Oro base camp on the Guapore, which forms part of the frontier with Brazil. It also has trained forest rangers and established trails and campsites in the park.

One function of the rangers is to keep out Brazilian loggers who used to cross the Guapore and cut down precious mahogany trees, and drug gangs who once had cocaine labs in the park. Kempff was killed when he landed at an airstrip controlled by traffickers.

“This park has become an ecological buffer zone,” said Hermes Justiniano, a nature photographer who directs the foundation. On the Brazilian side of the river, the rain forest has been virtually obliterated by loggers and settlers.

Scientists supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Conservation International in Washington, D.C., are studying wildlife in the park. Species include jaguars, tapir, deer, maned wolves, spider and howler monkeys, giant anteaters, turtles, piranhas and the endangered river otter.

Five scientists from the University of Nottingham, England, have identified 65 river otters in the park, out of a global population estimated at 1,000. “This places the park as a vital stronghold to one of the world’s most endangered mammal species,” the Friends of Nature Foundation said in a statement.

For the tourism development program in national parks, “the government will provide the basic infrastructure needed for tourism while the private sector will provide the basic services,” said Ricardo Rojas, secretary of tourism.

He hopes to attract at least $300 million of foreign investment by 1997 and generate $1 billion a year in foreign exchange--equal to Bolivia’s current legal export earnings--within a decade. Fewer than 400 people visited the Noel Kempff park in 1993.

“We have come to realize that Bolivia has great cultural traditions and a pristine and diverse environment to offer visitors,” Rojas said. “We must now develop the services needed to attract foreign visitors.”

He emphasized the need to protect the wilderness areas, as did Justiniano of the Friends of Nature Foundation.

“The first role of the national park is the conservation of natural diversity, and second any other activity such as tourism” Justiniano said on a trip to two spectacular waterfalls reachable only by a day-long boat trip and another day of trekking through the forest.

No signs of civilization are visible from the falls. Of 1993’s visitors to Noel Kempff, only about 40 reached the second waterfall, which plunges 200 feet down a rock face, creating a rainbow at the bottom.

Justiniano said his foundation is developing a master plan for the park and hopes for 1,000 visitors in 1995, but that the most it can handle each year without damage is about 2,000. “The greatest danger is the deterioration of ecologically fragile areas,” he said.

Another foundation project is developing programs to help the few people who live in or on the edges of the park, descendants of workers brought in as rubber tappers in the 1940s.

After the development of synthetic rubber, the tappers were thrown out of work and turned to hunting. Now, their children and grandchildren want to be tour guides and park rangers.

“For communities near the parks, the income generated by ecotourism can grow in importance,” Justiniano said. “You cannot preserve a park without taking into consideration the people who live around it.”

The foundation and foreign donors are supporting efforts to triple the size of Noel Kempff park, which would make it one of the largest protected wilderness areas in South America.

“Most international donors realize that Bolivia has a small population density and the potential of setting aside land for biodiversity and protected areas,” said Gary Hunniset, an environmental expert for the World Bank.

“That potential for rational development and preservation is hard to find in many places.”