Global Connections
Partners in Preservation

“I have signed many agreements over the years, but this is unique.”
— V. Lane Rawlins
President, Washington State University

WEARING A SHIRT made of bark, Bartolo Marnari Ushigua, president of the Association of the Zapara Nation of Pastaza Province, was in the Washington State University president’s office on important business. He was to meet V. Lane Rawlins to sign a memorandum of agreement (MOA), a piece of paper that could mean the difference between extinction or preservation for Ushigua and his people. The MOA pledges university support for the Zapara culture and preservation of the environment in Pastaza Province.

Following introductions through interpreters, smiles, and handshakes, Ushigua and university representatives sat down around a large conference table. WSU anthropology professor John Patton, a longtime friend of the Zapara people, facilitated the meeting, and through him we began to learn about the conditions in the Amazon that prompted Bartolo Marnari Ushigua’s visit to Pullman, Washington.

Pastaza Province is part of the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador and is located between Rio Conambo and Rio Pindoyacu, just north of disputed territory, which Ecuador lost to Peru in 1941. Boundaries established after that war separated the few hundred remaining Zapara people.

The province is an anthropologist’s dream. There is no currency. The Zapara still hunt and fish for food and conduct transactions largely by trading items made by hand. There are only 300 surviving tribal members, and only four speak the native language.

Patton is an expert on the Zapara and the Pastaza Province because he has conducted extensive on-site research in the province. He was largely responsible for creating the MOA and assembling the people gathered around the president’s conference room table for the signing ceremony. “The memorandum of agreement means that we will support their efforts to protect their resources and culture,” said Patton. “We will act as advisors and give them an educated opinion on matters that might impact their land and their way of life.” Of immediate importance to the Zapara communities is the potential threat they see in oil exploration.

Much like the MOA signed at WSU May 6, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized the province’s culture last year as a masterpiece of the “Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” The UNESCO recognition supports the Zapara people’s oral traditions and other cultural manifestations and their fight to protect the environment of their native lands.

“I have signed many agreements over the years,” Rawlins said to the Zapara Nation president, “but this is unique. I am pleased this institution will be able to play a role in the preservation of the environment in your region and to help you find ways to sustain the important cultural treasures of your people.”