It was a humid Saturday afternoon in late August when we found ourselves traveling upstream on the Rio Napo, through the Amazon basin, to visit a local couple panning for gold. The heavy rains of the previous day had ensured rising water levels, bringing up with it tiny gold shards from the riverbed, a couple of grams of which would take an entire day's work to recover and would fetch only $12-15 per gram.

The Ecuadorian jungle (or what small part we had encountered of it) had captured our hearts-madly, utterly and completely-and as our motorized canoe shimmied up the murky green river, immense vegetation on either bank spilling into this Amazon tributary, the havoc, pollution and office work we had left behind us in Quito the previous day seemed to belong to another, less pure life. The words of Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "Nature" sprang to mind: "To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature… the lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other…" On this Saturday afternoon, the earth had never smelt so raw and sodden, the trees so rich and green-it seemed as if nature was making herself visible to our virgin eyes for the first time.

We were staying at Yachana Lodge, Quichua for "a place of learning," in the tiny community of Mondaña, located within the Gran Sumaco Biosphere Reserve. It felt as if the crowded capital city of Quito was worlds away after flying half an hour over the Andes to Coca, a small, grubby oil Oriente town of ramshackle buildings and blackened walls. As we flew in to land, the deforestation below appeared surprisingly pronounced with large squares of forest cut away into cultivated plots. During the course of the weekend, we would learn that Ecuador's deforestation rate, at 1.2 percent, is three times higher than the rest of South America and six times higher than the global average. Here we had met our guides, Hector and Juan, of the Quichua and Shiwiar tribes respectively, and boarded a three-hour canoe ride, that despite the jungle's ever-increasing accessibility, still promised to take us deep into ancient territories steeped in indigenous mystery.

And now we had arrived at a small sand island where a boy and girl, dressed in jeans, were focused hard on their work, she gathering mounds of sand in wooden bowls and taking them down to the river for him to sieve through. At only sixteen, and married, it was just another day for the pair, trying to make a means to an end, but to our troop of foreign spectators, the encounter materialized as a unique glance into a life where the mere task of survival is back-breaking work. While the pair would toil under the steamy sun for the rest of the afternoon, we passed our time by floating back down the river in lifejackets, reveling in our newfound appreciation for nature, on the most authentic lazy river ride one might imagine. Back at the lodge, balcony hammocks beckoned to be used for an afternoon siesta.

But Yachana is no mere patchwork of plush jungle accommodation. It forms an integral part of the sustainable development eco-project that Douglas McMeekin, Executive Director of the lodge and FUNEDESIN (the foundation in which he created) has been working on for well over a decade. McMeekin, a southern gentleman, has gentle blue eyes and a jovial smile. "I didn't know what I was getting into," confesses the Kentucky, U.S. native. But after suffering bankruptcy in the States during the 1982 recession, McMeekin came to visit a friend in Ecuador and realized he wanted something more substantial out of life. After working as an environmental consultant to eight oil companies (who were keen to make ample use of the rainforest's natural oil reserves), McMeekin realized that the Amazonian communities of Ecuador were vital to the rainforest's future protection and established the Foundation for Integrated Education and Development (FUNEDESIN) in 1991 to find solutions to the struggle between the necessity for rainforest preservation and the realities of life in the Amazon. As a former employee for oil companies, McMeekin, more than anyone realizes what needs to be done to prevent further damage to the area.

Yachana Lodge opened in 1994 and does what it can to eco-friendly-it uses solar-powered electricity, organic composting and an environmentally-friendly fiberglass canoe that runs on palm oil to transport guests. McMeekin's other intiative, Yachana Gourmet, produces and sells a natural, totally vegan, chocolate using organic cacao bought at premium prices from family farmers in the Amazon. In 1997, the profits from the lodge and the chocolate together helped build the Mondaña medical clinic which today serves the region's population of 8,000. The work is necessary-but the funding gets harder to come by. "But that's the trait of an entrepreneur," McMeekin says lightly. An inventor by nature, he is bursting with ideas for recycling, energy conservation, and education. He is working on LED lamps for the lodge rooms and a battery program for Mondaña. Emerson himself would have been proud of such foresight and determination.

The latest and most time-consuming project of FUNEDESIN is Yachana Technical High School, which opened in October of 2005. Studies focus on eco-tourism, conservation, and agricultural studies. The boarding school draws in teens from five Ecuadorian provinces. McMeekin designed the school after the reality of the people living in the area. He wants the kids to be "able to take what they're learning and introduce it into their families step by step." Because of this, he has designed the program so that students attend school for 28 days, then return home for the same amount of time, repeating the process for a school year.

To visit the school is like to be away at summer camp. Everyone sleeps in a large wooden-planked building. The bell rings for dinner, and the boys dash to wash their hands in outside sinks, then line up quickly to grab their allotted portions of the evening's entrée. The few girls at the school chat and flirt, smiling shyly at us, the intruders to their home. Things feel casual here maybe… because they are. It is obvious, even though some of the kids here our on a trial evaluation period, that they feel at home. Although the atmosphere is peaceful and the kids seem comfortable living away from their families, they rarely have time to relax. Up long before the sun at four, they tend to the greenhouses, gardens, and animals before working at the lodge and going to class. When class is let out in late afternoon, they break for dinner, then study. Bedtime is precisely at nine, so they can get up to start a new day all over again.

The main classroom is an open-air room and also serves as the dining area. A whiteboard, several books, and outdoor plastic chairs occupy the space. Outside of the main schoolroom sits a separate technology lab where 11 computers are housed for student use. Solar powered wireless internet is accessible anywhere on the lodge and school grounds. However, 11 computers for over 60 students present a challenge for training and learning the technology.

Back at the lodge, our tired group sat in the humid heat. Staying at the lodge was an American, mostly senior, tourist group complete with loud voices and foam fluorescent visors; a group of teens and young adults led by a middle-aged couple who appeared to belong to a church group, but in reality was a Mormon clan; a skinny, skittish English man doing research for the Japanese government; and an affable, liberal lady who was a tree surgeon and conservationist from London. It could have been a reality TV show-perhaps the new series of "Survivor"? If we were on "Lost" who would be killed off first? I had watched the Mormon family throw spears outside of the healer's rickety hut, fiercely driving them into the target on the first try, as they donned hunting t-shirts. We were poor at it, missing the mark completely. Thankfully, Jeff Probst was nowhere to be found.

One of the women from the American tourist group asked Hector, "Is that real jungle we were seeing on the canoe trip?" Although hopefully her question implied if we were passing primary rainforest, the question would play over and over in our minds. Were we seeing the real jungle? The aging Americans, the overbearing Mormons, the skittish Brit, and the tree surgeon whose injured back kept her from most activities-they saw a glimpse of the jungle. They got to swing on vines like Tarzan and look through the Swarvorski telecscope at a night monkey. We had the props of blowguns and a healing ceremony set up for our viewing pleasure. We happily participated in the same activities as the other tourists. But we would like to think we also got a look at the real jungle.

In the beginning we came to the jungle to see animals, relax, take in the scenery. We didn't see any jaguars or caimans. The only toucan we saw, served as a tourist attraction and photo op at the hotel at the boat dock in Coca. But we realized by the end of our journey it wasn't about snapping pics of animals for online photo sharing with friends. The jungle was not merely a zoo-like environment for us to observe.

While the Mormons from Utah were back at the lodge going to bed early, we were swigging one-dollar Pilsner beers with the locals under a blanket of stars so dense, the black of night was merely a backdrop to their sparkling show. While the American retirement village was on a nature walk to view birds they couldn't remember the names of for more than two mintues, we were dodging a dirt encrusted fútbol being madly kicked on a homemade field in Mondaña. While the two Brits were sitting on the porch chatting about home, we practiced our foreign languages with the students at the school, stumbling over words and phrases we could not translate. We came to see the jungle not as a place, but as a home for the people who thrived here.

As we pushed off from the riverbank, we noticed the high water level of the previous night had fallen dramatically. Hector said it was due to deforestation-now that there were less trees to produce moisture, there was inevitably less water in the river. Along the way we passed a man by the river's edge who was siphoning river sand, searching for the almost invisible gold flakes. The low water level promised a long day of panning to find just one gram. An oil tower loomed in the distance. The realization of the how the degradation of the jungle affects each and every living thing there hit us fully, and we rode back to Coca in silence.