A survival course for ancient waterways.

• Author: Mahler, Richard
• Position: Guatemala's rivers

TERRIFIED MEMBERS of the Kekchi Maya tribe ran for cover a few years ago when they first saw members of a kayak club paddling down the remote Rio Cahabon. The Indians were cocooned in the lush, roadless wilderness of the Sierra de Chama, far from the big cities and popular tourist attractions of Guatemala's western highlands. Today, having overcome their initial fear of light-skinned outsiders, the indigenous Maya greet whitewater enthusiasts with warm smiles and friendly waves, often selling them fresh tortillas and bananas or volunteering to help guide their rafts through the Cahabon's roaring rapids--so treacherous that even the Maya had never successfully navigated them.

"The Kekchi had never seen anybody riding a boat down their river," explains Terry Ridenour, the American owner and operator of Maya Expeditions, an adventure-oriented travel company based in Guatemala City. "They thought we must be government soldiers or leftist guerrillas. Many had never seen an Anglo before, and only a few had been in contact with Ladinos."

The introduction of whitewater rafting and kayaking to the Rio Cahabon is only one example of how the use of Guatemala's many rivers is quickly evolving, as the country's spectacular natural resources come under increasing pressure to contribute to a diversified national economy. "We welcome and encourage nature-oriented tourism," says Antonio Ferrate Felice, coordinator of the Guatemalan government's National Commission on the Environment. "But we must also responsibly develop our resources in a way that improves the lives and well-being of our own people."

During the past decade, subsistence farmers along the Rio Cahabon have seen their isolated homeland become the object of intense interest from various quarters. Plantation owners have moved in and replaced many acres of subtropical forest with coffee, cacao, maguey and other cash crops. Protestant missionaries are preaching the gospel in whitewashed churches, hoping to convert local people from Catholicism and Mayan folk religions. Surveyors from Guatemala's national power utility are evaluating the ability of a proposed new dam to withstand earthquakes and heavy rainfall.

The Rio Cahabon winds for about 80 miles from the department of Alta Verapaz in Guatemala's northeast highlands to Lake Izabal, the nation's largest body of water. Izabal, in turn, is drained by the Rio Dulce, which flows about 30 miles to the Caribbean Sea. Like the Cahabon, the Dulce has been "discovered" in recent years by tour operators catering to the new breed of travelers known as ecotourists. In other parts of Central America, particularly Costa Rica and Belize, ecotourism has become a multi-million-dollar business designed to simultaneously protect the fragile subtropical environment while generating jobs and income for the local population.

"We see more and more of these nature-loving visitors every day," says Sandra Monterroso, promotion manager for the Guatemala Tourist Commission, a government-funded agency that promotes the country's attractions around the world. "They now represent a very significant percentage of our country's touristic income, involving millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs." During the interview in her Guatemala City office, Monterroso described the typical ecotourist as affluent, well-educated and genuinely concerned about preservation of the great variety of plants, animals and habitats in Central America, as well as the region's archaeological sites and indigenous cultures. Most range in age from 25 to 50 and come from the United States, Canada, Australia or Western Europe. Such travelers are willing to endure some physical discomfort and spend extra money in order to see the wonders of nature first-hand and up-close.

The ecotourism trend is especially evident along the Rio Dulce, where several boats head out each morning from Livingston, at the river's mouth, for the Chocon Machacas Biotope, a 7200-hectare nature reserve about ten miles inland that protects such gravely endangered creatures as the freshwater manatee. This large vegetarian mammal, sometimes called a sea cow, is thought to be the origin...