"Don't worry," smirked young Cesar Carrasco, flashing his torchlight into the Amazonian rain forest along the Tambopata river in southeastern Peru. "It was only a bird. You won't see so many mammals. They're more scared than we are and hide well."

An apprentice guide for tourists visiting the vast tract of pristine rain forest that straddles Peru's southeastern border with neighboring Bolivia, the local native community to which the 25-year-old belongs is the first in the area to take a leading role in the ecological tourism business.

Members of the local 400-strong community, comprising some 80 surviving families of the Ese'eja tribe and "colonos" like Cesar, the descendants of settlers who moved to the area from the slopes of the towering Andes, now have a major stake in one of the jungle lodges dotted along the Tambopata.

They help run and manage the lodge, to which tourists and avid bird watchers alike flock to see the myriad-colored Macaws and parrots that inhabit their 24,700 acres (10,000 hectare) area of verdant rain forest. They also take a sizable slice of the profits.

NATURE NURTURED

"We are trying to recover the Ese'eja culture, help the community by giving it revenues, and ensure our surrounding environment is looked after," Cesar added further along the trail, enticing a tarantula out of a hole in the ground of Infierno - so named not after grim horrors of Joseph Conrad-like tales but rather the treacherous waters of the Tambopata.

The tribe's numbers have dwindled this century due to diseases introduced by foreigners, but some still hunt with bows and arrows, and the natural remedies grown in the local witch doctor's garden are still the first resort for natives suffering from ailments.

The 180 plant species in the witch-doctor's garden include treatments for stomach cancer and hepatitis, analgesics, "natural viagra" and even the ingredients of a supposedly fail-safe love potion.

"This garden is a way to preserve the traditions of the Ese'eja and ensure that their knowledge is not lost," said 26-year-old trainee witch-doctor Alex Mishaja, himself an Ese'eja, as he tended a "Para para" plant famed for its properties against male impotence. The plant was noticeably bereft of foliage.

The site - and that of the affiliated Tambopata Research Center, a similar lodge another five hours upstream - are a naturalist's dream.

With predawn trips up-river in narrow, wooden boats to spy caimans and giant otters at a nearby piranha-infested lake, and similar outings to watch Macaws, the Ese'eja reserve is an insight into primordial living - free of vehicle traffic, mains electricity and everything that goes with it.

BACK TO BASICS

Two hours by river from the gold town of Puerto Maldonado, the Posada Amazonas lodge part-run by the Ese'eja is burrowed into the rain forest, a retreat of simple thatched huts on stilts with no external walls. Oil lamps, candles and torches are the only means of shedding light beneath the surrounding leafy canopy when evening falls.

Anthropologists and ecology groups alike tout the venture as an ideal way to integrate tribes into ecotourism, and avoid them being perceived as a sideshow by tourists.

"It is magnificent that groups like the Ese'eja are involved in ecotourism in this way. It helps reaffirm their culture, and of course helps the community," said anthropologist Juan Ossio of Lima's Catholic University.

"It has worked very well in their case, as with a number of other Amazonian tribes in the jungle area of northern Peru," he added.

But not all is perfect in paradise.