Photographer Jason Houston recently visited the Pride campaign of Alejandra Paredes in the Quijos Valley, Ecuador. At this location water is the main point of concern. Read about Jason’s journey and gain insight on why “water is more valuable than gold.”

This was my 5th site visit to photograph and otherwise document the people, places, and programs that make up a Rare Pride Campaign. I’ve been to Nicaragua (out of which came a feature photoessay in Orion magazine) as well as Mexico, Kenya, and Seychelles. My task is to come, observe, and come back with stories to tell. A task most easily done if I can find straight and easily comprehendible throughlines—something I can share with staff or pitch to an editor with a clear and catchy hook, and that relates not only to the specific situation I’m witnessing, but also in more general ways to conservation issues around the world. This trip was to Ecuador to see the work of Alejandra Paredes Aguilar in the Quijos Valley on the eastern slope of the Andes. The issue here is water and that there’s not always enough of it, which seems simple enough. But, like water issues everywhere, it’s not that simple here.

Felipe with kids during a school visit in Santa Rosa, Ecuador, to teach about water conservation

At first it seems unlikely that water could be a problem here. Everything is lush and green and wet. It rains year-round (and right now most everyday), and annual rainfall is measured in hundreds of inches. Even the “dry” months can get over a foot of rain. Waterfalls pour from the sides of the surrounding hillsides, forming tributaries then rivers that then join each other, gaining strength and tumbling wider and more rapidly towards the Amazon. But even with this abundance, the water supply is threatened.

In Quito, the capital of Ecuador and our entry point to this region, we saw graffiti on the first day (a common form of unfiltered expression in a country like this where much media is repressed and/or state controlled) that read, “El agua vale más que el oro”, or, “Water is more valuable than gold.” Quito gets all of its water for its nearly 2 million people from the rivers draining these high volcanic ridges of the Andes. This water comes from the upper reaches of the many rivers that run into the Amazon Basin, where it is intercepted and pumped up over the mountains. The “threat,” from Quito’s perspective, is to the consistent supply. Conservation from this perspective means making sure there is enough to continue to supply Quito’s needs.

Graffiti in Quito, Ecuador that says, “Water is more valuable than gold”.

From the other obvious perspective, that is, for the people of the Quijos Valley, it is more complicated. There are many of the classic water issues here—contamination from agricultural pesticides and herbicides, pollution from solid and liquid household waste, the impact of runoff from the towns, and landslides and erosion in the deforested hills, etc. But the biggest issue for people of this valley is sustaining supply. There are times when the rivers here run low, forcing towns in this valley to ration water to specific times of the day. It is partly that Quito is taking a significant portion of the water but it is also that local agricultural practices like deforesting hillsides for crops and cattle is reducing the area’s ability to absorb and hold water to carry them through the drier parts of the year.

Cattle grazing and deforestation due to agriculture reduce the land’s ability to hold water during the dry season.

So the issues really exist on two levels. On the one hand there are local problems with the water quality and supply for both people and nature. Some of this is due to infrastructure and some to behavioral choices where addressing them will help improve much with regards to water in this region. But equally important, and with at least as much impact on the area, is the fact that much of the water headed through this region is permanently removed. It leaves the Quijos Valley just as it begins its journey and is pumped up over the mountains into a different watershed.

Hydropower and drinking water infrastructure in Palpallacta, Ecuador, diverting water from the uppermost reaches of the Quijos, Valley and the headwaters of the Quijos River to supply water to Quito, Ecuador. Quito, the capital of Ecuador and a city of nearly 2 million people, gets all of it’s water from the eastern Andes regions, including the Quijos Valley.

Questions of the morality and sustainability of big cities are obviously beyond the scope of a project like Alejandra’s, but they are what necessarily come up and they are important. A project like her Pride Campaign here in the Quijos Valley will do good for the people. They will be inspired and learn to care for one of the world’s most valuable resources, improving their health, the quality of life in their communities, and the state of the natural environment along the way. But—and of equal importance—what it must also do is raise the public’s awareness of the situation, and force the necessary conversations on how to appropriately balance the resource demands of a city like Quito with long-term sustainable development of the resource rich areas like the Quijos Valley.