The assembled breakfasters in the covered canopy followed her instructions and were treated to their first taste of pure ecotourism.

Paulette Torres is a star. She was my guide to the wild world of the Guyanese Interior preserved in aspic in the Iwokrama International Centre for Conservation and Rainforest Development. Paulette knew everything about its flora, fauna, wildlife and natural features.

Iwokrama, deep in the hinterland of Guyana, means ‘places of refuge’ in the native Makushi language of the local Amerindians. For the world, the Iwokrama forest is a place of refuge from the seemingly inevitable progress using and abusing natural resources in non-sustainable ways.

This one-million acre oasis is a living laboratory. Now it has opened itself to the outside ecotourism market. It’s the ultimate destination for the traveller who has been everywhere else. You’re right slap bang in the middle of near virgin Amazonian rain forest and, yes, you can buy the T-shirt to prove you’ve been there and done it. But it’s not an easy gig.

After an eight-hour journey by road from Georgetown, you cross the mighty Essequibo, truly one of the great rivers of the world, by speedboat at Kurupukari. The Old Bedford army trucks that are the workhorses on the Lethem-Georgetown route, go across by pontoon. Ecotourists travel by an Iwokrama speedboat to the landing at the field station at the edge of the forest. That is like dropping into an ordered Amerindian village with some guest chalets bolted on. It’s big.

The workers, mainly forest rangers who act as guides and policemen for this conservation area, live in rows of small, but ample individual rooms. They feast themselves on the delights of Brazilian television at night. They’re mainly Amerindians from local and far away communities though the pepperpot nature of Guyanese society is reflected in the presence of rangers like Kathleen Fredericks-Prince from Lethem who is Amerindian, Afro and Chinese Guyanese.

The rangers are the backbone of the project. Eighteen months detailed training equips them to be experts like Paulette. They know the Iwokrama Forest and its inhabitants like the back of their hands. Test them out on the 450 species of birds, 206 of fish, 120 reptiles and 105 mammals and you’d be amazed at the depth of their knowledge.

Visitors, ecotourists or scientists, stay in a bit more comfort. They are three thatched dormitory-styled cottages dedicated to their comfort. Running water and flushed toilets plus protection from the likes of mosquitoes. The little thatched chalets would not look out of place in the English Lake District. Except they are in the Amazon rainforest and when it rains it rains here. You hear the constant pitter-patter and more on the thatch. But you are safe inside. The closest you get to wildlife are the lizards under the raised floorboard of the chalet.

Your fellow guests will cover a wide and interesting variety of people. They eat together and the rangers and others separately. That’s a shame. The food is different too. There has been, until recently, a feeling that White visitors might not appreciate local delicacies like pepperpot, chowmein and curry and roti. That misconception has now been corrected.

In my three days, I met and studied a range of the human form; it ranged from a female American scientist who was in the forest (complete with a little male helper) to count the number of otters. This would take them a month. Then there was Collette McDermott, the very capable young professional in charge of ecotourism development for the project. She’s Afro-Chinese Guyanese (see what I mean about mixtures). Two consultants from England - one on money matters, the other on Forestry matters; two students from the University of Guyana studying the impact of tourism on the small native Indian communities near the Forest, Dr David Hammond, the Principal Ecologist for Iwokrama and Francis Kahembwe, the Forest’s Manager. Conversation over lunch and dinner was never dull.

It all came about through a very magnanimous gesture by then President Desmond Hoyte at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting 1989. He offered up one million acres of rainforest - two per cent of Guyana’s land mass - in return for it becoming a Centre for rainforest research and development. Worldwide, the rainforests were under pressure; they covered just five per cent of the world’s space yet gave habitat to 50 - 95 per cent of the species of the world.

Hoyte’s gesture was welcomed and snowballed. By 1991, offices had been established and by 1996, after being passed into law in Guyana, this field station was built. Today, it’s coming to the end of the first major tranche of funding and will have to go begging bowl in hand to a round table of donors in London in May. The living laboratory might find some of its air passages restricted.

The original purely Commonwealth donors have expanded. Today, there are 28 donor organisations. Basic overhead costs for the project - one to one and a half million US dollars per year (some of that for what some may consider an over-elaborate headquarters in Georgetown’s Bel Air district - far from the rainforest) plus project money on an ad hoc basis. Currently, that runs at between US$3 - $4 million per year. Conservation doesn’t come cheap.

The UK’s Department for International Development is now the biggest donor (with projects like the central covered canopy - where we and the rangers ate - costing 75,000 pounds sterling in donor funds). But, Iwokrama was meant to develop as well as conserve, to go from being donor dependent to being self-sufficient in its first 10 years. That does not appear to be going exactly to plan.

Two areas currently make some revenue. Ecotourism, the small larvae planted in those chalets, made about US$80,000 last year out of individuals and groups such as University scientists, bird watchers and the generally adventurous. Training makes US$100,000 out of the excellent ranger-training programme for other organisations like Conservation International. Both of those areas must thrive if Iwokrama is to survive.

The project is trying to find markets for non-wood forest products, but only one of these looks hopeful - that for Craboil from the Crabwood tree (if they can get to the nuts before the local mammals do. They’ve set up camera traps to find out just who they are and how they get there first. The Kufa vine is plentiful and can be used to make wicker furniture, but that market is hardly immense. Palm hearts can be extracted for canning and eating, but only at the cost of destroying the palm tree and so eventually there will have to be some logging (this virgin forest contains some fine untouched wood) but done in a very eco-friendly way. The world has come full circle.

But you don’t come to an eco-resort like this to lie around a cabin all day thinking of the future funding of nature. You experience some. It’s the trips that make the adventure. I took four.

First, to Stanley Lake 45 minutes by boat up the Essequibo. That is an untouched paradise, an inlet, which is hardly visited. We took the back route round it, fighting our way amongst the mangroves, frequently having to stop. Paulette was on the constant lookout for birds. She found many. But the most interesting discovery was a colony of the increasingly rare Arapaima fish. The Brazilians have virtually fished out their stocks. The Guyanese fish are therefore at a premium. You can tell where they are from the bubbles as they come up for air. The parents less frequently than the tens of offspring. The water surface is like reflected marble, so any disturbance is easily seen. You switch off the speedboat engine and watch the Arapaima at mealtime play.

The rangers were very excited. Paulette had not seen this many before. Neither had Andrew, the trainee ranger who was accompanying her.

But those Arapaima were just the highlight of a fascinating trip into the riverine edges of the forest and a quick glance at its inhabitants.

More intimate was the climb up the Turtle Mountain the next afternoon. It’s no picnic doing this in the heat of the afternoon, 2.5 kilometres through dense undergrowth going up all the time. Yet, it had a strange peacefulness about it; the sounds of the forest coming from birds (‘Macees’ the rangers call them) and monkeys and precious little else. The sun only occasionally peeping through the forest canopy.

Iwokrama had thoughtfully provided two resting benches on the way up for gentlemen, like me, of a certain age. They’d also provided banisters on steep climbs. Useful too, but the ants thought so too. They inhabited one and as soon as you touched it, they would bite you to indicate their territorial advantage. Likewise, the Marabuntas (wasps) whose nest is a hollow bark we disturbed. They gave two of us a short sharp lesson in forest ecology.

Humidity and heat made for a very sweaty ascent, but when you reached the top and the viewing point, it was all worth while. You looked down on the forest canopy for miles over the Essequibo and its various inlets. It was like surveying a field of broccoli from a thousand feet. It was truly an awe inspiring experience. So too the journey down.

The tropical dusk was fast approaching. We had to make haste back to Manny, the Captain and his boat back to the field station. No time for those benches now, just time to avoid those colonies of ants and wasps. And a Labaria - a venomous snake resting on a leaf just beneath our feet. Paulette once again, came to the rescue, persuading it to take up residence away from the path and away from us. The sounds as dusk fell became louder and more shrill, as more and more nocturnal animals woke up ready for action.

Our descent took half the time of our ascent. We made it to Manny and to the safety of the Essequibo just before darkness fell. The boat had no lights. In those four hours, we had made contact with thousands of years of plant and animal history. Turtle Mountain shows the dilemma of Iwokrama. Should it preserve everything and ban tourists from the mountain, or should it allow access for information, education and revenue. That debate continues.

The river dominates. It’s the link between communities and to the world. Manny and Paulette took me on a trip up the Kurupukari rapids and beyond. It was a roller coaster finding his way amongst those rocks, but a gentle one. Paulette pointed out the petroglyths - historic Amerindian carvings - on a nearby rock. They were warning about the rapids up ahead and up behind. The Essequibo is full of perils. You need a skilled captain like Manny to ride those dangers. But even he was worried about the White man getting wet on the way back down through the rapids, so he dropped me off at the local village of Fairview where I walked via `Granny’s’ house (where she was preparing cassava bread for the next day) to a landing beyond the rapids. Shame. This white man would have enjoyed the whitewater or white knuckle experience.

Finally, later at night, we went out Cayman spotting on the river in the dark. Brave folk with just a cutlass and a large light for safety. They worked. We saw four black Caymans, firstly their red eyes and one snake. Caymans are no strangers to the Iwokrama field station. Apparently, the landing stage used to be a feeding station for them. Scraps from the communal pot fed to them. That stopped when someone realised that attracting Cayman near to people might not be the brightest thing to do.

One million acres. I explored maybe five. The Iwokrama rainforest is a complete treasure trove. There’s something for everyone with an interest in nature. It is the ultimate destination, but it’s one with a purpose and one with a vision. Catch it while you can. It’s worth much more than the tee shirt. That costs US$15. Keeping the project alive will cost much more.