The principal Amazon artery for visitor is the Napo River, a major tributary of the main Amazon River. Its basin is 870 miles long and one to three miles wide. As a result of fluvial dynamics, the Napo’s 130 islands are covered by young forests, which provide refuge and nesting sites for a multitude of bird species, many of them migratory.

Most of the shore is covered with tropical forest, and over thousands of years, riverbeds have formed many attractive lakes. Historically, the indigenous communities have been able to maintain a productive subsistence within the existing ecosystems of vast forest preserve. The most representative are: the Siona-Secoya, Cofan, Huaorani, Shuar and Ashuar.

The Amazon ecosystem, particularly its tropical rain forest, is considered one of the richest and most complex communities of plant and animal life in the world. The region is characterized by huge and diverse amounts of flora and fauna with extraordinary variations in their habitats and microhabitats.