Jungle Journey: DZS Team Working in Peru to Promote Education and Protect the Amazon Rainforest
June 9, 2025
Articles
By Sarah Culton, Communications Manager
More than 3,000 miles from Detroit, the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) is making a lasting impact on conservation, education and local communities along the Amazon River.
For more than two decades, the DZS has partnered with CONAPAC, a Peruvian nonprofit, to support remote villages along the Amazon and Napo rivers. Through initiatives such as the Adopt-A-School program, the collaboration provides school supplies, environmental education and community support to nearly 50 communities and more than 2,000 students in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest, who share the land and river with dolphins, monkeys, amphibians and other animals who make up the biodiversity of the Amazon.
“This is one of our flagship conservation programs — and that’s because we work with people and local communities along the river,” says Dr. David Dimitrie, director of conservation for the DZS. “You might expect a zoo to only work with animals, but this partnership proves you can’t protect wildlife without also supporting the people who share their home.”
A LONG-STANDING PARTNERSHIP
The seeds of the program were planted 31 years ago when Pam Bucur, now president of CONAPAC’s board, visited a village classroom in the Peruvian Amazon with a group of American teachers. Inside, they found a teacher, a group of students and a blackboard — but little else. There were no individual books or notebooks for each student, and even pencils were hard to come by.
“How can you teach someone to read if you don’t have anything written?” Bucur says, recalling the memory. “At the time, it was difficult to get books to these villages — especially books about the Amazon that could help students understand where they live. There was a real need.”
It was a need she felt compelled to meet. Soon after, CONAPAC launched the Adopt- A-School program, raising funds to purchase and deliver school supplies to remote communities along the Amazon and Napo rivers. The goal was simple — to ensure children in the rainforest had access to basic education without forcing families to sell natural resources — like timber — to afford books and materials. By equipping students with the tools they needed to learn, the program supported their education and nurtured a new generation of rainforest stewards.
In its first years, the program reached about 10 villages. Bucur knew it could reach more — but to grow, CONAPAC needed a trusted U.S.-based partner to help with visibility and facilitate tax-deductible donations.
That is where the DZS steps in. Around the same time, DZS staff visited the Amazon to conduct wildlife research, staying at Explorama Lodges — the same ecotourism company that founded CONAPAC. The organizations were introduced, and a long-standing partnership began.
Over the past 26 years, the partnership between the DZS and CONAPAC has grown into a far-reaching and impactful initiative. Today, the Adopt-A-School program supports approximately 2,000 students in nearly 50 villages along the Amazon and Napo rivers. In addition, the program hosts teacher workshops on rainforest ecology each year, offering educators practical, engaging strategies to bring environmental education into their classrooms. The workshops emphasize how everyday actions — both locally and globally — influence the health of the rainforest.
The DZS also organizes three annual volunteer trips to Peru, where participants help deliver school supplies, plant native trees and work side-by-side with residents on community service projects. These projects range from building communal meeting spaces to painting fences — projects that meet immediate needs and strengthen long-term ties between communities and conservation work.
“We are stronger now than ever,” Bucur says. “Seeing a child receive something we take for granted — a pencil, a notebook — and understand the potential of the school supplies is a memory that sticks with me every time. I don’t have one favorite memory from my time with Adopt-A-School. I have thousands.”
EDUCATION IS CONSERVATION
For the past 18 years, Dr. Claire Lannoye-Hall, the DZS’s director of education, has traveled to Peru annually as part of the CONAPAC partnership. Each day of the trip begins before sunrise, with Lannoye-Hall pulling on rubber boots and boarding a boat — and sometimes trekking miles on foot — to reach communities along the Amazon. The work often comes with bug bites, blisters and long days in the heat, but for Lannoye-Hall, it’s more than worth it.
“Being able to participate in the Adopt-A-School program is one of the most important parts of my job here at the Zoo,” she says. “I recognize the incredible privilege of traveling to this beautiful place and supporting some amazing work that is really making a difference in the world. Knowing that makes it worth all the extra hours, the time away from family and friends, and the long trips down and back.”
For the DZS team, the true value of the partnership lies in its ability to connect education with conservation. Both Lannoye-Hall and Dimitrie agree that education is essential to protecting wildlife and wild places — whether at the Zoo or Belle Isle Nature Center, in Detroit or deep in the rainforest.
“You can’t protect and create a sense of awe, wonder and appreciation around wildlife unless you know more about it,” Lannoye-Hall says. “Education leads to informed decision making on how to allocate natural resources that will have a long-term impact.”
Dimitrie agrees, adding that the program has seen as much success as it has because it deeply involves the local partner communities through collaboration.
“Conservation starts with people, starts with communities,” he says. “The Amazon Rainforest is a vital resource to everyone globally, and it is home to so much incredible biodiversity. To protect it, it’s important that we work with those local communities to build relationships, define conservation priorities and build strategies that work for those living in these communities.”
LEAVING A LEGACY
You don’t have to take the DZS team’sword for it — the success of the Adopt-A-School program is written in the stories of the people it’s touched.
Take, for example, Andrea Asipali Apintuy. She grew up in the small community of Palmeras II Zona and began receiving school supplies from the program in first grade. Those supplies, she says, gave her the chance to focus on learning, discover the world through books and imagine new possibilities for her future.
Now 27, Asipali Apintuy is a teacher in Iquitos, a major city in Peru. She attended college, spent time studying in Michigan and is currently pursuing a master’s degree.
“It changed my life,” she says. “Adopt-A-School is more than just an opportunity for me. It’s an opportunity for other young girls to keep studying and look forward to a better future.”
Stories like Asipali Apintuy’s fuel the DZS and CONAPAC partnership. Seeing that long-term impact pushes the team to continue — and to expand.
“We’re starting to see the program’s legacy,” Bucur says. “I’m meeting parents who once received Adopt-A-School supplies who now have children receiving Adopt-a-School supplies. We now have a full generation of educated parents. That leads to better ecological decisions for the communities and the rainforest.”
WANT TO SUPPORT THE DZS’S WORK TO PROTECT THE RAINFOREST? HERE ARE TWO WAYS!
Join the DZS team on a Peruvian adventure! Our volunteer trips take you to the heart of the Amazon, where you’ll spend your days helping communities through school supply deliveries, tree plantings and community service projects. Plus, you’ll explore and make lasting memories with several fun excursions!
Can’t make it to the rainforest? You can still show your support by donating online! All donations are thoughtfully used to support this vital conservation program.
