Cool Ideas for a Long Hot Summer: Solar-Powered Canoes
In our new miniseries Cool Ideas for a Long Hot Summer, we’re working with Arizona State University’s Global Futures Lab to highlight bold ideas about how to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
On this episode, host Kimberly Quach is joined by ASU associate professor David Manuel-Navarrete to talk about his Solar Canoes Against Deforestation project. Working closely with Ecuadoran engineers and the Kichwa and Waorani people, Manuel-Navarrette’s team has been helping to develop a solar-powered canoe that can bring renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure to the Amazon. The story of the canoe offers lessons about how to meaningfully work with communities to understand their needs and co-produce solutions.
Resources
- Learn more about Solar Canoes Against Deforestation and watch this video to see the canoe in action.
- Want to learn more about co-producing sustainable climate solutions? Check out some of Manuel-Navarrete’s recent publications.
- Embodying relationality through immersive sustainability solutions with Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
- Fostering horizontal knowledge co-production with Indigenous people by leveraging researchers’ transdisciplinary intentions.
- Leveraging inner sustainability through cross-cultural learning: Evidence from a Quichua field school in Ecuador.
- Co-producing sustainable solutions in Indigenous communities through scientific tourism.
Transcript
Kimberly Quach: Welcome to The Ongoing Transformation, a podcast from Issues in Science and Technology. Issues is a quarterly journal published by the National Academy of Sciences and by Arizona State University.
I’m Kimberly Quach, Digital Engagement Editor at Issues. On our summer mini-series called Cool Ideas for a Long Hot Summer, we’re working with ASU’s Global Futures Lab to highlight ideas about how to mitigate and adapt to climate change. On this episode, I’m joined by Associate Professor David Manuel-Navarrete. David’s cool idea is called Solar Canoes Against Deforestation. Working closely with Ecuadorian engineers and the Kichwa and Waorani people, his team has been helping to develop a solar-powered canoe that can bring renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure to the Amazon.
David, welcome!
David Manuel-Navarrete: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Quach: So your work deals with the Ecuadorian Amazon and the communities located there. Could you tell us more about the Indigenous people that live in the Amazon and how they’ve been impacted by climate change?
Ecuador is an Indigenous country almost. It has a huge Indigenous population, and there are 20 something groups only in the Amazon speaking different languages.
Manuel-Navarrete: Yeah. Ecuador is an Indigenous country almost. It has a huge Indigenous population, and there are 20 something groups only in the Amazon speaking different languages. I have worked for the last six years with two particular groups: the Kichwa, a community located in one of the rivers, the Napo River, it’s one of the Amazonian rivers, and the Waorani, which I have been working in a community located in the Curaray River, which is another huge river that is connected to the Amazon.
Quach: And could you tell me about the challenges these communities are facing due to climate change?
Manuel-Navarrete: So the Amazon has been heavily impacted by climate change through droughts which has increased the number of wildfires. There are huge tracts of forests that are burned every summer. But transportation depends on the rivers, and if you don’t have water and the rivers dry up, you cannot even move around. But of course there are many other impacts. The Amazon has a huge role in regulating the global climate. The effects in terms of precipitation, in terms of climate pattern for the entire planet will be altered as well as a result of the Amazon having turned into a savannah-style ecosystem.
Quach: The thing that you’ve been working on for the past six years to respond to this is something called Solar Canoes Against Deforestation. Could you explain why canoes are important to Indigenous communities and what a solar canoe can do to help?
In the most remote and best preserved parts of the Amazon, you need canoes for everything: trading, getting basic supplies, accessing fuel, going to the doctor.
Manuel-Navarrete: Canoes are essential for everything that happens in the Amazon. There are communities that are very remote still and only accessible through canoes. So in the most remote and best preserved parts of the Amazon, you need canoes for everything: trading, getting basic supplies, accessing fuel, going to the doctor, and also for if you want to support some sorts of development like tourism, you need also canoe transportation. Unfortunately, many Indigenous children are forced to move to cities for education, which disconnects them from their elders, their language, and their cultural heritage. And if you don’t have a way, an affordable way of transportation, then it’s very difficult for these kids to go back to their community. So the whole Indigenous population depends on having this affordable way of transportation. That’s in part the idea of a solar-powered transportation system could help reverse this trend and creating new educational and economic opportunities locally for young people through tourism, for instance, or through learning how to maintain the renewable energy systems and allow them to stay in their communities and continue protecting the forest.
Quach: Could you tell me about the canoe itself? How does it work and how was the canoe created
Manuel-Navarrete: Our solar canoe prototype was created with a focus on keeping things local close to the communities where it will be used. The canoe itself is handcrafted by the Cofán people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and the roof is made by our Kichwa partners. And the outboard system, which is a retrofit of the traditional peke-peke motor, was developed in collaboration with engineers that graduated from St. Francis University of Quito and the Army Polytechnic School, both based in Ecuador, so it’s local engineers. Our big picture goal is to encourage local green economies by bringing renewable energy solutions to communities across the Amazon and eventually to riverine and coastal areas around the wall. We believe that by making transportation more affordable, cleaner and quieter, we can open up a range of sustainability development opportunities for these communities.
By making transportation more affordable, cleaner and quieter, we can open up a range of sustainability development opportunities for these communities.
Quach: How did the idea for solar canoes come about?
Manuel-Navarrete: So back in 2018, during my sabbatical year, I fell in love with the Amazon Rainforest forest. This might sound cliché, but I cannot find better words to describe it. I think it was the overwhelming intensity and concentration of life: the birds singing, insects buzzing, heavy storms, the immense rivers, the playfulness of monkeys. The Amazon is a sensory overload in the most beautiful way I can describe. And on top of all the natural beauty there is the deep wisdom of Indigenous cultures. So the Amazon is magnificent, and yet we continue destroying it. Like other global environmental challenges, this one seems too big for any single individual—like me, for instance, or you maybe who are listening—to do anything at all. Right? It’s easy to fall into inaction, stand by, and watch the tragedy unfold. But what saved me was to believe that the main reason this destruction continues is because too few people truly care. And this is because too few people have had the opportunity as I did, to experience the Amazon’s raw power and vitality firsthand. So the vision of my team is to change that.
We want to give as many people as possible the chance to form deep connections with the Amazon. And to do this, we create opportunities for researchers, professionals, and students in sustainability, biology, engineering, journalism, and any other relevant field really to visit the Amazon and develop projects and build relationships that in turn will support local and Indigenous forest defenders. So for this vision to come through, we needed to build the physical and human infrastructure that facilitates not only the visiting, but reciprocal relationships between visitors and local communities. The problem is that building any infrastructure deep in the forest is a logistical nightmare. And luckily Iyarina, a Kichwa community and language school near Tena, which is a mid-sized town in the Ecuadorian Amazon already has extensive experience in creating and maintaining infrastructure that supports reciprocal relationships within students and local people, exactly like the ones we needed. So between 2019 and 2021, we partnered to expand Iyarina’s efforts and we focused on these Waorani remote Indigenous communities. I was in the Curaray River that I told you about that are accessible only by canoe.
It was in this context that the idea of Solar Canoes Against Deforestation came about. Infrastructure development and study abroad programs that we were running required from us long canoe trips often lasting between five to eight hours. And the motor commonly used for these trips is called peke-peke name after the sound it makes peke-peke-peke-peke, and it’s extremely loud, scaring away wildlife. Plus the canoe pilots must endure the harsh vibrations of the motor for hours. Their hands often tremble for days after a long trip. Gas is also both expensive and very hard to obtain in these communities, and oil can be easily spilled, polluting the river. So as a sustainability scientist, the idea of solar power canoes was too compelling to ignore. Imagine silent canoes utilizing a free source of energy like the sun. This make total sense, and I believe that it will enhance, if we are successful, and I think we will, the well-being of forest protectors helping also to preserve their ancestral culture and reducing significantly the push for road construction, which is a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon.
Quach: It’s really interesting how so many things had to come together for you to create a solar canoe, which is I think something we kind of take for granted that it’s not just the ideas but the communities that we have to engage. And your experience of being there, it’s also asking folks what they need. A lot of times we just assume that of course you would build a road. That’s how everyone gets around, but that’s not what the Indigenous communities want. So how do we meet their needs and challenges? And so it’s really interesting that opportunities provided by these study abroad programs and by essentially like you said, making tourism more accessible. And so we can humanize the communities that are facing these challenges instead of seeing them as a remote far away thing.
Manuel-Navarrete: Yeah. Exactly. I mean, relationships based on trust were central to the success of this project from the outset. And a key feature of Solar Canoes Against Deforestation is that is a collaborative effort and it looks for designing and building an affordable canoe, but ensuring that the whole process is rooted in the local communities where the canoe will be used. Right? And in our context, the most important was also drawing inspiration from and striving maybe even to emulate the kinship model that is central to Kichwa, Waorani, and other Indigenous cultures. This kinship approach to building relationships focuses on fostering deep, meaningful, and lasting connections that are analogous to family bonds, to family ties rather than being or building connections that are transactional or more superficial. Right? So as I said, the relationships and trust were central.
What I have also painfully learned over the years is that there are no universal formulas for building relationships.
But what I have also painfully learned over the years is that there are no universal formulas for building relationships in the sense that relationships must be lived. Like life itself, they require attention, reflection, care, and real-time adaptations. There will be mistakes and you will need to make sacrifices along the way, often without any guarantee of success. But maybe the lesson is that one should focus on assembling a team always of people who are genuinely committed to the project’s success and who can work together and more importantly understand each other. Misunderstandings are one of the things that you really want to avoid in this project. And I think I would say internationally, globally, there is a growing recognition that successful sustainable development projects depend on building a strong relationship. So everybody knows that you need to build relationships between people from the global north and south, between formally educated professionals and locals and across cultures. And it’s not clear that you can simply introduce a solution to a community and expect it to succeed without any meaningful engagement. Right?
However, what not everybody knows maybe is that building this relationship is not only time-consuming and requires efforts and skills that are not typically taught in formal education. But few people realize that forming personal relations in intercultural contexts particular will inevitably change you as it involves questioning your own beliefs and making a space for worldviews that might conflict with your own. It’s a challenging journey, but it’s totally worth it. It’s very enriching. And one final advice is that sometimes the most difficult is knowing when a relationship no longer works and having the courage to acknowledge it and move on and continue building relationships that can work.
Quach: I think that’s really beautiful. I came into the conversation sort of just expecting to learn about how adding solar panels to canoes would change the world…
Manuel-Navarrete: I can tell you that as well. (laughs)
Quach: …but what you are saying is very beautiful. The kinship model is certainly one that many tech innovations and innovators would do well to take to heart. We’ve seen with a lot of technologies like self-driving cars, many places assume they would just change the world, and they haven’t yet and have faced a lot of community challenges, and they haven’t really embraced this kinship with communities.
Manuel-Navarrete: Another thing I have learned is that the technological part is complex and difficult and there are problems and all that, but it’s actually the easier part of this project because the social part and the human part is well much more complicated and difficult to deal with, and you need to really dedicate most of the effort to that part if you want to have any chance. Right? You know, we tend to dedicate more to the technology also because this easier. But if we only focus on the material aspects, it’s very difficult to make things sustainable. You can get the prototype and it might work, but to make it work on the field, on a place, on a particular place, dealing with all the challenges that emerge daily and all the conflicts that may arise between people, that’s something that we need to learn to figure out and be better at.
Quach: For my last question, I would just love to ask how, if I wanted to apply this kinship model to sustainability challenges, I would learn these skills since you said that they’re not ones typically taught in university classes.
Manuel-Navarrete: The problem sometimes is that the classroom context, because it’s very individualized, students come in as individuals with their own grade and expected to perform as individuals. That generates almost like a way of doing things that is not conducive to the other work. Right? And so there is a lot of emotional skills that if people doesn’t possess when the problems emerge, they don’t know what to do with them. And maybe they just walk away or blame others and not making this reflection about, okay, what did I do to create this situation? What is my role, my responsibility, and what tools do I have to deal with it? Right? So yeah, all these are skills that I think can be taught in the context of a classroom, but maybe you need a different type of curriculum.
The classroom context, because it’s very individualized, students come in as individuals with their own grade and expected to perform as individuals. That generates almost like a way of doing things that is not conducive to the other work.
Quach: Or maybe more opportunities like study abroad programs in the Amazon need to be funded.
Manuel-Navarrete: That’s one. Yeah. That’s one. And of course, any student who wants to contribute to this project, the best way would be to get involved and joining our ASU study abroad program in Ecuador in May, 2025, the official name of the program is the Global Intensive Experience on Indigenous Sustainability Solutions in the Amazon. And also, if you are a grad student, you can also apply for a foreign language and area studies fellowship, also known as FLAS from the US Department of Education to study Kichwa at the arena. Feel free to contact me and I can give you the information. And we’re also always inviting researchers from all over the world to visit us, explore research and development ideas, or even bring a study abroad group to Ecuador.
We’re looking for donors as well. People who want to help fund more solar-powered canoes or even entire river transportation system based on solar power that can use our technology wherever they are needed. Visiting these areas can be challenging for some people. You are actually out of your comfort zone many times, and that’s precisely where you start learning to also deal with people who think very different to what you have been taught or what you have learned in your own culture. So yeah, I totally recommend that in terms of learning the skills that we were mentioning.
Quach: Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a fantastic conversation about technology, building relationships, and the value of stepping outside our comfort zone, sometimes very far outside our comfort zone.
Manuel-Navarrete: Yeah. But in a good way.
Quach: Yes. In a good way. If you would like to learn more about stepping outside your comfort zone or visit the Amazon, you can visit our show notes to learn more about Solar Canoes Against Deforestation and find other resources.
Please subscribe to The Ongoing Transformation wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to our audio engineer, Shannon Lynch. I’m Kimberly Quach, Digital Engagement editor at Issues. Tune in next week to learn about the challenges faced by the Rohingya refugees and how they’re using technology to respond.