The Chocó forests of northwest Ecuador form part of one of the ten most important biodiversity hotspots globally. The Chocó lies between the Andes and the Pacific coast, and stretches from Panama, through Colombia, and into northwest Ecuador. With more than 11,000 species of vascular plants, the Chocó is the floristic hotspot of the Americas. The Ecuadorian Chocó alone supports 900 species of birds, more than 8% of all bird species on Earth. The Chocó even surpasses the Amazon in the number of endemic and range-restricted species.
While the Chocó is almost as diverse as the much better-known Amazon basin, it is far more threatened by rapid deforestation. The Ecuadorian Chocó was entirely forested in 1938, but by 1988, only 50 years later, 95% of the forests in western Ecuador below 3,000 feet (900 m) had already disappeared. There is a consensus that less than 3% of lowland forests remain now, and deforestation continues.
We formulated a response to these threats: create a Ring of Defense by buffering and connecting existing protected areas to form a contiguous conservation network spanning more than 1.2 million acres (500,000 ha). This is the only area in the western tropical Andes where the entire range of ecosystems can be protected from less than 200 feet above sea level to more than 16,000 feet (50-4,900 m) in elevation. Fortunately, we aren’t starting from zero, and more than half of our target is already protected.
The largest intact wilderness area that remains in the Ecuadorian Chocó is the 645,000-acre (261,000-ha) Cotacachi-Cayapas National Park. Our largest reserve, Canandé, along with indigenous reserves, private reserves, and less strictly protected governmental areas, buffer some of that national park. A series of private reserves, including our Yanacocha Reserve, protect higher elevation Andean forests.