Amazon Andes Program

Thanks to its strategic location, this area is home to a unique variety of plants and animals that combine species from the Andes and the Amazon. Here, we seek to maintain the connectivity of an entire ladder of ecosystems, from the icy Andean peaks to the jungle of the upper Napo, giving species more space to thrive.

From glaciers at the tops of mountains three miles high (5 km), across active volcanoes, to the foothills of the Amazon rainforest and the winding Napo River, few regions offer landscapes that are as dramatically diverse as this one. In fact, the east slope of the Tropical Andes is considered to be the “hottest” of the global biodiversity hotspots. Birds reach their highest global diversity here. Connecting and buffering existing reserves is a high priority, as deforestation is accelerating.

Up in the highlands, Chakana Reserve complements the conservation of páramo grasslands of Antisana National Park and is home to one-third of the population of Andean Condors in Ecuador. On the lower border of this park, our Narupa Reserve connects with Sumaco Napo – Galeras National Park, creating a nearly 740,000-acre (300,000-hectare) continuous protected landscape. We intend to close the gaps within these protected areas’ buffer zones by expanding our reserves and supporting other private reserves, national parks, and Kijos-Kichwa communal forests.

We work closely in the region with five indigenous communities that belong to the Kichwa and Kijo nations.

Our Chakana Reserve is part of the buffer zone of the Antisana National Park and the large conservation mosaic that includes Sumaco Napo-Galeras and Cayambe-Coca National Parks.

A spectacled bear could travel from Chakana Reserve to Narupa Reserve without danger because the Antisana National Park interconnects both reserves.

OUR PROGRAMS

Chocó Tumbes Program

The Chumbes program covers a region where there is a unique blending of wet Chocó ecosystems with Tumbesian and Andean dry forests. Like its ecosystems, the Chumbes name itself is derived from combining the Chocó and Tumbes names together. The Rio Jubones carved a 2,000-meter-deep gorge through the middle of this region, creating a barrier to wildlife. The resulting islands in the sky host unique species that have been isolated for millennia. The pressures from agricultural expansion and mining here are severe.

Podocarpus – El Cóndor Program

The Podocarpus-El Cóndor Biosphere Reserve hosts a very special assembly of Andean ecosystems, humid forests of the El Cóndor mountain range, older than the Andes, and one of the few dry forests of the Amazon basin trapped between both. Nine of these ecosystems are unique as a whole and all of them are home to countless endemic species. At the same time, destruction due to deforestation and mining is still spreading fast, making our conservation job a high priority if we are to prevent the extinction of hundreds of species, many of them still unknown to science.

Galápagos Program

Located 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean, the iconic islands are famed for their biodiversity and have been a living laboratory for the study of evolution for nearly two centuries. The islands are close enough to the mainland that plants and animals have managed to find their way to them. The islands are far enough from the mainland and from each other that once plants and animals arrive, they become isolated and evolve into new and unique species.

Chocó Andes Program

The Chocó forests of northwest Ecuador form part of one of the ten most important biodiversity hotspots globally. While the Chocó is almost as diverse as the much better-known Amazon basin, it is far more threatened by rapid deforestation.