Our Organization
The Chocó Alliance is committed to accelerating and enhancing the impact of local conservation organizations protecting and regenerating the highly biodiverse forests, foothills, and lowlands of Northwest Ecuador.
The members of the Alliance are all exceptional field conservation organizations, led by dedicated and passionate individuals who are part of the communities where they live and operate. This intimate knowledge of the landscape, with its endemic species and traditional customs, allows for flexible and adaptive conservation efforts, tailored to what works locally.
Our Values
All members of the Chocó Alliance operate according to the highest ethical standards, and have a proven track record of outstanding conservation, restoration and regeneration work. Led by members of local communities, our organizations have been protecting their regions for many years from illegal loggers, mining exploitation, and unsustainable agricultural practices.
Participatory Management
Inclusive Governance
Regenerative Livelihoods
Rights and Access
Meet our members
Aves y Conservación
Founded in 1986, Aves y Conservación (AyC) has been studying and protecting birds and their habitats for almost four decades across a large part of Ecuador. In 2022, AyC created the Kinti Toisán Reserve, which covers 104 hectares and borders the Pajas de Oro Protected Forest and Cotacachi Cayapas National Park. Kinti Toisán is located in KBA Intag-Toisán and is part of the Intag-Toisán ACUS-MIT. Here, populations of the threatened Black-breasted Pufflegs and Black-and-chestnut Eagles live.
Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag (DECOIN)
For nearly 30 years, DECOIN has empowered the communities of Ecuador’s Intag Valley to preserve and enhance their watersheds. With support from local residents and volunteers, DECOIN has established 38 local government and community-owned and managed reserves, protecting 12,000 hectares that provide clean water for dozens of communities, as well as protecting pristine forests and hundreds of species facing extinction.
Fundación EcoMinga
Fundacion EcoMinga is dedicated to the conservation of the unique foothill forests, cloud forests, and alpine grasslands (“paramo”) of the Andes. With its reserves, EcoMinga protects 8,000 hectares of highly biodiverse areas, together with the support of local communities. protege la biodiversidad, defiende la vida y busca la sostenibilidad de las comunidades.
Fundación Great Leaf
Great Leaf is headed by an interdisciplinary team converging in the same interest, nature preservation. In the Chocó, Great Leaf manages La Esperanza Forest, a biodiversity refuge that is disconnected from other forest remnants. Its conservation and restoration contributes to the health of many species, such as the endangered howler monkey and new discovered tree species, and to the provision of ecosystem services.
Fundacion Imaymana
Fundación Imaymana works with a territorial and integrative approach, in wildlife areas (conservation, restoration and research), areas of sustainable production (food sovereignty, sustainable entrepreneurship) and networks of human settlements (access to fundamental rights and basic services).
Imaymana manages six reserves: Intillacta, Mangaloma, Pambiliño, Mashpi Shungo, Río Guaycuyacu and El Moro, where ongoing research and innovation are carried out to develop regenerative land management practices in permanent interaction with the communities surrounding the reserves and with academic institutions.
The NGO provides environmental education in schools and colleges in the northwestern area of Pichincha through the Chocó Andino School Forest Network.
Fundación para la Conservación de los Andes Tropicales (FCAT)
FCAT is an Ecuadorian NGO composed of local residents and scientists to collect and use reliable information to conserve endangered habitat and species and promote social and economic well-being. FCAT combines capacity building and educational activities with scientific research, land purchase, and income diversification to take an integrative approach to conservation.
Fundación Tesoro Escondido
The Tesoro Escondido Reserve protects over 2,000 hectares of primary forest in the Chocó lowlands. This area is highly threatened by timber extraction, monocrops and mining concessions. The reserve protects one of the last healthy populations of Ecuadorian brown-headed spider monkeys, as well as Great Green Macaw, the Banded-Ground Cuckoo, the Harpy Eagle and the magnificent jaguar.
Los Cedros (CIPBAT)
Los Cedros is a Protected Forest in the northwest of Ecuador, in the Tropical Andes and the Chocó region. It is a 15.000 Acre wildlife refuge, founded in 1988 by Jose Decoux and a group of scientists, researchers and philanthropists from Ecuador and various parts of the world.
The Los Cedros Scientific Station is a private, non-profit initiative that provides services for visitors, researchers, and volunteers. For more than 30 years it has been the epicenter of the protection and care of Los Cedros Protected Forest.
Los Cedros has a strategic alliance with the Corporation for Research and Protection of the Tropical Andes Forests – CIPBAT, an organization created by the Research Station and local and national partners to manage projects and administer funds.
Neblina Cloud Forest Reserve
The Neblina Reserve consists of over 2,700 hectares of threatened tropical montane cloud forest in north-west Ecuador.
A unique, extremely diverse and threatened ecosystem, tropical montane cloud forests occur on humid mountain slopes where topography generates conditions for ground level clouds. They play an important role in the water cycle, capturing the water and then feeding the streams and rivers.
Teeming with wildlife, this area of forest is unusually rich in orchids and epiphytes alongside endangered animal species such as Andean bears, pumas, ocelots, tapirs, toucans, rare frogs, hummingbirds and the highly endangered black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori). 104 endemic species of mammals, amphibians and birds in the area are threatened and in decline.
The Neblina Reserve is located in the Tropical Andes global biodiversity hotspot very close to, and a buffer area for, the Cotacachi Cayapas Ecological Reserve.
Proyecto Washu
Proyecto Washu is an Ecuadorian NGO dedicated to the conservation of the Ecuadorian Chocó and the primates of this region. The approach integrates scientific research, community strengthening, environmental education, the establishment and management of private reserves, and the rehabilitation and rescue of primates that are victims of illegal wildlife trafficking. Proyecto Washu’s flagship species is the brown-headed spider monkey, one of the 25 most endangered primate species in the world and listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List.
Third Millennium Alliance (TMA)
Since 2007, TMA has protected and restored more than 1,600 hectares of forest with local communities, conservation partners, scientists, and international supporters. The TMA’s approach merges active forest preservation, community-based restoration and regenerative agroforestry, with the vision to create a 40,000 hectares ecological corridor (“Capuchin Corridor”) over the next decade.
Our partners
CEDENMA
CEDENMA (Coordinadora Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones para la Defensa de la Naturaleza y el Medio Ambiente) is a coalition of Ecuadorian civil organizations dedicated to environmental protection and sustainable development. Founded in 1988, it comprises over 50 member organizations working collectively to defend nature and promote environmental sustainability in Ecuador.
Jardín Botánico Padre Julio Marrero
The Jardín Botánico Padre Julio Marrero, part of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Santo Domingo, is Ecuador's first internationally accredited botanical garden. It focuses on environmental education, scientific research, conservation of the Chocó region's flora, and community development.