Thanks to your support and generous donations, we’re delighted to announce that our Protecting the Ecuadorian Amazon appeal has reached its £1.3 million target. Our partner Nature and Culture in Ecuador can now establish a new Provincial Protected Area in Ecuador’s Orellana province.
The Ecuadorian Amazon contains vast areas of untouched rainforest, full of incredible biodiversity, which is under serious threat from agricultural expansion and illegal gold mining. In Orellana alone, around 800,000 ha of intact rainforest currently receives no protection at all. Your support will now help to change this story.
What your donations will do
Thanks to your generosity, Nature and Culture in Ecuador will now bring local governments and Indigenous communities together over the next four years to protect an estimated 747,000 ha of vital forest in Orellana.
Your donations to the appeal will:
- Support Nature and Culture in Ecuador with the logistical work required to create the Provincial Protected Area, including planning and land designation.
- Fund the consultation process between Orellana’s Indigenous Nationalities and representatives from Orellana’s provincial government.
- Enable Nature and Culture in Ecuador to organise community workshops, host provincial meetings, training, and conduct biodiversity surveys.
- Provide employment for four full-time Nature and Culture in Ecuador staff once the Provincial Protected Area is designated, to build community capacity and initial management plans for the area.
Marking our twelfth Big Match Campaign, every donation made to the appeal during Big Match Fortnight (2-20 October) was matched to double its gift value, expanding your impact even further.
Each donation means so much and will go on to make a huge difference for this remarkable area and the communities that live there.
A project spanning the Ecuadorian Amazon
This new protected area in Orellana will cover a vast area in itself but will also form an integral part of a wider project.
Since 2018, Nature and Culture in Ecuador have been working to build the Amazon Platform for Forest, Climate, and Human Wellbeing Initiative. This initiative aims to preserve a staggering 5.5 million hectares of connected forest across the entire Ecuadorian Amazon.
Protected areas have already been established in three southern provinces, and now your donations will allow Nature and Culture in Ecuador to expand the Amazon Platform northwards, connecting existing protected areas in the south with the forests of the north.
Through collaboration with Indigenous Nationalities, such as the Kichwa and Waorani, this project in Orellana will help communities safeguard the forests they have lived in for thousands of years, while also protecting the habitats of threatened and charismatic species like the Amazon River Dolphin, Giant Otter and Harpy Eagle.
From all of us at World Land Trust and Nature and Culture in Ecuador, we want to say a huge Thank You!
We are extremely appreciative of every single donation you have made to our Protecting the Ecuadorian Amazon appeal, and we can’t wait to share future updates with you as the project progresses.
