NGO founded: 1997
Partnership with WLT formed: 2010
Organisation’s aim: NCEcuador is part of Naturaleza y Cultura Internacional (NCI), which works throughout South America and has programmes in Colombia, Mexico and Peru as well as in Ecuador. NCI's overall mission is to conserve Latin America's most extraordinary yet highly threatened ecosystems and cultures by saving endangered habitats, strengthening local capacity, and helping communities preserve their way of life.
Partner history
NCEcuador works through a local staff and with local governments and communities to conserve a wide range of natural ecosystems from dry coastal forests, to the rich cloud forests of the Andean mountains, to the rainforests of the Amazon basin.
Partnership with WLT
Renzo Paladines, Director of NCEcuador, was introduced to the WLT through a mutual partner, IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands (IUCN NL). He attended a symposium in 2009 entitled Payments for Ecological Services and Strengthening Memberships, held by WLT and IUCN NL in Brazil. After discussing the benefits of teaming-up with NCEcuador and similarities in their approach to protecting natural resources, NCEcuador became an official WLT partner in 2010.
Projects with WLT
The Ecuador Rainforests
WLT began raising funds through Buy an Acre in January 2011, funding land purchase to create nature reserves to protect threatened habitat and wildlife.
Carbon Balanced
As part of WLT's Carbon Balanced programme, we are helping to fund the protection of an area within the Jambué Rainforest Reserve. This project also has the added benefit of protecting the local community’s water supplies.
Keepers of the Wild
WLT also offers support through the Keepers of the Wild appeal, which funds rangers on our partners' reserves.
Other projects and activities
- Forest protection programmes in the Tumbesian Dry Forest and Andean Cloud forests;
- Working with indigenous communities to preserve cultural traditions and capacity building in the Upper Amazonian rainforest;
- Watershed protection by purchasing key areas to safeguard water supplies;
- Research projects in NCEcuador's San Francisco Scientific Station, studying many aspects of tropical forests;
- Environmental education, including training teachers in basic scientific research through the Schoolyard Ecology Program.
Awards and achievements
2013: In May UNESCO declared Macizo de Cajas a biosphere reserve. NCEcuador acted as the lead catalyst in creating this two million acre biosphere reserve, the first in the Ecuadorian Western Andes.
Executive Director: Renzo Paladines
