Nature and Culture International - Ecuador
NGO founded: 1997
Partnership with WLT formed: 2010
Organisation’s aim: 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. Nature and Culture International (NCI) works throughout South America and has programmes in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.
Partner history
NCI 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 NCI Ecuador, was introduced to the WLT through a mutual partner, IUCN-NL. He attended a symposium in 2009 on “Payments for Ecological Services and Strengthening Memberships”, held by WLT and IUCN-NL in Brazil. After discussing the benefits of teaming-up with NCI Ecuador and similarities in their approach to protecting natural resources, they 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 Rio Nea 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 NCI'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.
Executive Director: Renzo Paladines
Sir David Attenborough, WLT Patron
