Our partnership with Fundación EcoMinga and the World Land Trust

For nearly two decades we have been working to protect a threatened cloudforest corridor in the Ecuadorian Andes, which has been classified by WWF as one of the 200 most important wildlife corridors in the world due to its high levels of biodiversity. Through the World Land Trust and their Ecuadorian partner Fundación EcoMinga*, we support direct purchase of the forest as a public nature reserve, open to the local people for no-impact ecotourism and protected from hunting, plant collection, and any other extractive activities.

In order to fund our land purchases in Ecuador, we set aside £15 out of our own profits for every person booking on a long-haul holiday and £5 for those booking a short-haul tour. Since 2007, Naturetrek has raised over £525,000 in this way, and we have protected 2,181 acres of threatened cloudforest and its endangered wildlife. This has also prevented an estimated 105,000 to 212,000 tonnes of carbon being released to the atmosphere through the felling of the cloudforest habitat. In 2023, we estimated that the lifetime emissions of our business, including all of our tours, flights and HQ activities, was approximately 185,000 tonnes between 1987 and 2023; we were surprised to see the figure sitting neatly between those estimates!**.

We also encourage all of our clients to match our donation to further reduce the impact of their holiday. By matching our donation, you will be helping us to grow our reserves, both locking up carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, and preventing the national parks from becoming isolated cloudforest islands, thereby protecting this valuable, extremely biodiverse habitat and its endangered wildlife.

The Río Pastaza valley cuts through one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, the eastern Andes of Ecuador. To the north of this valley, the high mountains are protected by a large national park, Los Llanganates National Park, where the treasure of the last Inca emperor, Atahualpa, is supposedly buried, but the vulnerable (and agriculturally valuable) lower slopes leading into the valley were left out of the park. To the south of the valley, another very large national park, Sangay, protects the highest mountains, but here too the more valuable and vulnerable lower slopes leading into the valley were left unprotected. These unprotected slopes were originally completely covered by rich cloudforest, full of locally endemic plant species, and rich in Andean wildlife such as the Spectacled Bear and endangered Mountain Tapir. The once contiguous forest provided a wildlife corridor between the two national parks, and hence between the north-east Andes and the south-east Andes of Ecuador, with only a shallow river separating them.

However, deforestation began early in this valley, which was one of the main lines of communication and travel between the Amazon basin and the densely settled inter-Andean plateau. In the 1950s a major road was built through it, and the forests began to be cut in earnest, mostly to grow the citrus fruit naranjilla (Solanum quitoense). Today the wildlife corridor between the north-east and south-east Andes, and the wealth of rare species it contains, remains under threat.

The Naturetrek Candelaria and Naturetrek Viscaya Reserves, our original reserves, have gradually grown in size since 2007 as new blocks of land became available for us to purchase. The Naturetrek Candelaria Reserve is a large block of forest within the main wildlife corridor connecting the two national parks, whilst the Naturetrek Viscaya Reserve connects the Llanganates National Park with a different kind of lower-elevation forest. 

Because the Naturetrek Reserves connect higher altitude cloudforest to the vulnerable riparian forests along the valley floor, they not only provide vital river access for large mammals and other species but also extend protection to the more diverse lower elevations that are not protected by the highland national parks in this watershed. For example, a recently discovered and very rare tree, Blakea attenboroughii, is not known from any national park yet is present in the Naturetrek Reserve. The upper Río Pastaza watershed is home to nearly 200 additional species of plants found nowhere else in the world, and this number is steadily increasing due to botanical investigation. The birdlife here is also very special, with species such as the Andean Cock-of-the-rock, Giant Antpitta, and the endangered Black-and-chestnut Eagle, one of which has been spotted by EcoMinga staff carrying a capuchin monkey through the air!

For several years now, students visiting EcoMinga’s reserves have focused on herpetological monitoring in the Naturetrek Candelaria Reserve. This has led to a new understanding of the diversity of frogs within the reserve. The most exciting result of these investigations has been the discovery of two new species of frog. In 2019, the Naturetrek Leaf Frog (Noblella naturetrekii) was described to science and named in recognition of our role in saving this species and its habitat. In 2022, another new frog species was described to science from the Naturetrek Viscaya Reserve. Maryanne’s Robber Frog (Pristimantis maryanneae) has been named in recognition of our co-founder and co-director, Maryanne Mills’ role in helping to shape the industry’s approach to sustainable tourism 30 years ago, way before carbon-offsetting and sustainability were on the mainstream agenda.

By 2024, our long-held ambition of creating a wildlife corridor between the two national parks was essentially achieved. We therefore turned our attention to the ‘El Encanto’ region which neighbours the original Candelaria and Viscaya Reserves. In December 2024 we purchased the first two in what we hope will be a series of blocks of land in this area, a combined 466 acres in size. Being at a slightly lower elevation than our existing reserves, El Encanto (meaning 'the enchanted' land) holds a wealth of mammals, including Jaguar, Puma, Ocelot, Giant Anteater, both Mountain and Brazilian Tapir, White-lipped Peccary and, of course, Spectacled Bear. Indeed, we have already captured images on a camera trap of a Jaguar that is present in our new reserve!

In 2025, we will continue to set aside out of our profits £5 for every short-haul flight and £15 for every long-haul flight that we book, to build our fund for further purchases of primary cloudforest in this area, enabling us to protect this extremely biodiverse habitat and its endangered wildlife in perptuity. 

*Fundación EcoMinga was founded in 2005 and is based in Baños, Ecuador. The organisation’s aim is to efficiently preserve biodiversity in Ecuador. WLT and Naturetrek have been working with Fundación EcoMinga since 2007.

**Tentative carbon retention estimates for the Naturetrek reserves in Ecuador provided by Fundación EcoMinga. Lifetime carbon emissions for Naturetrek 1987 - 2023 calculated in collaboration with the specialist carbon consultancy ecollective.