WWF Ecuador: AMAZON, Connecting humans and nature by WWF Ecuador

SUMMARY

+50 more then 50 years working on conservation in Ecuador

WWF provided funds for the establishment of the Charles Darwin Research Station

WWF works in Ecuadorian Amazon, Chocó, Pacific Ocean and Galapagos

2003 WWF opens its firts official office inPuerto Ayora, Santa CruzGalapagos

1962

4 geographic regions

WWF ECUADOR: AMAZON Connecting humans and nature

WWF Ecuador

In 1962, WWF started supporting conservation activities in Ecuador by providing the funds necessary for the establishment of the Charles Darwin Research Station in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos. Since then, not only in that archipelago but across the country, we have been involved in an enormous variety of projects with an emphasis on conserving the Ecuadorian biodiversity and achieving sustainable development for its people. As an international NGO cooperating with the Ecuador´s Government and its people, we opened our office in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos, in 2003, where we still maintain an important presence. WWF Ecuador works in four geographic regions of the country: Ecuadorian Amazon: working cooperatively with the local communities and across all government levels, WWF Ecuador provides a unique contribution to conserving the protected areas and biodiversity of this region while promoting the well-being of the local people. We also coordinate our work with neighboring Colombia and Peru. Chocó: WWF conserves the ecological integrity of ecosystems in the Chocó-Darien Ecoregion through capacity building and empowering local people, and by assessing ecosystem services and the reduction of impacts from habitat transformation and the effects of climate change. Pacific Coast: in coordination with the Eastern Pacific’s strategy for managing sustainable fishing, WWF encourages sustainable practices through capacity building and working toward the certification of key fisheries. Galapagos Archipelago: WWF cooperates consolidating the technical capacity of governmental institutions and local companies to assure an integrated conservation of ecosystems and the reduc tion of the human footprint.

ECUADORIAN AMAZON The Amazon harbors 50% of the tropical forest in the world. Almost 7 million square kilometers covers the largest tropical rainforest on the planet. In addition, the Amazon basin contains several vegetation types such as savannas, flooded forests, swamps, dry forests, closed forests, puna and paramo , and cloud forests. And on top of that, it has the largest river system on Earth: the Amazon River which runs 6,600 kilometers from its sources until the Atlantic Ocean. With its hundreds of tributaries, it accounts for 16% of the world´s fresh water that ends in the sea. As far as we know, the Amazon harbors more than 10% of the world’s biological diversity and the number of newly described plant and animal species continues to increase at an unpredictable rate. In Ecuador, the Amazon covers approximately 116.284 square kilometers or approximately 42% of the national territory. Geographically, in Ecuador, the Amazon river begins in the high summits and ridges of the Andean cordillera, at altitudes often well above 4,000 masl, dominated by paramo and Polylepis forests. Descending from the high Andes, the so-called ‘Amazon biome’ begins at the upper limits of the Cordillera Real Montane Forests, at varying altitudes between 3,300 and 3,700 masl, and continues descending to the Napo Moist Forests, at altitudes between 200 and 100 masl. There, the vast plains of the Amazon are dominated by a diversity of broad-leaf forests, flooded forests, palm forest, and wetlands, combined with rivers of white and black waters. The goal of WWF is to have, by 2030, critical areas of the land and water ecosystems of the Amazon preserved, securing the existence of its species, the permanence of its environmental services and its role as a global climate regulator. In 2010, WWF launched the “Living Amazon Initiative (LAI)” with a vision constructed under the conviction that the destiny of humanity is inseparable from the future of the Amazon and that humanity has, within its availability, the means to secure a prosperous future without destroying the natural heritage of the Amazon biome. According to this principle, the vision was raised as “An ecologically healthy Amazonian biome that maintains its environmental and cultural contributions for the local people, the countries in the region and the entire world in a framework of social equity including economic development and global responsibility”. In the Ecuadorian Amazon, WWF has prioritized its work in two important hydrographic basins: Putumayo and Pastaza. © Alejandro Polling / WWF Colombia | Niña perteneciente a comunidad indígena

FOREST CONSERVATION, HUMAN LIVELIHOODS AND COMMUNITY PROTECTION © Fernando Bajaña / WWF Ecuador | Cuyabeno Wildlife Production Reserve

One might think that conservation can only be achieved by leaving nature intact. One might also think that humans can only be the destructive force that triggers all conservation efforts. But both ideas are also very far from what practical forest conservation efforts demonstrate. Forest conservation is a very interesting form of economic alternative in this fast changing and threatened planet. The jungle provides major environmental human services. It allows us to breathe, it protects us from major catastrophes and it helps maintain a safe climate. Until recently, these values were not economically understood as a form of natural service. Fortunately, a new paradigm is emerging very quickly as climate change has begun to express itself in day to day problems such as water scarcity or floods. During the period 2000 to 2008, the annual average deforestation in Ecuador was at least 77.647 hectares. A very high number when compared to the size of the country. This major environmental issue became a national problem and in 2008 the Ministry of Environment begun a long process to overcome this. In this process the Ecuadorian Government created the Socio Bosque Program focused on providing economic incentive, a partnership between communities or individuals and government, in exchange for the protection of private forest remnants. WWF works in two priority areas: the Putumayo watershed, particularly in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Production Reserve, in the northern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and in the so-called Ecological Corridor Llanganates – Sangay. In the case of the Putumayo watershed and the Cuyabeno Reserve, our actions have been guided by the ‘Putumayo Three Borders’ project. Through it, we have been able to work with three communities from the Cuyabeno Wildlife Production Reserve: the Indigenous Center Shuar Charap, the Kichwa Zancudo Cocha community and the Indigenous Center Shuar Taikiua, all them included in the Socio Bosque Program. In the Llanganates-Sangay Corridor, we played a major role in the restoration of degraded areas, an endeavor in which we continue working. Today, after three years as part of the Project, communities have already begun to feel the benefits of the process. Ten families from the Charap Center and 28 families from Zancudo Cocha are widely investing on their development while also protecting their land. The money given by the Ministry of Environment has been destined to monitoring and surveillance of the land in order to control their territory limits assuring its protection. The money has also been invested in new economic alternatives giving it a broader and longer sustainable view. New equipment and better conditions for the communities’ schools, new individual homes and other investments are examples of the importance of this fund. In the case of the women from the Charap Center, they created a small animal-breeding center for their own food supply and to resell them in local markets. And in Zancudo Cocha, the community built post-harvest handling infrastructure for their cocoa production and invested in new tourism infrastructure for their Cuyabeno Tourism Center. For the " Restoration of Degraded Areas in the Ecological Corridor Llanganates - Sangay (CELS)” in Pastaza, until 2014, seventeen families and the Ancestral Kichwa de Canelos community have been included in Socio Bosque. In the case of the Ancestral Kichwa de Canelos community, over 13.153 ha of their territory is being protected while the community receives a significant monetary compensation. In this case, WWF continued supporting and assisting the community on formulating their respective investment plans which include their goals on social, economic, environmental and surveillance solutions for their territory For families in Pastaza, the funds have been mostly invested on improvement of their health and living conditions. In this group, the local NGO MEZONIA is a big example of the possibilities that this support gives to people. This private property is now a wildlife rescue center thanks to its owner’s investing of the funds on improvements and installations maintenance. Socio Bosque brings to life the concept of nature conservation as an economic alternative. It is a great example of a project that brings together better livelihoods, conservation and sustainability to practice. If we want to protect earth we need to understand from the beginning that protection means also community inclusion: we cannot separate nature from humans, in that balance lays the real formula towards our planet conservation.

CACAO WITH A SCENT OF WOMAN, CHOCOLATE, AND SUCUMBÍOS Several women saw an opportunity in 2009: to take advantage of the considerable amounts of cacao in the Pacayacu region of Ecuador’s Sucumbíos province, and to create an alternative income for their families. In July 2010, the Porvenir women’s association achieved legal recognition from the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion, calling itself the Social Participation Association of El Porvenir, Pacayacu. The twelve members of the group are originally from different provinces, like Bolivar, Manabi, Loja, and Los Rios. They arrived in the northern Amazonian province in the seventies and eighties when oil extraction begun to grow. The association has set an administrative scheme that suits them and allows all women to take part on each of the different tasks. Eight members work in the production phase and the other four members are involved in sales. For now, they produce the entire cacao in a house provided by the Sucumbíos Vicariate. In the long term, thanks to a property donation from the Pacayacu Parish Council, they will build their own production plant. They have basic equipment that was donated by the Sucumbíos Provincial Government, which replaced the utensils they used in the beginning to produce artisanal cacao paste. One of the groups founding members, Nelly Rojas, commented that “Even though we have modernized, we haven’t forgotten how in the beginning we used a big pan to toast the cacao. We husked the cacao pods by hand and used a household grinder to mash up the pulp.” Nowadays, the cacao paste comes from fine national cacao and fine aroma cacao, perhaps among the best cacao in the world, which is harvested from family lots in the Kichwa community of Zancudo Cocha, inside the lower Cuyabeno Wildlife Production Reserve. This cacao has a rich, fruity, and floral aroma and is grown in the shade of native trees. The women’s association is especially interested in supporting this indigenous community from the Cuyabeno through commercial and solidarity agreements. The quality of the dried bean is an important factor for production and the pasta’s yield, as doña María Huilca testifies: “When the cacao pod is pretty, dry, and doesn’t have too much slime… it has a better yield and a bushel can produce around seventy-five pounds. But when the pod is wet, moldy, too small, or too slimy, it only produces 60, or 65 pounds of paste… and this also causes problems with the husking machine because the shell doesn’t come off right and we have to take it off by hand so that there isn’t a lot of waste… This is why we prefer to buy cacao from Zancudo… because it has a better output and a finer aroma.” The four women involved in the marketing and sale of the paste visit the surrounding cantonal capitals, like Lago Agrio, Cascales, Shushufindi, El Sacha, El Coca, and Loreto, where they go “door-to-door” offering and selling cacao paste and teaching people of the qualities of this cacao. They also participate in artisan fairs to promote their products and to receive interesting feedback on their product. “… We have participated in several fairs, like the one in Tena. We’ve been going there for two years with the help of WWF’s project ‘Putumayo Three Borders’… The first year, four of our members went. Two of us worked in a stand at the fair and two of us went around the city selling out product. We also helped members of Espresso de Oriente sell their coffee. Our product brought us to Quevedo (coast area) where we were able to see how chocolate bars are made and we talked with cacao producers from the coast. They asked us why we hadn’t brought out cacao paste to sell in their fair... Other members of the association have received sanitation and accounting courses so that they can use computer programs. And the last thing we did was develop a plan where we talked about the problem’s facing the store, the things we need, as well as good ideas for the future.” Carolina Sumba, member of the association. The El Porvenir woman’s association is aware that their product can move beyond provincial and regional borders. A market analysis supported by WWF is allowing the women’s Association to see bigger and more interesting business ventures to help them grow.

This unique project has proven to be an example for alternative development that not only helps protect the Amazon but most of all allow communities and individuals to develop business models that can grow into important companies without compromising their ecosystems. In the case of El Porvenir association it also involves integrated business models in a more equitable way with a product made with high quality national cacao from indigenous Kichwa farmers that live inside a protected area. No wonder their package reads out the scent of women, chocolate, and Sucumbíos.

LETING CHANGE FLOW THROUGH REGIONAL CONSERVATION EFFORTS The Amazon basin is characterized by the presence of several major rivers. They seem to flow through the jungle as veins connecting ecosystems, providing life to millions of species and humans that live along their banks and beaches. The Putumayo River is a great example of this. It is born in the Andes and runs through Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. Its river basin is part of the Napo-Putumayo Pleistocene Refuge, making it home to thousands of endemic species with a globally recognized importance within the Amazon. In addition, fourteen ancestral indigenous peoples have their territories in this region, as well as major mestizo towns. This unique place has been a priority for WWF since 2009. The Ecuador, Colombia and Peru Country Programs have worked with environmental authorities from each country to create a tri-national project to protect the Putumayo river basin: the so-called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Putumayo Three Bordersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The project aims at establishing technical coordination and integration agreements amongst national, local and community authorities. This will allow three main goals: more protected areas with better control and surveillance systems; financial and development alternatives for better livelihoods within the region; and help facilitating better decision making on political issues regarding the conservation of the basin and the sustainability of its inhabitants. Since its launch in 2009, the project has achieved various groundbreaking goals. In the Cuyabeno Wildlife Production Reserve, agreements with the Reserve Head Manager and the Biodiversity Directorate from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment have led to improving their capacities in control and surveillance as well as provisioning the rangers with better equipment. Furthermore, major effort has been put into capacity building on legal issues and on managing and mitigating local problems such as tourist activities, oil exploitation and un-resolved land tenure in protected areas. Due to the uniqueness of this region and the cornucopia of species, one of the activities in the project was the installation of camera traps in the Reserve to help capture and systematize information on the species and their characteristics. This activity was implemented jointly with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, particularly its team from the Tiputini Reserch Center. Nearly fifteen park rangers were trained on these techniques. As a result, fifteen camera traps were installed, obtaining a first sampling of 236 photographs of 16 species, including species considered very rare, such as the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis). During the second sampling, more than 2240 photographs of animal species were collected, capturing more than 29 rare species of birds and mammals including large predators such as the Puma (Puma concolor) and the Jaguar (Panthera onca). In only 5 years the advances achieved in this great project are huge. It is not only what it has brought for conservation in Ecuador but most of all is the idea and understanding that the efforts to protect vast territories is a joint regional effort with ambitious integrated work amongst ONGs, governments, Academic and most of all communities; because, conservation is not an individual effort if we really want to achieve unique and pioneering goals.

2240

photographs of animal species collected rare species