FONAG: Protecting Quito's Páramo Grasslands for Water

Created in 2000 by The Nature Conservancy and Quito's public water utility, FONAG is a permanent trust fund that channels contributions from water users into conserving and restoring the páramo — the tussock-grass and cushion-plant grasslands blanketing the high Andes around Quito. FONAG now owns or co-manages roughly 20,840 hectares of páramo and holds conservation agreements covering a further 27,262 hectares of community and private land, and by 2024 had directly restored 17,855 hectares of degraded páramo, wetland and highland-forest terrain. Its work protects the water supply for around 2.8 million residents of metropolitan Quito, funded through an endowment that had grown to roughly $38.9 million.