Guarding Ecuador's Andean Cloud Forests, Reserve by Reserve

Fundación EcoMinga protects cloud forests and páramo grasslands across a network of 15 private reserves in Ecuador, spanning elevations from about 900 to nearly 3,900 meters in the upper Río Pastaza watershed as well as the Dracula and Manduriacu reserves in the Chocó region. Since forming in 2005, the foundation and its partners have documented close to 100 species new to science in the Pastaza corridor alone, including an entirely new rodent genus described in 2020. Its reserves protect centers of endemism that fall outside Ecuador's national park system, safeguarding roughly 12,000 hectares of forest and grassland that would otherwise remain unprotected.