Conservation opportunities are often time-sensitive. When strategically located lands become available, the ability to act quickly can mean the difference between permanent protection and permanent loss. Through rapid, flexible grants, QRFN helps trusted partners seize these opportunities and turn them into lasting conservation outcomes.
Over the past decade, QRFN has supported Fundación Jocotoco through a series of targeted grants that have helped create or expand five of the Jocotoco’s 19 reserves, protecting critical habitats across Ecuador’s most important ecosystems, from Chocó rainforests and Andean cloud forests to Amazon foothill forests and tropical dry forests.
- Buenaventura Reserve: Two QRFN grants have helped expand this reserve in the lower montane rainforests of the southwestern Ecuadorian Andes from 2,500 to 4,500 hectares since the first grant in 2015, an 80% increase. Today, Buenaventura protects habitat for 8 Critically Endangered and 29 Endangered species.
- Tapichalaca Reserve: Four QRFN grants since 2018 have helped grow this reserve from 3,600 to 8,300 hectares, an increase of more than 130%. Protecting Andean cloud forests and temperate mountain ecosystems in southern Ecuador, Tapichalaca supports 4 Critically Endangered and 73 Endangered species.
- Las Balsas Reserve: A 2018 QRFN grant helped secure this 95-hectare reserve protecting one of western Ecuador’s most threatened ecosystems, tropical dry forest. Despite its small size, Las Balsas safeguards approximately 90% of the global population of the Lilacine Amazon.
- Canandé Reserve: A 2018 QRFN grant helped catalyze expansion of this reserve protecting the Chocó lowland rainforest, one of the world’s most threatened biodiversity hotspots. Since then, the reserve has grown from 8,500 to 19,000 hectares, safeguarding habitat for 14 Critically Endangered and 40 Endangered species.
- Narupa Reserve: A 2022 QRFN grant supported the expansion of this reserve in the Amazon-Andes foothills of northern Ecuador, where lower montane forests connect the Andes and Amazon. The reserve increased from 2,300 to 2,800 hectares, strengthening protection for at least six Endangered species.
Together, these grants demonstrate the catalytic power of rapid conservation funding. By enabling timely action on strategic land acquisitions, QRFN’s partnership with Fundación Jocotoco has helped secure thousands of additional hectares of habitat for some of Ecuador’s most threatened species, generating conservation outcomes that extend far beyond the scale of the original investments.
Written by Sanjiv Fernando