Twenty community members from the Valle de Los Manduriacos, who are training to be forest rangers, participated in the territory and participatory mapping workshop held in March. The workshop consisted of two phases: the first focused on political mapping, led by José Cueva, a member of the CIPBAT team, and the second on social mapping

Representatives from the Los Cedros Forest communities visited Yunguilla to learn about sustainable development, organization, and collective hope.

In February, the second phase of the Community Forest Ranger Training Program began, with 10 young adults from last year’s program joined by 10 new young adults from the communities surrounding the Los Cedros Protected Forest, including Brillasol, Magdalena Alto, Chontal, Magdalena Bajo, Pueblo Unido, Paraíso, Río Verde, Villaflora, and Cielo Verde. Each council received

In this post, we’d like to share with you a preview of the work we’ve been doing throughout this year to promote conservation and love for the Los Cedros Protected Forest (LCPF), together with the communities of the Manduriacos Valley. Our organization, the Corporation for the Investigation and Protection of the Tropical Andes’ Forests (CIPBAT

In this post, you’ll find a brief overview of the educational approach that we’ve conceived of, dreamed up, and continue to build on as part of the Environmental Education program carried out in collaboration with schools and educational districts in the Intag area of the Los Manduriacos Valley. A project of the Los Cedros Scientific

On moths and attraction…

Since the first months of 2024, CIPBAT—the Los Cedros Scientific Station team—has carried out a dream of our founder Josef DeCoux: make an alliance with the Manduriacos Valley school systems to benefit the children and adolescents of the communities surrounding the Los Cedros Protected Forest (LCPF) with environmental education. Los Cedros’s incredible ecosystem would provide

In December 2024, we made a visit to the Santa Lucía Ecological Reserve in Pichincha’s northwestern parish of Nanegal. Including Los Cedros Scientific Station (LCSS) staff and key players from the Manduriacos Valley, we went with the aim of learning more about other conservation projects in northwest Ecuador.

English botanist Tom Wells—a researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Kew Gardens)—went into the Los Cedros Protected Forest for a few weeks in November to research the Lauraceae family, whose members include plants such as the aguacatillo and cinnamon tree. Lauraceae is of great interest, in part, because this family is widespread throughout Chocó