The Mache-Chindul Project | Ecuador
Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Fondo Ambiental Nacional, Emerson College
Integrating Equitable Livelihoods, Environmental Lending, & Science-based Reforestation
In the northwest corner of Ecuador, Esmeraldas Province marks the southern limit of one of the most threatened and least known rainforest systems on earth: the Chocó Biogeographical Region. Spanning 100,000 km2 of coastline up through Colombia to the border of Panama, these forests are typified by high biodiversity, extraordinary endemism, and rampant habitat loss. Moreover, since much of the Chocó’s rich biodiversity overlaps with that of the Amazon, these Andean foothill forests are predicted to provide crucial climate refugia for species less adaptable to long-distance migration. Today, land conversion trends that began with government-sponsored colonization initiatives in 1964 have reduced the Ecuadorian Chocó to less than 4% of its original forest cover. What remains is largely contained within two sister reserves: the 204,000-hectare Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve and the 121,000-hectare Mache-Chindul Ecological Reserve.
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Of the two reserves, Mache-Chindul is the more precarious due to its isolation from other forested areas (see map) and the presence of some 50 poverty-stricken communities within its borders. These communities lack all basic services, enjoy little governmental or institutional support, and have few options for livelihood improvement. Regional agriculture and timber markets are laden with intermediary brokers, ensuring a steady stream of poorly-paid raw materials from within the reserve. Mature or alternative markets are scarce to non-existent. Surrounded by old-growth rainforest, Mache-Chindul’s inhabitants are unable to benefit from the forest's natural capital and the services they provide to humanity (e.g., carbon sequestration and biodiversity). Consequently, they are hacking away at their greatest asset for a pittance of its worth, one tree at a time.
Yet, deforestation is only part of the equation in the rapid disappearance of rainforests. Fragmented and isolated forest tracts—like Mache-Chindul—undergo a self-perpetuating cycle of "ecosystem decay" that continues long after chain-saw. Catalyzed by the loss of top predators, reductions in gene pool diversity, and edge effects, this cycle poses a subtle and perhaps more complex threat to rainforest preservation than deforestation itself. Scientists now agree that there are only two measures capable of reversing this trend: the rejoining of isolated forest tracts via wildlife corridors, and the buffering of forest perimeters with more forest habitat. Both will require the forest restoration.
The Solution Space
Solutions for the long-term persistence of Mache-Chindul’s forest and inhabitants will have to approach the problem from two perspectives: prevent further deforestation by facilitating viable livelihoods, and repair prior deforestation by physically reconnecting and buffering what forest remains. Standing rainforests must somehow be translated into tangible monetary values, deeply entrenched timber traditions must be replaced with low-impact livelihoods, and fragmented forests must be reconnected to restore ecological integrity.
We have developed an approach that integrates microfinance-lending, performance-based conservation payments, and science-based reforestation to close the loopholes that have led to past conservation failure. Mache-Chindul’s current scenario provides the ideal setting for field-testing this approach. We aim to permanently reverse deforestation by facilitating long-term livelihood oppurtunities that are inextricably linked to environmental stewardship. For this region, cacao represents the primary source of cash income for most families despite an immature and inefficient market. We are revamping of the current cacao market, which lead to new market oppurtunities for the local commnuities. This entails
- removing market intermediaries,
- improving harvest yields,
- acquiring third-party certifications, and
- organizing a drying and fermenting cooperative to attain export-level quality and volume.
Fincancing for these activitivies are structured with ACS's environmental mortgages model, in which lines of available credit are linked to intact natural resources under the community’s de facto control.
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This conservation finance mechanism is the first to incorporate several critical and previously lacking requisites to success. First, tying the available capital in a permanent lending trust to the state of a community’s rainforest assets creates long-term incentives for their conservation, ensuring that better cacao prices do not catalyze another deforestation driver. Second, environmental mortgages do not require legal land tenure, coinciding with the reality of who has access to those assets in remote areas of developing countries, where the poorest of the population often settle out of economic necessity. This aspect allows for the long-overdue participation of the rural poor—disproportionately important stakeholders—in forest conservation incentive programs. Third, areas under reforestation can be written in as extensions of the original environmental asset, providing the typically elusive yet fundamental long-term incentives needed for reverting degraded habitat to forest.
Given the impressive success of microfinance institutions in poverty alleviation and the perpetual lack of access to capital that plagues landholders without legal title, this model is a promising approach for translating standing rainforest into sustainable development in the Mache-Chindul Reserve. This project represents one of six environmental mortgage pilot tests slated for implementation in developing areas worldwide. Because it is the first to tangibly transfer global ‘existence values’ for natural resources into the hands of the rural poor—where cycles of either exploitation or stewardship begin—we believe that this strategy has the potential to revolutionize environmental conservation in developing countries.
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