Cloudforest ecolodge in Ecuador

This is a cooperative which owns and manages its own cloudforest reserve and ecolodge. We are very much part of the local community and work in partnership with other local organisations (eg with the primary school, the local religious order and health staff).

Our aims are to provide a sustainable alternative to forest clearance and hunting while conserving our forest. Ecotourism provides our member families with such an alternative and ties them into to conservation. Our ecotourism operation requires a constant and careful presence within the forest which more effectively protects the forest from land invasion than the Protected Forest laws alone. (Land invasion occurs in neighbouring cooperatives´ land which has been abandoned by their owners.)

We have recently completed a four year reforestation programme funded by Rainforest Concern and have begun a programme to plant endangered species of trees within areas of secondary forest, funded through our programme of paying volunteers. We have a basic conservation monitoring project in place – the current focus is on the birds and orchids of the reserve.

As a community-based organisation, benefiting the local community is an intrinsic part of what we do rather than an add-on. (eg prioritising training to enable staff to take up positions at all levels of the organization; buying from local providers where possible.) In addition we have recruited and provided support for two volunteer English teachers for the elementary school and provide additional English teaching and other afterschool programmes including environmental education, through our paying volunteers programme.

We also encourage tourists to visit Los Colibríes, a women’s artisan cooperative and have helped them with their marketing, resulting in several bulk orders worth thousands of dollars.

Visitors’ enthusiasm for the reserve has served to reinforce staff’s pride and interest in their forest. Ecotourism ensures that we protect and conserve our forest while providing a real alternative source of income for our cooperative members. Many of our visitors keep in touch: they come back, they spread the word and have also donated or raised money for our community and conservation projects.




This holiday is part of the responsibletravel.com and Conservation International Community Based Tourism Programme to support and promote community based tourism ventures that offer significant conservation and development benefits to local communities. To see other community based tourism holidays and find out more about the programme click here.