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Rainforests Biodiversity Communities 2015 ANNUAL REPORT SAVING RAINFORESTS PROTECTING BIODIVERSITY EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES WE LIVE ON A BEAUTIFUL Dear Friends, We have never felt more urgency to protect our planet, nor have we felt more hope. PLANET IN PERIL At Nature and Culture International, we believe that if we care about our planet, we must take action. Last year, our unique model and philosophy spurred the protection of 2.1 million acres of endangered ecosystems – the size of Yellowstone National Park. Whether AND WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT you are moved by Earth’s beauty or committed to preserving our air, water, and climate, we ask you to act with us. In carrying out our conservation mission, we differ in key respects from our fellow nonprofit groups. We are a bottom-up organization, with 17 in-country offices staffed by more than 160 local experts who act with urgency, integrity, and passion to save their natural environ- ment. We are also a lean organization – our overhead is half that of most groups. This Annual Report reflects our optimism. In the pages that follow, we share our major accomplishments in 2015, from the national declaration of a one million-acre indigenous reserve to the numerous new reserves that are safeguarding water supplies, endangered species, and indigenous people’s traditional way of life. It also highlights our staff and key donors, people like you who are making a difference. We are grateful to each and every one of you who have chosen to donate to NCI. Not only do you keep our programs alive – you enable them to thrive. As we approach our 20th anniversary, bold plans for expansion are already underway, from our growing operations in Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico to our new footholds in Colombia, Bolivia, and Brazil. Please join us in protecting the planet for generations to come. We are working in the heart of Sincerely, biodiversity: Latin America. Tropical forests, including the Amazon rainforest, are home to 50% of the world’s species. Beyond their extraor- dinary beauty, these forests are critical to our survival as they mitigate climate change and dictate rainfall patterns as far away as the U.S. Byron Swift David Welborn President Chairman of the Board Map Credits: Clinton Jenkins (Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas/SavingSpecies); Félix Pharand-Deschênes (Globaïa) What Sets Us Apart | 4 Conservation Milestones | 5 Ecosystems We Protect | 6 Indigenous Peoples | 8 Our Offices | 10 Vision for Expansion | 11 2015 Major Accomplishments | 12 Featured Supporters | 25 Financials | 28 Partners and Funders | 31 Board of Directors | 32 Our Team | 33 Indigenous Awajun boys from the community of Condoranqui in Amazonas, Peru. INTRODUCTION Gunther’s Banded Treefrog by Alejandro Arteaga of Tropical Herping. WHAT SETS US APART TWO DECADES OF EXCELLENCE We protect the world’s most diverse ecosystems with the people who live Since 1996, we have helped to conserve 13.8 million acres of endangered in them. We start by thinking and acting locally. ecosystems in Latin America. Our major accomplishments include: • NCI conserves land at the scale of entire functioning ecosystems, protecting from • Ecosystem Conservation | Directly supported the creation of 50 protected areas 20,000 acres to over one million acres at a time. spanning 7.3 million acres of Amazon rainforest, Andean cloud forest, tropical dry for- est and more in Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico. • As we conserve the forests, we empower the people living closest to nature to create sustainable livelihoods and improve healthcare and education. • Community Empowerment | Worked with 300 communities, including 60 indig- enous communities, to conserve key ecosystems and implement sustainable develop- • Our 17 offices collaborate with governments, communities, and indigenous tribes ment programs, in some cases doubling community incomes. through every step of the process to declare a protected area. • Watershed Conservation | Improved the water supply for more than one million • Our 169 local conservationists live in the places they protect. They build enduring re- people by establishing and strengthening three water funds in Ecuador and Peru. lationships with local people and bring legal scholarship, biological expertise, political know-how, and geo-mapping skills that help people protect their land. • UNESCO Biosphere Reserves | Guided the creation of three out of Ecuador’s six biosphere reserves, bringing global attention to 6.5 million acres of high priority eco- • Nearly 90% of our budget is spent on program activities every year. systems. 4 5 THE ECOSYSTEMS WE PROTECT Amazon Rainforest Andean Cloud Forest Páramo Grasslands Tropical Deciduous Forest Coastal and Marine Areas Over half of our work is aimed We work extensively to protect The páramo is a high-altitude We work in five countries to Mangroves, estuaries, lagoons at protecting the Amazon Andean cloud forests, which grassland with vegetation conserve tropical deciduous and oceans protect significant rainforest – the most extensive contain the highest number of composed of a diversity of forests, which are as endangered ocean resources, marine tropical rainforest in the world, endemic plants and animals on grasses, shrubs, and giant rosette as the Amazon rainforest. Their biodiversity, and areas of containing more species than any Earth – including hundreds of plants. Páramos are a major canopy is dense during the wet importance for migratory birds. other ecosystem. The Amazon species of spectacular orchids source of fresh water, and we summer, but during the dry They house complex webs of life provides essential ecosystem and hummingbirds found work with municipal governments winter, the leaves fall and the that support marine fisheries and services, storing massive amounts nowhere else in the world. Many to protect these vital ecosystems, canopy opens up, resulting in thriving coastal communities. The of carbon that mitigate the effects biologists consider these fragile which are often threatened uniquely adapted species such Ecuadorian and Peruvian marine of climate change and stabilizing ecosystems the world’s top by unsustainable agriculture, as the guayacan tree, which areas where we work are some of the world’s rainfall patterns. It is conservation priority due to the in order to secure clean and produces millions of yellow the richest on Earth. also home to an estimated 400 sheer number of species and abundant water for their people. flowers each year. indigenous tribes. high degree of threat. 6 7 INDIGENOUS PEOPLES WE WORK WITH Achuar Shuar Sápara Awajun Maijuna Shawi With an ancient culture deeply Indigenous Shuar culture The Sápara nation of Ecuador is The Awajun people have been Numbering fewer than 500 For centuries, the indigenous rooted in the forest, the Achuar is characterized by strong recognized by UNESCO as an stewards of the rainforest for people, the Maijuna are one Shawi have lived in Peru’s have many traditions that speak traditions and a unique vision “Intangible Cultural Heritage thousands of years. Now, with of Peru’s most vulnerable Paranapura basin, whose lush to their spiritual relationship of the universe, manifested of Humanity” because their the support of our team, they ethnic groups. For eight years, forests and jagged mountains with nature. One is the ritual through their language, food, language and culture are in have obtained the legal right to we worked closely with the hold countless undiscovered they perform at waterfalls, myths, music and dance. Our danger of disappearing. Just manage a large swath of their Maijuna to create a reserve species that could yield new which the Achuar consider work with the Shuar in Ecuador 200 Sápara people remain in ancestral territory. These areas larger than California’s Yosemite medical and agricultural sacred. Our team is working has enabled them to protect Ecuador and 100 in Peru, of preserve the pristine Amazon National Park. It protects nearly products. Now, we are helping with the Achuar to protect more than 80,000 acres of whom only five still speak the rainforest in which they live and one million acres of Amazon them protect 370,000 acres of 200,000 acres in the Amazon their ancestral homeland and native language. We are working help preserve their traditional rainforest and its wealth of their ancestral homeland, a high rainforest, an “alfombra verde develop sustainable livelihoods with the Sápara to protect their way of life. With nearly 210,000 biodiversity, as well as the priority for biodiversity and an con rios” – a carpet of green so they can thrive culturally and ancestral land in the Amazon acres protected to date, we indigenous Maijuna’s ancestral important watershed for the with rivers. economically. rainforest, which is critical to are continuing to support homeland. inhabitants of the Mayo and their cultural survival. the Awajun with sustainable Paranapura river basins. development projects. 8 9 OUR OFFICES VISION FOR EXPANSION MEDELLÍN V e n e z u e ll a RIONEGRO G u y a n a BOGOTÁ " co n C o ll o m b ii a a r B o Or oco i in R PASTO QUITO " Rio Negro A m a z o n E c u a d o rr B a s i n J PUYO apura MACAS CUENCA Pu tumayo B rr a z ii ll Amazon LOJA IQUITOS ZAPOTILLO ZAMORA a PIURA YURIMAGUAS eir ad s M jo a ap MOYOBAMBA T U c a CHACHAPOYAS y R a l i i CAJAMARCA o PUCALLPA M R a r i TRUJILLO a us o n Pur T o e n les Pir HUANUCO es P a c if ic O s c io e D a e n " P e rr u d G e uapo r re LIMA a d a n e M u r A u J n o i d R u ALAMOS e ing ! s X M e xx ii cc o M o " " u LA PAZ B o ll ii v ii a MEXICO CITY n t We operate our conservation programs through 17 offices in a SANTA CRUZ i Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico that are staffed by local conservationists n who are passionate about protecting the ecosystems they call home Country Capital s NCI Office Locations and empowering the communities they come from.
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