In the fall of 2002, Round River Conservation Studies broke ground in South America with the initiation of a student program in the Andes of southeastern Ecuador. Our partner organization in the region is the nonprofit Fundación Cordillera Tropical (FCT), based in Cuenca. FCT’s mission is to conserve the biological diversity of the Ecuadorian Andes. They are currently working with local landowners to establish the Mazar Wildlife Reserve, a private protected area of approximately 31,000 acres that will be owned and managed by the local landowners.

The region’s tropical montane cloud forest and paramo exhibit high levels of biological diversity, and are known to support endangered, rare or endemic animals, including the spectacled bear, mountain tapir, puma, red-faced parrot, golden-plumed parakeet, Andean condor and crescent-faced antpitta. The forested areas also have at least a 2000-year history of human presence, and contain many pre-Columbian roads, terraces, and ceremonial sites. Paramos were probably utilized by hunter-gatherers throughout the entire Holocene.

The student program operates in the heart of the proposed Mazar Wildlife Reserve, on the eastern slope of the Andes. Students experience the culture of the Quechua, as well as learn about the native habitats of highland Ecuador. Student research activities include natural history studies of the Golden-plumed parakeet, monitoring the elusive spectacled bear, forest carnivore and amphibian surveys, and environmental education with local Quechua schoolchildren. Many of the student research projects are aimed at assisting the FCT achieve their conservation objectives in the area.

In addition to the student program, Round River and FCT are in the final planning stage of a regional conservation project in which local landowners and Round River staff and students will play a key role. The overall goal of the project is to develop and implement a Conservation Area Design (CAD) for the Mazar Wildlife Reserve and surrounding region. The CAD will serve to delineate and describe a network of core conservation areas, resource use zones, and ecological linkage areas within and surrounding the MWR region. The CAD planning boundary includes the MWR, and the adjacent Bosque Protector #15 and Cardenillo watershed, or approximately 255,000 acres. Intra-regional linkage areas will provide connectivity to intact areas in northern Peru and the Amazonian regions of southern and eastern Ecuador. This project represents an opportunity to bring leading edge science and planning tools to assist in the conservation of a region of high ecological value and global significance.

The following elements will form the foundation of the Mazar CAD:
1) A comprehensive biophysical and socioeconomic inventories of the planning area;
2) Prioritization of areas based on their biological, economic, and cultural significance;
3) Attention to the needs of important focal species in the region;
4) Protection of ecological and evolutionary processes;
5) Support of local sustainable resource uses;
6) Protection of linkages to intact areas in neighboring regions;
7) Full participation of local landowners and institutions in the CAD process; and
8) Building local capacity within FCT and other local organizations to conduct, implement, and monitor the CAD.

Our first step in launching the CAD project will be to initiate or expand several conservation research and action projects. Research projects being considered include expanding the ongoing spectacled bear research, initiating a mountain tapir research project, conducting habitat specific diversity surveys, analyzing satellite imagery to identify intact areas across and outside of the region, and socioeconomic surveys of local landowners. Conservation projects being considered include enhancements to FCT’s current environmental education efforts and working with locals on implementing sustainable land use practices. Our goal is to initiate these individual research and conservation projects this fall, building up to the larger CAD project over the coming years as funding and local conditions allow.

—Dr. Barbara Dugelby, Science Advisor