The Buenaventura Reserve grows

The Buenaventura Reserve was created to protect the restricted habitat of the El Oro Parrakeet (Pyrrhura orcesi), which was discovered in 1980, by one of our founders, Bob Ridgely. In the 1990s, the forest cover of this area was reduced, and substantially devastated, due to the spread of extensive pastures. Nowadays in 2018, Buenaventura has 2,649 hectares of protected forests to which a new purchase of 148 ha will be added in the coming weeks. With this purchase we aim to increase the resilience of the ecosystem by increasing connectivity to the large, high-elevational forest in the region. This forest combines elements of Tumbes dry forests of the south of Ecuador and northwest of Peru, with elements of the humid forests of the Chocó of the Ecuadorian north occidental region.