Jocotoco contribution to the recovery of Galapagos ecosystems

Since October 2021, we at Fundación Jocotoco have expanded our work in the Galapagos to contribute significantly to the conservation of the archipelago and improve conditions for the local community, the islands' caretakers.

The intensification of our efforts is evident in the execution of the Galapagos Program: through an inter-institutional cooperation agreement with the Galapagos National Park Directorate, we offer technical and logistical support fitted to various activities that relate to our own conservation and restoration projects in the islands. At the moment, we are managing four projects: expansion of the marine protected area in the islands (what is now the Marine Reserve Hermandad); ecological restoration of Floreana Island; protection of the pink iguana; and management of our Galapagos reserve on San Cristobal Island.

Each project has been coordinated and planned along with the Galapagos National Park Directorate and responds to a local need. For example, the expansion of the Galapagos marine reserve was born at the islanders' request; it is currently in a phase of consolidation and seeks to protect key habitats for marine species, both wild and commercial, in the Cocos underwater mountain range.

Our main goal at Jocotoco is the conservation of endemic species at risk of extinction and their ecosystems. Thus was born our Galapagos reserve on San Cristobal Island with the purpose of protecting and ecologically restoring the nesting sites of the Galapagos petrel, a bird endemic to the Galapagos Islands listed as critically endangered due to its population's continuous sixty-plus-year decline. Additionally, within our reserve's over 100 hectares of area, we protect various sources of water, a scarce natural resource in the Galapagos.

We are also acting to leave a legacy and motivate people around the world to undertake concrete conservation action, and the first step is to be acquainted with ecosystems and the species inhabiting them. One of the most threatened species in the Galapagos is the pink land iguana, a unique species which lives only in one place in the world: Wolf volcano, which hosts a total population of only 250 adults iguanas, which indicates their high degree of vulnerability.

One of our greatest challenges is the ecological restoration of Floreana Island, which will contribute to local development toward recuperating valuable ecosystems by eradicating from the island introduced and invasive flora and fauna species, in balance and harmony with the islanders. In this project, we collaborate with our partner Island Conservation with economic support from entities like Re.wild and the Andean Development Bank (CAF), among others.

Together with the local community and the national environmental authority, we will make Floreana the largest inhabited island in the world to have managed to restore its original habitat after human intervention!

We are working toward the sustainable development of the Galapagos Islands, the First World Heritage Site, just as we have been doing on the Ecuadorian continent since 1998 by preserving and protecting the areas which make up our 16 ecological reserves.