A BRIDGE TO OUR DREAMS.

We live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, it’s called Tesoro Escondido and it’s located in the Chocó forests of NW Ecuador. Our forests are so important to us and this is why we need your help, it brings us food, income and well-being. And that’s only for people in or near forests. Protecting rainforest is key for the survival of many living species but also to avoid ecological breakdown. Some of the people involved in our project have told us that 8% of all global emissions are from tropical deforestation but that these same forests can provide 23% of the indispensable climate mitigation needed to avoid a scenario where the world becomes inhabitable. It’s time that we act now and together.

The Chocó rainforest is one of the last remaining coastal rainforest systems in the world. Sadly, human activity and carelessness have managed to destroy well over half of this natural wonder in the last 50 years. In Ecuador alone, it is said that 98% of its original Chocó forest cover has been lost and, consequently, populations of brown-headed spider monkeys, long-wattled umbrella birds, great green macaws, and jaguars have drastically declined, making them all critically endangered.



Alongside this desperate environmental reality, the social, economic and political climates in NW Ecuador are equally as alarming. With high rates of illiteracy, increasing unemployment, limited access to infrastructure, health and clean water, the province of Esmeraldas where we live is the poorest in the country. To improve our livelihoods, we built our own cacao producer association in 2016 called ASOPROTESCO, reaching out and securing international buyers in the USA, France and the UK.  We sought training to improve organic agricultural practices and we now use microorganisms in the forest to organically fertilise our crops. We hope that these actions can benefit our children’s futures.