Nature and Culture International and its partners are working to save the rapidly-declining Golden Poison Frog and the biodiversity-rich Chocó rainforests through an innovative community based conservation effort. The goal is to create a 330,000-acre Conservation Corridor extending from coastal mangroves up and over the inland Andean peaks.

The Chocó corridor constitutes perhaps the most biologically diverse region on the planet. Straddling the Equator and rising from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the high peaks of the Andes, it includes the wettest rainforests anywhere. In the heart of this narrow swath of land lie patches of untouched wilderness —the home of the Golden Poison Frog, the most toxic land animal on Earth.

These unique forests also support the single greatest concentration of endemic birds, amphibians and orchids on the planet.

The last remaining rainforests of the Golden Poison Frog are also home to some of Latin America’s poorest and most neglected communities. Fewer than 1,500 Eperara Siapidara Indians survive with little known about them or their culture. Roughly 5,000 Afro-Colombian peoples descended from escaped slaves in the 19th Century also colonized this mostly inaccessible area.

This project would protect a broad elevational gradient of habitat, ensuring the present and future survival of the Golden Poison Frog and countless other endemic and threatened organisms. This 15 mile wide and 35 mile long corridor, which is primarily the Rio San Miguel watershed in the heart of the Chocó region, is one of the top Biodiversity Hotspots on the planet. This corridor may hold between 5% and 7% of all the biodiversity on Earth, with many new species awaiting discovery.

Flagship Species

The spectacular Golden Poison Frog, enigmatic Gorgeted Puffleg, colorful Puffleg Hummingbirds and the Brown-headed Spider Monkey are all endemic to this corridor area and assigned Critically Endangered status by IUCN (within ten years of extinction). The area holds over 550 bird species of which 50 are endemic, over 60 endemic amphibians, most of which are threatened with extinction, and an estimated 2,000 species of orchid. Large mammals such as the Lowland Tapir, Jaguar and Spectacled Bear can also be found.

The Golden Poison Frog is deeply embedded within cultural traditions of the Eperara Siapidara indigenous communities. It is the source of poison used on darts to hunt for food. A gentle brush of the arrow or dart tips on a frog’s back loads the poison with no harm to the frog. This frog’s unique toxins have produced medical drugs to combat leukemia, osteoporosis, cancer and infections of the liver.

Threats to the area

The harsh climate and remoteness had, until recently, saved the region from the impacts of economic development. In recent years the search for gold and timber has brought about a rising wave of exploitation from dubious non-local entities and people who operate outside the control of the law and governmental institutions.

The Golden Poison Frog carries the scientific epitaph of Phyllobates terribilis – terrible – because it is the most toxic animal on Earth. Sadly, this unique species is at imminent risk of extinction and only survives in the last fragments of its native habitat, within and around the Afro-Colombian and Eperara Siapidara indigenous communities. This critical habitat is completely unprotected and with no prior conservation attention. Searches during 2010 located the core populations of the species and revealed an urgent need for immediate protection from mounting threats in the forms of illegal commercial logging, gold-mining and the illegal trafficking of this species.

Our aim is to establish the first protected area to encompass every major tropical ecosystem: from mangroves, rainforest, and cloud forest to highland páramo grasslands on the Andean peaks, through a community protection program. The resulting Conservation Corridor would protect one of the highest concentrations of endemic and at risk biodiversity on earth. Working closely with ProAves Colombia, World Land Trust-US and the local Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, our aim is to create the Chocó Conservation Corridor, a collection of private and community protected areas that would eventually span more than 300,000 acres of biologically-rich rainforest.

Your vital donation today will help us carry out this important work.