Late last year, Nature and Culture International recovered this photograph of what may have been the last jaguar of Peru’s Amotapes mountain range.

The photograph was provided by the son of farmer pictured, and was taken in 1965. For centuries, Jaguars were killed on sight in the region, and this beautiful cat is the last known evidence of the species in what today is the Coto de Caza El Angolo Reserve.

The reserve is a major national protected area covering 162,000 acres of endangered dry equatorial forest, which was once home to a thriving jaguar population. Despite this tragic loss, the reserve still houses significant biological diversity – including 150 bird, 17 mammal, 13 reptile, and 10 fish species – many restricted to this dry forest ecosystem.

Today, Nature and Culture is working to improve the conservation of the reserve, encouraging local communities to use their natural resources in more sustainable ways. This work is being done in partnership with the reserve’s Management Committee (headed by NCI) and the Peruvian government’s National Park Service.

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The mammals of Ecuador’s Podocarpus National Park are notoriously hard to record or observe in the field, and as a result, it can be very difficult to understand their habitat range. Scientists at the Institute of Ecology of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), placed camera traps provided by Nature and Culture International in the northern and eastern flanks of the park, near Nature and Culture’s El Tiro and Numbami reserves, to help monitor and identify the wildlife in this protected area. So far the findings are very interesting: about 15 species have been recorded including paramo fox and ocelot. The latter has been registered the first time in the Podocarpus Park.

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Last week, one member of our dedicated conservation team published a remarkable and hopeful story over at the Huffington Post. Silvia Usuriaga, Nature and Culture’s Program Coordinator, gives her personal account of the ceremony announcing the declaration of the 970,000-acre Maijuna Reserve. She explains why the reserve is so important to the remaining members of the Maijuna tribe, and why indigenous groups are fighting to save their ancestral lands.

Read Silvia’s story now.
 

On February 16, the San Diego Union-Tribune ran a front page profile of Nature and Culture International and its founder, Ivan Gayler. The article tells the story of what inspired Gayler to start the organization, and how it has become one of the most relevant and effective conservation nonprofits operating in Latin America – directly catalyzing the protection of more than 8 million acres.

Read the Union-Tribune’s profile of Nature and Culture now.

Feb. 4, 2012 – “When the council members raised their hands in approval, I felt great pride and happiness, and all of our people were happy as well.”

With these words, Sebastian Rios Ochoa, a native of the Amazon community of Sucusari described why February 4th had taken on historic significance for the indigenous Maijuna People, as well as for many others in the region. On that day, their petition to create the Maijuna Regional Conservation Area (RCA) was formally approved by Regional Council of Loreto at a ceremony in the remote Amazon community of Sucusari.

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January 25, 2012 – Two renowned organizations with exceptional track-records have partnered together to conserve millions of acres of tropical forest and wildlife habitat.

Nature and Culture International is joining forces with San Diego Zoo Global to make a lasting difference for species, communities and the planet. The two organizations are collaborating on four initial projects in Central and South America that will improve the future for animal species and local people by protecting the healthy ecosystems on which both depend. Continue reading →

Salitral-Huarmaca RCA

November 1, 2011 – Nature and Culture International and its local partners were instrumental in coordinating the designation of the Salitral-Huarmaca Regional Conservation Area, which protects more than 69,000 acres of endangered dry forest in northwestern Peru. On July 21, 2011, the Peruvian Natural Protected Area Service (SERNANP) formally announced the new designation after two years of on the ground work by the Piura Regional Government and NCI, which helped prepare the initial formal requests that led to the area’s creation.

This vast new conservation area shelters critical habitat for the White-winged Guan, whose population has dwindled to less than 350 as a result of habitat fragmentation and hunting. Continue reading →

August 12, 2011 – Together with a host of local governments and nongovernmental organizations, NCI is supporting efforts to create a number of regional protected areas in northern Peru that will help protect millions of acres of ecosystems – from rich Amazon rainforests and Andean páramos, to coastal deciduous forests and offshore islands.

In the Loreto Region of Amazonian Peru, the national government has just made official the huge Nanay-Pintuyacu-Chambira regional conservation area of nearly 2.4 million acres. This area was created by the regional government two years ago under the PROCREL program that we support, but this latest step makes this vast Amazon rainforest an official part of the national system of protected areas. The conservation area is very important for the protection of the water supply for the city of Iquitos, and will also help protect native flora and fauna used by local populations in a number of sustainable development projects.   Continue reading →