What we do in 191 words

Nature and Culture International provides the crucial financial resources and project guidance required to conserve Latin America’s most precious remaining ecosystems. We are unlike traditional conservation organizations in philosophy, approach and results. While our projects are diverse—from tropical rain forests, to cloud forests, to dry forests and estuaries—our productive approach is fundamentally the same. We are guided by a respect for, and a desire to help, the people of the places where we operate.

Our ethical foundation is building know-how in developing countries by organizing local governments, community members, resident conservationists, biologists and nongovernmental organizations. Our projects accomplish a host of related goals:

• We protect key ecosystems from the ground up.

• We help governments define and adopt their own conservation policies.

• We show impoverished communities how to develop sustainable incomes.

• We nurture the growth of an ecological ethic within each culture.

Every situation is different, of course. We foster solutions that originate with local people rather than prescribing our own from afar. This approach is both financially efficient and lasting. We have permanently conserved areas that are larger than some American states for as little as $1 an acre.