Nature and Culture International is unlike traditional conservation organizations in philosophy, efficiency and results. While our projects are diverse—from tropical rainforests, to cloud forests, to dry forests and estuaries—our approach is first and foremost guided by a respect for the culture and people of the places in which we operate.

We use our conservation teams and community relationships to map, understand and protect some of the world’s most important and vulnerable ecosystems. Our presence on the ground makes this possible. We have a cost efficiency and return on investment that can’t be matched by other organizations. We invest at least 90% of our funds directly into protecting ecosystems, not on US operations.

We believe that there is an urgent need to protect the most threatened areas, those rare places where biological diversity is particularly high. The most effective efforts to conserve the natural environment require the creativity of local people who understand better than anyone else what is in their own best interests. Without their ongoing cooperation, conservation is little more than “paper” protection, and will not last.

Success is defined by allowing nature to be nature. This is not as easy or obvious as it sounds.

For Fernanda Tezcal this means a forest where the tangled roots of old growth balsa remain, so that tapir and “lazies” (or preguicas, the Brazilian word for sloths) still warily walk the ground at dawn. For Marcos Ortiz in the town of Roncesvalles, Colombia, where Nature and Culture purchased several cattle ranches, success means clean water so that his children no longer get sick after a strong rain. (It also means new nesting ground for the Critically Endangered Yellow-eared Parrot.) “Success” is a variety of different outcomes through which the conservation work of local populations has a positive effect on nature and on human livelihoods.