Project Overview
Conservation
value
According to the conservation organization,
Conservation International, seventeen countries worldwide concentrate between
50 and 65% of the planet’s species within their boundaries. Of these mega-diverse countries, Ecuador is
the smallest, with an area equivalent to the size of the state of Arizona,
occupying only 0.19% of the world’s surface area. But Ecuador also has the highest
concentration of species.
One
of the most biodiverse and threatened areas within Ecuador is the Tumbesian
Bioregion, found in southwest Ecuador.
The dry forests of this area are dominated by large, emergent trees of
the family Bombacaceae, including the
ceiba or kapok tree Ceiba trichistandra,
whose seedpods were harvested for their cotton used to fill life vests during
the Second World War, and still is used locally to stuff mattresses. These forests support high levels of endemism
and are extremely threatened. The
diversity of habitat types in the dry forest region includes desert scrub,
intermontane thorn-forest and deciduous and semi-deciduous forest, between 0
and 600 meters in elevation. Average
precipitation ranges from between 300 and 1500 mm per year, with great
fluctuations during “El Nino” years, when rainfall may be 200 times as high as
a normal year. The climate of this
zone is directly related to the presence of the cold Humboldt Current and the
warm El Nino and Panama currents. An
important source of moisture in the hills and mountains is the sea mist known
as Garua that forms during the
austral winter, which condenses on trees and drips to the ground.
The flora and fauna of Ecuadorian Dry
Forests are characterized by having acquired certain physiological-adaptive
characteristics that allow them to survive extreme conditions of temperature
and dryness. The forests of this
ecoregion are considered one of the areas of the world that are most at risk of
biological extinction as the result of deforestation, agriculture and urban
expansion, among the principal causes.
It is estimated that Ecuadorian Dry Forest has been reduced to 1% of its
original range, and much of the remaining forest is degraded.
One of the principal protected areas that include
Ecuadorian Dry Forest is the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest, which includes 14,826
acres of land on the doorstep of Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, with 2.1
million inhabitants and growing. The
reserve is made up of a series of seven forest-cloaked hills in the eastern
extension of the Cordillera Chongon-Colonche to 1,663 feet in elevation. The hills are divided by ravines with
artisanal springs that provide water for both wildlife and local residents who
live near the reserve.
As with much of the remaining Ecuadorian
Dry Forest, those of Cerro Blanco have suffered the impact of slash and burn
agriculture in the flatter areas. The
protected forest consists of a mosaic of vegetation, from old pasturelands
dominated by the African grass Panicum
maximum to primary forest with endangered tropical hardwoods like guayacan Tabebuia chrysantha and pechiche Vitex gigantea up to 40 to 50 feet tall. A floristic inventory carried out by the
National Herbarium found more than 500 vascular plant species in Cerro Blanco,
of which approximately 20% are endemic to southwest Ecuador. The inventory’s findings highlighted the
importance of Cerro Blanco; “the Cerro
Blanco Protected Forest is one of the best options for survival of perhaps 100
of the 500+ registered vascular plant species that are endemic to the dry
tropical forest region.”
A team of scientists from Conservation
International carried out a biological survey of the Cerro Blanco Protected
Forest as part of the Rapid Assessment Program in 1992 and the team wrote, “we
hope that the Empresa Cemento Nacional will be able to acquire or manage
existing forests that lie adjacent to the present reserve boundaries, for every
hectare of original forest vegetation is biologically priceless, and the
addition of any large pieces of forested land to the north or south of the
reserve would increase the survival prospects of larger vertebrates such as
primates or parrots. Identification and
acquisition of such areas should be given high priority by conservation
organizations in Guayaquil.”
The mammal fauna of the area is typical of
dry tropical forest and includes 54 mammal species (21 bat species), such as
Mantled Howler Monkey Aloutta palliata
and White-fronted Capuchin Cebus
albifrons aequatorialis, White-tailed and Red Brocket Deer Odocoileus virginianus, Mazama americana,
six species of felines, including Jaguar Panthera
onca and Puma Felis concolor as
well as smaller cats such as Ocelot Leopardus
tigrinus and Jaguarundi Herpailurus
yaguarondi.
Threats
Almost
half of the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest is within the city limits of
Guayaquil and the rapid expansion of the city in the last ten years, mostly
through squatter settlements in the Cerro Blanco reserve buffer zone, have put
pressure on the reserve’s forests and fauna.
Residents of nearby squatter settlements sometime enter Cerro Blanco to
hunt wildlife for the pot or for sale in local markets, especially deer,
collared peccary and agouti, a forest rodent with succulent flesh. Trees are sometimes cut and dragged out to
nearby roads to be sawed and sold as lumber in the city. During the six-month dry period from August
through January, Cerro Blanco is vulnerable to forest fires, often started in
adjacent lands to clear them or by hunters within the protected forest. Land traffickers with ties to political
parties and politicians have tried to take over parts of the Cerro Blanco
Protected Forest on three occasions, in 1997, 2000 and 2010. Despite its status as a protected area
declared as such by the Ecuadorian government, the demand for land is high and
traffickers often bribe officials to receive bogus building permits or land
titles.
A
Model of Protected Area Management
Recognizing the value of Cerro Blanco for
the protection of biodiversity as well as ecosystem services such as water
production and the sequestration of Carbon Monoxide and other greenhouse gases
produced in its nearby cement producing plant, La Cemento Nacional, an
Ecuadorian cement company, formally requested the Ecuadorian government to
declare Cerro Blanco as a protected forest, a designation that allows private
lands to be given some degree of protection in Ecuador. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Agriculture
declared an initial 2,000 hectares of La Cemento’s lands a protected forest in
1989. Eric Horstman, then a U.S. Peace
Corps volunteer, prepared management guidelines for the newly created reserve
in 1990, to begin to implement conservation programs on the ground, including
boundary demarcation, dry forest restoration, scientific investigations and
conservation of the Great Green Macaw and the creation of an environmental
education program.
Fundacion Natura, an Ecuadorian
conservation organization, initially carried out the management guidelines,
which was in charge of the administration of the protected forest between 1990
and 1993. From 1993 to the present, the
Pro-Forest Foundation, an Ecuadorian conservation organization created by
executives of both La Cemento Nacional and Fundacion Pro-Bosque, has carried
out an ambitious conservation program for Cerro Blanco that reflects the
foundation’s mission, “to protect, conserve and restore a globally
important remnant of the dry tropical forest ecosystem known as Cerro Blanco,
for the benefit of both present and future generations of Ecuadorians.”
In 2004, Holcim, a Swiss based group that
owns cement and aggregate operations in 70 countries worldwide, bought the
controlling interest in La Cemento Nacional and re-named the company Holcim
Ecuador. While Holcim Ecuador has continued
to support the Pro-Forest Foundation, recent cuts in the foundation’s budget
(approximately 70% of the Pro-Forest Foundation’s budget is provided by Holcim)
has affected several field programs. International
donors are increasingly playing a pivotal role in the funding of conservation
programs, especially forest restoration, Great Green Macaw conservation and
land purchase. Past and present donors
include the following organizations: USAID, National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, World Parks Endowment, Foundation Ecofund, World Land Trust UK and
Netherlands Committee of the World Conservation Union. Through the support of its donors, the
Pro-Forest Foundation has planned and carried out the following conservation
programs in and around the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest and city of Guayaquil:
Environmental
Education
Anti-poaching
Patrols
A total of five backcountry guard stations
have been constructed in strategic locations within Cerro Blanco, where nine
forest guards of the Pro-Forest Foundation are stationed and provide protection
for the forest on a permanent basis.
Limitations in Ecuadorian law do not permit guards to intercede directly
when infractions against nature are committed and the environmental unit of the
Ecuadorian National Police provides law enforcement through weekly patrols and
monthly camping expeditions in Cerro Blanco.
Thanks to this key support and education efforts in adjacent communities,
wildlife poaching, timber cutting and forest fires have dropped off
considerably.
Dry
Forest Restoration
The
occupation of flatter areas of the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest by squatters
over a ten-year period before the establishment of the reserve, led to over 450
hectares of land being cleared through slash-and-burn agriculture and
re-planted with an exotic African grass.
Beginning in 1993, the Pro-Forest Foundation has worked to restore dry
tropical forest in formerly cutover areas, using more than 35 native tree
species produced in the foundation’s nursery.
Planting sites called enrichment parcels are prepared in the grasslands
and scrub vegetation in cutover areas.
Trees are planted in numbered rows around existing trees. Workers carry out manual clearing of competing
grass and vines on the outset of the winter rains, and again during the dry
season, to allow trees to compete for light and moisture. Holes between 30 and 40 cm are dug for each
tree and fertilizer added at the outset.
With the support of the World Land Trust UK and its Carbon Balanced
Program, the Pro-Forest Foundation has restored close to 350 hectares of cutover
land with more than 350,000 native trees.
Overall survival rates of the planted trees have been between 65 and
75%, very good considering that there are no accessible water sources and
watering. The planted trees depend
exclusively on the winter rains. The
project has become a model for similar efforts in other parts of the country.
Saving
the Great Green Macaw From Extinction
Community
Development
With
its close proximity to the rapidly expanding city of Guayaquil, and pressure
building to convert the forest into squatter settlements, the future of the
Cerro Blanco Protected Forest depends on integrating its neighbors in the
conservation of the area, with tangible benefits for surrounding
communities. In order to accomplish
this, the Pro-Forest Foundation initially focused its work on the community of
Puerto Hondo, located in a transition zone between the dry tropical forest of
Cerro Blanco and the mangroves of the Gulf of Guayaquil. The two ecoregions were once linked, allowing
for genetic interchange of plant and animal populations, but urban expansion
has cut off all access, except by air and the streams that flow into the
mangrove estuary. A symbol of this connectivity between
ecosystems is a resident population of 120 Red-fronted Amazon Parrots Amazona autumnalis lilacina move daily
from their night roosting sites in the mangroves, to the dry forests of Cerro
Blanco, where they spend the day feeding.
To protect the mangrove home of the
Red-lored Parrots and many other species, the Pro-Forest Foundation has worked
since 1995 to support a youth environmental club in the community of Puerto
Hondo. Activities have included the
support of a mangrove ecotourism project, with local youth working as guides on
canoe trips, promotion of the ecotourism program and the construction of a
community environmental education center, the first of its kind for the city of
Guayaquil.
The Pro-Forest Foundation has worked since
2005 to set up and support groups of community park wardens, who support the
work of the Pro-Forest Foundation in and around the Cerro Blanco Protected
Forest. Community wardens have been
trained as parabiologists, to register sightings of Great Green Macaws and
other wildlife species of interest, such as Jaguars. Park wardens have benefitted from organic
home gardens set up with the support of technicians from the Pro-Forest
Foundation.
The
Future
The Pro-Forest Foundation will focus on the
following projects in the future to insure its long-term financial stability
and continued protection of the dry tropical forests in the Cerro Blanco
Protected Forest through the following activities:
Establishment
of trust fund
Experience worldwide has shown that
protected areas in general are not self-sustaining economically, as
administration and protection costs outweigh income generated from ecotourism,
etc. The creation of a trust fund with
financial contributions of both international donors and Holcim Ecuador will
generate a source of funding for foundation and protected forest administrative
costs, freeing resources to be used in field conservation programs.
Create
a biological corridor
In a rapidly changing landscape, Cerro
Blanco is increasingly becoming an island, cut-off from adjacent dry forest and
mangrove ecosystems, especially through urban development. Based on the needs of the Great Green Macaw,
Cerro Blanco’s flagship species, a 49,000-acre area has been proposed as a
biological corridor. Financial resources
will be employed in working with local landowners to conserve and/or restore
native forests on their land to insure connectivity between the Cerro Blanco
Protected Forest and adjacent private lands.
This will improve dramatically the long-term survival rates of many
species, besides Great Green Macaws.
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