Eco Volunteer UP

The volunteer programmers in the Cloud Forest is located in villages close to Mindo and Otavalo, with 350 species of birds. Cloud Forest Reserves offer the worlds richest bird bio-diversity, unexplored wilderness, natural and archaeological remains, and vibrant landscapes with 80% native forest and 20% organic farmland for the milking of the cows. It is a small place with 200 inhabitants; they came from other towns to this area for better conditions of life. The community was dedicated to cultivating sugar cane, raising cattle, to craft and to exploitation of woods. People of the town are very friendly and helpful. They have a little school, a communal meeting and a church; most of the community is catholic. The Yumbos culture lived in the northwestern from 13th to 16th centuries. One of the archaeological remnants of this culture are the “Yumbos” pool (located in Tulipe town at 9km in one of projects).Some people worry about exploitation of the woods and the waste contamination in the forest of Ecuador, especially in the Cloud Forest and this problem has many ecological disasters. Other people think that they cannot do anything about it or the problems are so big that they are out of their hands, therefore, we need people to worry in order to save the Cloud Forest and to teach English to the children communities. Volunteers or Scientists are very welcome.

Green, mysterious, and unexplored - it was a conquistador’s dream for Gonzalo Pizzaro and Francisco de Orellana, who followed the rivers down from the high Andes in 1538, searching for El Dorado, the lost city of gold. The Amazon and its tributaries begin on the eastern side of the Andes Mountain Range, and drain snow and rain from half a continent into the distant Atlantic Ocean. Today, despite deforestation pressures and other human influences, the Amazon River Basin still contains approximately 6.7 million km2 of rainforest, an area almost 2/3 the size of the United States (including Alaska!). The Amazon Basin is a vast natural tropical area, more than half of which is located within the borders of Brazil. The basin also covers parts of Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Guyana. The Amazon Rain Forest has all the typical attributes of a tropical environment. The weather is hot, humid and rainy, with an average rainfall of over 200 cm (80 inches) per year. These rainforests contain a huge variety of diverse biomes, many of which contain unique species not found anywhere else on the globe. This vast region is home to about 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, some 2,000 kinds of birds and mammals, and many different species of amphibians and reptiles. Among the most commonly know animals are such different species as jaguar, anaconda, howler monkey, macaws, toucans, tarantulas and river dolphins. One-in-ten of all plant and animal species in the world inhabit the Amazon Rainforest. One-in-five of all the birds in the world live in the rainforests of the Amazon. The diversity of plant species is the highest on Earth; some experts estimate that one square kilometer (1 km2 ) of rainforest may contain over 75,000 types of trees and 150,000 species of higher plants. One square kilometer of Amazon rainforest can contain an incredible bio-mass of more than 90,000 tons of living plants!  Several different indigenous ethnic groups inhabit this vast, complex region. Some of the better-known groups include the Huaoranis, Shuar, Ashuar, Quichua, Siona, Secoya, Zapara, Cofan, and Quijos. Many other traditional cultures are woven throughout the complicated ecosystems of the Amazon Basin. But behind this incredible natural and cultural diversity lies a stark reality. Even though the indigenous peoples live in an area with a bewildering array of natural resources and opportunities, many of the local people remain in relative poverty. The incredible natural biodiversity is threatened by oil exploration, commercial logging, road development, forest clearing for agriculture, and traditional subsistence farming. The Amazon region is home to a number of organizations dedicated to preventing the deforestation and destruction, and to creating sustainable economic development for the indigenous people. The support, knowledge-sharing, and participation of volunteers are essential contributions to that help these projects reach their common goals.

The Galapagos Islands are located on the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, about 960 km from continental Ecuador. The islands have a volcanic origin, and consist of 13 large islands, six smaller islands, and forty-two small, barren islets. Millions of years ago, continuous under-sea volcanic eruptions produced huge masses of submarine rock, which pushed upward to the surface of the sea. The submarine volcanoes gave origin to these islands, which comprise one of the most amazing places on Earth. The Galapagos Islands were declared a National Park on 1959, and were designated a World Humankind Patrimony in 1979. The islands are also a Marine Resources Reserve (since 1986), a Whale Sanctuary (since 1990), and a Marine Biological Reserve (since 1996). The Galapagos Islands have been an “evolution laboratory” since the English scientist Charles Darwin visited them on 1835. Darwin spent five weeks studying the unique flora and fauna of the islands, and this remarkable place became one of the cornerstones for his revolutionary book about evolution, “On the Origin of Species”.  The islands are inhabited by widely diverse fauna such as giant turtles, sea lions, penguins, land and marine iguanas, gulls, blue-footed and red-footed boobies, masked boobies, and finches (of course!). Viewing these beautiful creatures in their natural habitats makes visiting the Galapagos an unforgettable experience. During the 1960’s, the first tourism operations started in the Galapagos Islands. Since the beginning, the delicate environments have been responsibly and carefully protected, but the popularity of the islands has been the development engine for the ecological tourism industry. Today, tourism accounts for 80% of the income for the islands, and is the major base of the economy. Other sources of income are fishing (6%), cattle (5%), general merchandise (4%), crafts (3%), and general agriculture (2%).