Community Forests Program (Bosques Comunitarios)

Introduction

TMA’s Community Forests Program is a realistic pathway to creating and managing a 31,000-acre (12,500-hectare) rainforest conservation corridor in the Pacific Forest of Ecuador.

It leverages community participation to improve efficiency and increase the likelihood of long-term success. This will protect and restore one of the last major remnants of the most endangered tropical forest in the world. It’s also an opportunity to revolutionize how NGOs and local communities work together to conserve tropical forests.

Key Features

• Viable pathway to creating the Capuchin Corridor in Ecuador.
• Potential to protect and restore 31,000 acres (12,500 hectares) of rainforest.
• Replaces fortress conservation with a decentralized and participatory approach to conservation. 
• Network of 23 forest preserves created by TMA and managed as land easements by local communities throughout the corridor.
• Organized by watersheds, which is how communities have always geographically organized themselves in this region.
• Draws from the “life plan” framework used by indigenous communities in the Amazon, aimed at outlining and executing a long-term vision for sustainable development and resource stewardship.
• Sturdy guard rails provided by a strong legal framework with tight management and budgetary parameters—aimed at ensuring proper use of funds and faithful execution of project activities. 
• Fueled by performance-based financial incentives. Funds are only released when project goals are achieved—consistent with the Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) model.
• Results are monitored and verified by satellite imagery and other objective metrics—consistent with Terrasos protocol for biodiversity crediting.
• This is a scalable model that can be replicated throughout the tropics.

Contents

• Project Area
• Why Community Forests?
• A Conservation Model for the 21st Century
• How It Works
• Process for Establishing Community Forests
• Community Management with TMA Guidance & Oversight
• Investing in the Future
• Scalable Model That Can Be Replicated
• Budget Summary
• Funding Pathways
• Project Finance for Permanence (PFP)
• Third Millennium Alliance (TMA)

Project Area

The Pacific Forest of Ecuador is the most endangered tropical forest on earth: less than 5% remains. It sits at the heart of the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena global biodiversity hotspot. 

The Capuchin Corridor is a conservation initiative to protect one of the largest and least protected remnants of the Pacific Forest. It aims to connect the Jama-Coaque Reserve to two other protected forest preserves. This will create a contiguous 31,000-acre (12,500-hectare) rainforest preserve that spans the 43-km mountain range between the coastal towns of Jama and Pedernales at 0° latitude. It literally straddles both hemispheres, with the equator line passing through the center of it. 

The Capuchin Corridor is designated as both a “Species Rarity Site” and “High Biodiversity Area” on Global Safety Net, an open-source science initiative that identifies “conservation imperative” sites that “harbor irreplaceable biodiversity.”

The Capuchin Corridor is named in honor of the critically endangered Ecuadorian Capuchin Monkey, a species that depends on this ecosystem for its continued existence.

Why Community Forests?

The so-called Fortress Conservation model is a top-down approach that excludes local communities from the process. It’s outdated not only because it’s ethically problematic; it’s also risky and inefficient.

• Risky because local communities lack an incentive to support and comply with conservation projects. There’s no buy-in; on the contrary, there is often resentment and the potential for persistent conflict.
• Inefficient because the centralized authority (whether it’s a government or an NGO) is tasked with managing distant areas that it doesn’t know as intimately as local communities do.

A Conservation Model for the 21st Century

The Community Forests Program (in Spanish, Bosques Comunitarios) integrates local communities in the conservation process and provides them with a financial incentive to actively protect the forest in their own watersheds. In other words, they have skin in the game. This reduces the risk of local actors undermining conservation goals and also reduces the resource strain on NGOs or governments. It’s a decentralized and participatory approach to forest conservation. We believe it’s the wave of the future.

How It Works

The Community Forests Program empowers local communities to protect and manage large tracts of native forest in their own watersheds. 

• Under TMA’s guidance, each community creates a local governing body—called a Community Trust—through a local democratic election process. The Community Trust is composed of local community members but girded by a specific framework with tight parameters.
• TMA and the Community Trust then jointly create a Community Forest Preserve at the headwaters of their own watershed. TMA purchases the land and then grants a conditional land easement to the Community Trust.
• The Community Trust is responsible for protecting the Community Forest Preserve—albeit with extensive support and oversight by TMA.
• The Community Forest Preserve is sustained by annual funding incentives that are tied to objective performance measures. Funding only continues if the forest remains intact.

Process for Establishing Community Forests

• The Community Trust indicates to TMA the properties it wishes to include in its Community Forest Preserve.
• Priority is given to contiguous forested properties at the headwaters of each watershed and along the upper elevations of the coastal mountain range. Riparian areas can also be included.
• TMA offers a standardized market price to the owners of selected properties, purchasing only those in which a fair deal is made.
• TMA places a conservation easement on the land, legally requiring it to be conserved in perpetuity.
• TMA empowers the Community Trust to protect and actively manage the Community Forest Preserve through a management agreement. 

Community Management with TMA Guidance & Oversight

• TMA provides funding to the Community Trust to 1)  actively protect their forest preserve, and
  2)  invest in education and socio-economic improvements for the community as a whole. This framework draws from the “life plan” framework used by indigenous communities in the Amazon, aimed at outlining and executing a long-term vision for sustainable development and resource stewardship.
• Funding disbursements are only made if the forest remains intact and all management provisions are adhered to. This provides the community with the funding and financial incentive to protect their own forest and, in turn, their supply of freshwater.
• The Community Trust, operating within strict parameters, decides how funds should be distributed and then implements the activities that are funded.
• The use of funds is carefully audited and transparently reported to all stakeholders, including the funders and the community at large.
• TMA guides the Community Trust at every step of the process. A greater share of management responsibilities are transferred to the Community Trust as it gains experience and demonstrates success over time.

Investing in the Future

The Community Forests Program is predicated on the following understandings and approach:

• The future of the Capuchin Corridor ultimately rests in the hands of the people who live there.
• Conservation is easier when local communities are engaged and committed to its success.
• Conversely, communities that are poor, uneducated, and disengaged represent the biggest risk to long-term forest stewardship.
• The Community Forests Program will invest in the next generation of local conservation leaders and in the community as a whole.
• This means improving quality of and access to education at all levels.
• It could also include modernizing IT and energy infrastructure through satellite internet and off-grid solar energy.
• It also means strengthening local governance structures and capacity.
• This is not an overnight process; the program we build today is aimed at achieving long-term and sustainable forest conservation for many generations to come.

Scalable Model That Can Be Replicated

• The Community Forests Program draws inspiration from the Land Trust model in the US, AESMO’s community-based watershed conservation model in Honduras, and the conservation funding model known as Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) in Costa Rica, Brazil, and Canada.
• The key features of our model are a strong legal framework combined with tight management parameters and performance-based incentives.
• The framework, parameters, and incentive system can be replicated in other regions of Ecuador and throughout the rural tropics, wherever conditions are optimal.
• Optimal conditions for this model are areas with relatively low population density and relatively high percentage of land area that contains forest and/or unproductive agricultural land ripe for restoration. Preferably in a global biodiversity hotspot.
• It requires an NGO with proven field experience combined with willing local communities and a long-term funding source.

Budget Summary

• Years 1-2 (2025-2026): $3.6 million
• Years 3-5 (2027-2029): $8.6 million
• Years 5-10 (2030-2034): $18.3 million
• Total 10-year establishment cost (2025-2034): $30.5 million
• Total establishment cost per acre (2025-2034): $983
• Annual cost after year 10 (2035 onward): $1.03 million

*Monetary values are in US$

Funding Pathways

• Capuchin Collective is a private group of philanthropists that are dedicated to funding the creation of the Capuchin Corridor. Members sponsor the purchase of specific properties, TMA places a conservation easement on the properties, and communities manage them as community forest preserves—albeit with TMA’s close guidance and oversight.
• Carbon or biodiversity credits generate revenue that is invested in the purchase of land for community forest preserves and covers ongoing management costs.
• Endowment fund funded through grants, philanthropists, the Capuchin Collective, and/or a PFP. It’s not enough to simply purchase the land. Management is long-term and funding needs to be sustainable.
• Project Finance for Permanence (PFP): see below.

Project Finance for Permanence (PFP)

The PFP approach was conceived in 2011 by a group of conservationists, former bankers, and management consultants who imported ideas from the mainstream financial sector to create a new model to protect and finance large ecosystems over the long term. 

It was built from experiences and lessons learned from three successful large-scale conservation initiatives: Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) in Brazil, Forever Costa Rica, and the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada. PFP is a “performance-based” conservation model tied to financial incentives. The Community Forests Program adheres to this framework. Features include: 

• A large-scale, specific, and charismatic conservation goal (in our case, building the Capuchin Corridor).
• A plan that details all activities to achieve and maintain the goal (Community Forests Program).
• A long-term funding plan to cover all costs and sustain the conservation goal for at least 20 to 30 years. (“Permanence” is the core objective.)
• A clear set of annual disbursement conditions or milestones that must be met by implementing partners in order for funds to be released at each stage. (Funding based on performance.)
• The disbursement conditions act as an incentive for all partners (both TMA and Community Trusts) to uphold the mutually agreed vision over time. Incentives are crucial for aligning interests and sustaining long-term commitment.

Third Millennium Alliance (TMA)

TMA has been working to protect and restore the last remnants of the Pacific Forest of Ecuador since 2007. We created the 2,500-acre (1,000-hectare) Jama-Coaque Reserve with the community of Camarones, and we jointly manage the 1,000-acre (400-hectare) Cerro Pata de Pájaro Reserve with another community conservation organization. 

The Capuchin Corridor would connect these two protected areas, spanning a 43-km-long mountain range in coastal Ecuador. TMA’s Community Forest Program is a viable pathway to achieve this objective. 

TMA’s work has been featured in Smithsonian Magazine and Mongabay. TMA is a nonprofit conservation organization registered in both Ecuador and the United States.