TMA started out as a handful of people camping in an abandoned rainforest at the top of a cloud-shrouded mountain in coastal Ecuador in 2007. We were armed with nothing but machetes, a few leaky tents, and a budget of $16,000. Today, TMA manages multiple rainforest preserves, works with hundreds of farmers across dozens of communities, and is building a 100,000-acre conservation corridor across the length of an entire mountain range.
Below is a brief explanation of what we’re about.
Hiking back to camp in the Jama-Coaque Reserve circa 2008.
The story behind the name
The name of our organization—Third Millennium Alliance (TMA)—reflects the idealism from which this project was born. We believed the world was badly in need of a radical course correction, and we wanted to be at the forefront of this transformation—literally on the front lines. So that’s exactly where we went. Our lofty dream was to restore the most endangered rainforest on earth and—in the process—help redesign the way that humanity manages resources, produces food, and pursues abundance.
In other words, we believed—and still believe—that the prevailing model of industrial development of the last few centuries is becoming obsolete. Humanity needs to upgrade its operating system for the coming millennium—which is the third millennium of the so-called Common Era.
Simply stated, the goal of this new operating system is to pursue human abundance in a way that increases our natural capital over time rather than depleting it. Our vision is a world teaming with life, culture, natural resources, and wilderness, but in a way that is aligned with the technological age in which we now live— a world where both people and nature are healthy and rich.
We also believe that building a new model of economic and ecological abundance along these lines can only be achieved with the collaboration of people across all walks of life. It will require architects and engineers, farmers and scientists, artists and entrepreneurs, thinkers and doers, leaders and technicians, governments and businesses. In other words, it requires an alliance. An alliance for the third millennium. Third Millennium Alliance.
Admittedly, Third Millennium Alliance is a bit of a mouthful in English and doesn’t translate well to Spanish. So now we mostly use the acronym TMA. It works equally well in Spanish as it does in English.
The “Bamboo House” research station in the Jama-Coaque Reserve (2024)
What we do
Despite the global ambition implied by our organization’s name, TMA is bioregional at heart. Its mission is to work with local communities to protect the last remnants of the Pacific Forest of Ecuador and restore as much of this ecosystem as we can. We do this through a combination of economic incentives, regenerative agroforestry and other forms of food-positive reforestation, and community-based conservation.
It starts with protecting and sustaining vital natural resources like forests and the abundant freshwater sources that they represent. Our flagship project is the creation and ongoing management of the Jama-Coaque Reserve (JCR), which was first established in 2007 and now protects 3,000 acres in partnership with the local community of Camarones.
We’re now in the process of rescuing and reviving an orphaned forest preserve—Cerro Pata de Pájaro (PDP)—which covers over 10,000 acres along the same mountain range. It also contains one of the most pristine relics of old-growth cloud forest in all of coastal Ecuador.
Both of the above are supported by TMA’s Regenerative Agroforestry program—a strategic alliance between conservation and commerce that uses chocolate as a tool for forest restoration and a sustainable source of local jobs and livelihoods. It is managed in partnership with local farmers and premium chocolate companies like To’ak.
Local park ranger Pablo Bermudez in the old-growth cloud forest of Cerro Pata de Pájaro (PDP).
Long-Term Vision
Our next major task is to create a conservation corridor that connects JCR and PDP. This will establish a contiguous protected area of 35,000 acres of rainforest that stretches 27 miles across the length of the coastal mountain range. All of this is located at 0° latitude. The equator line literally runs right through the middle of it.
We call it the Capuchin Corridor, which we are building in partnership with 36 agricultural communities that live along this mountain range and who depend on its forest for their year-round supply of freshwater. The entire area—which includes forest, agricultural land, and residential areas—is 100,000 acres (40,000 hectares).
TMA’s Community Forest Program is the framework we’re using to achieve this objective. It is supported by TMA’s Regenerative Agroforestry program and other innovative partnerships with local communities. TMA’s Food-Positive Reforestation strategy is the basis for our large-scale forest restoration work.
The Capuchin Corridor is named in honor of the critically endangered Ecuadorian Capuchin Monkey, a species whose existence is tied to this ecosystem.
Our work has been featured in Smithsonian Magazine and Mongabay.
Legal Status
TMA is a nonprofit conservation organization registered in both Ecuador and the United States.
The coastal mountains of the Capuchin Corridor in the heart of the Pacific Forest of Ecuador.
