EcoMinga Foundation
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EcoMinga Foundation

projects and information



Please visit our Virtual Art Show

benefitting EcoMinga


 


An as-yet-unnamed Teagueia orchid, one of many discovered in the Upper Pastaza Watershed by the botanists who are board members of EcoMinga.



 
Photo:  Christoph Hirtz -  Poster design:  Max Benavides


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EcoMinga Foundation
          

       
Ecuador is home to more than 4000 unique plant species found nowhere else in the world; many of these are threatened by the rapid deforestation taking place here. In July 2005 a group of concerned Ecuadorian and international scientists and conservationists started a foundation to do something to save these plants and the other threatened organisms of Ecuador's forests.  We are:   Lou Jost, biodiversity specialist, resident in Ecuador, Calaway Dodson, curator emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden and renowned expert on Ecuadorian orchids, recently decorated by the President of Ecuador for his half-century of investigation here; Nigel Simpson, a founder of the Jocotoco Foundation and enthusiastic conservationist, decorated this year by the Queen of England for his conservation work; Juan Manuel Carrion, well-known Ecuadorian ornithologist, conservationist; Simon Espinosa Cordero, universally respected member of the Comisión Anti-corrupción del Municipio de Quito;  Homero Vargas, former director of the National Herbarium of Ecuador; Lori and Juan Miguel Espinoza, educators of international students in Ecuador; Johanna Twelvetrees, cofounder of a successful conservation foundation in NW Ecuador; Mike McColm, cofounder of the Jatun Sacha Foundation; Ray Swanson, graphics artist and environmentalist; Francesca Rota, well-known Ecuadorian artist; Ron Kaufmann, biologist and orchid conservationist; Howard Teich, New Yorker active in progressive causes; Ximena de Salvador, biology educator in Ecuador. The botanists on this board have personally discovered or scientifically described many of Ecuador's endemic plants, and all members of the board have an emotional tie to the beautiful forests we have studied or visited here. We intend to work hard to save them while we still can.

Click here for project information


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