"Without a park designation, this leaves us with the situation we faced both 1994 and 1995; where we are in direct competition with the Setrafor Lumber Company for the last remaining coastal tropical rainforest in Ecuador."

—Fundacion Jatun Sacha

Protection of Coastal Rainforest / Ecuador - Archived

This past April the Government of Ecuador granted a private company permission to pursue logging the remaining 1% of Ecuador's primary coastal tropical rainforest. The logging may start as early as May 29, 1996. This GRAction requires an urgent response. Please send your fares, e- mail messages, or letters immediately. Global Response members are asked to take action to help environmentalists in Ecuador preserve the coastal tropical rainforests of the Mache-Chindul mountains in northwestern Ecuador.

Covering an area of approximately 180,000 acres, Mache-Chindul contains many rare plant species as well as providing a home for the mantled howler monkey and the endangered jaguar. The headwaters of the Dogola, Cube, and Aguacotal rivers arise in the Mache-Chindul mountains.

Fundacion Jatun Sacha, a prominent Ecuadorian forest conservation group, has asked that INEFAN (the Parks Department of Ecuador) set aside 50,000 acres of the Mache-Chindul region as a National Park-Ecological Reserve. INEFAN has been conducting a "data- gathering" survey of Mache-Chindul's flora and Fauna in response to Jatun Sacha's 1994 request that the area be protected. INEFAN director Jorge Barba shocked Ecuador's environmental community with his April 19, 1996 decision designating only a very small section of Mache-Chindul for protection and opening the remaining forests for logging by the Setrafor Logging Company.

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