Who we are?

Nature & Culture International is a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) status, a publicly supported organization. Our offices are in southern Ecuador (Loja), northern Peru (Sullana, Iquitos, and Amazonas), and the United States. We try to be as efficient and effective as possible in supporting conservation action in the developing world, respecting local process and conceiving conservation as a fundamental part of development.

What do we do?

NCI works to create protected reserves, establish state forests, assist in managing parks and public reserves, carry out science and education programs, and help local communities to integrate their development with conservation objectives. We focus on threatened ecosystems in the dry forests, cloud forests, and rain forests of southern Ecuador and northern Peru.

Strategies of intervention

• We minimize our US presence, with only two employees;
• We build local conservation capacity, hiring dedicated local professionals who determine the program priorities for their regions;
• We seek to establish long-term conservation efforts that integrate local communities, and are sustainable in biological, social and political terms;
• We achieve efficiency with local salary levels and low administrative overhead;
• We generate unrestricted founds to support priority activities generally not supported by donors;
• We work with the government (in Ecuador and Peru) at the local and national level to help establish state forests, reserves, and regional conservation areas;
• We promote conservation education and environmental youth clubs.

UNITED STATES OFFICE:
Nature & Culture International
1400 Maiden Lane, Del Mar, California 92014
Phone (858) 259-0374
nciusa@natureandculture.org