The Bilsa Biological reserve protects coastal watersheds of the Aguacatal, Dógola and Cube Rivers in northwestern Ecuador. It is one of the last remnants of tropical rainforest in this region of Ecuador within the Choco bioregion—the third most important hotspot in the world.

Bilsa is located within the Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve, a mountainous region where tropical rainforests in the north transition to dry forests in the south. Rainforest Trust and our local partner, Fundación Jatun Sacha, have worked together since 1999 to protect over 5,078 acres at Bilsa and 5,247 acres at the Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve farther to the east in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Ecuador’s western forests have been relentlessly decimated by both legal and illegal logging, and the destruction of wildlife habitat and species extinctions have followed. The logging that has taken place elsewhere in Ecuador has left the land dry and unusable even for cattle pasture, adding pressure to remaining forests. Without protection, the same fate would befall these reserve lands.