In 2022, I had the great privilege of spending Christmas and New Year's in the Los Cedros forest in Ecuador. Though I wasn't there long, my time there changed me. I felt like I stepped into a world I couldn't have imagined—one where, in a flamboyant act of pure abandon, some creative god scattered buckets and buckets of living jewels across  misted, impossibly green hills. I'd never experienced a perceptual weaving like this, full of so many songs and colors and shapes at once, and my little heart filled to bursting. 

Los Cedros leads the world in Rights of Nature thinking, with the forest having been awarded legal rights a few years ago. Scientists who travel there are almost guaranteed a new discovery. The forest herself has co-written songs and poems that are now finding their ways across the world. Her rivers are clear and drinkable, supporting downstream communities with life. All who visit her living embrace are changed.

But as with every fairy tale, there is a demon gnawing at the corner of paradise. Mining companies threaten this biodiversity hotspot. A tough band of folks works in the depths of the forest, working with other forest protectors across Ecuador and the world to make sure she is protected. Thinking of my time there—the glimmer of a hummingbird in the shadowed undergrowth, or the half-eaten fruits scattered by monkeys under my feet, or the curl of an orchid no bigger than my pinky nail—I just couldn't bear to see this place destroyed. The world needs its lungs, and its mysterious places. The few that are left support the thriving of the communities and songs nestled around them, and we can't let them go.

I'm honored to serve on the Board of Directors for the Los Cedros Fund, and I want to ask you to join me in supporting their mission to protect this sacred place. May the songs of Los Cedros long be decked with tiny glass frogs, and wild cats, and colorful fungi and bears and toucans and all else that makes their homes in this many-layered nest. May we respond to the song of Los Cedros.

Help protect one of the most biodiverse places in the world

An endowment protecting the Los Cedros cloud forest forever.

Held in the mists of the Ecuadorian Tropical Andes, a scientific station works with local communities to protect a cloud forest known as Los Cedros (“The Cedars”). The station encourages artists, educators, and researchers to connect with and learn from Los Cedros, whose walking palm trees and old growth lift racket-tail hummingbirds and critically endangered brown-headed spider monkeys into the clouds. Decades of interdependent artwork and scientific discovery from the station—including over 100 publications—factored into the 2021 [decision of Ecuador’s highest court](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/02/plan-to-mine-in-ecuador-forest-violate-rights-of-nature-court-rules-aoe) to ban extractive practices in the forest by upholding Los Cedros’ constitutional rights to exist and to thrive.

This ruling set a monumental precedent for worldwide Rights of Nature efforts. Yet mining companies continue to apply pressure to Los Cedros communities and Ecuadorian authorities—and if mining comes to pass in Los Cedros, it will devastate one of the most biodiverse and endemic forests in the world. Home to thousands of wildlife species, Los Cedros spans 6000 hectares of mostly primary forest habitat. There, the threatened spectacled bear builds a tree bed to feast on aguacatillo berries (tiny avocados), and the elusive jaguar has left her tracks on the banks of waterfalls. In the abundant green shadows, undiscovered fungi, insects, and orchids flourish. A glass frog hides his heartbeat under a leaf.

As one of the rare places where humans can still drink directly from cascading rivers, this refuge also protects numerous watersheds crucial to downstream communities. So, the Los Cedros Fund will prove that the station’s approach of sustainably partnering with the cloud forest and surrounding communities is best for Pachamama—all of Mother Earth, including humans—in the long term.

The Los Cedros Fund is growing an endowment for the cloud forest to be financially self-sufficient. Honoring all who’ve protected the forest for decades, the Los Cedros Fund aims to offer this new watershed of perennial support to the forest to keep artistic, educational, and scientific collaborations flowing.

We can only achieve this mission through the kindness and generosity of thoughtful donors like you.

Los Cedros Fund

I had the honor of visiting Los Cedros about 2 years ago, and still think about it almost everyday. Long live the beings in the most biodiverse and magical place I’ve ever witnessed.

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