The Chocó: Expedition to Survey the Unexplored

In December 2024, I joined the Savia Foundation team on an expedition to the Chocó Cloud Forest in Ecuador, exploring a newly protected plot of primary rainforest recently conserved by Focused on Nature and Hussain Aga Khan, in collaboration with Fundación Jocotoco.

This region, part of one of the world’s most biodiverse hotspots, represents a critical stronghold for countless species found nowhere else on Earth. Yet much of it remains scientifically uncharted, with steep slopes, dense vegetation, and remote access keeping it largely out of reach even for seasoned field biologists.

Our mission on this expedition was twofold:

1. Biodiversity Inventory – Conducting rapid species assessments to establish baseline data for long-term conservation planning. This included everything from plant identification to camera trapping and acoustic monitoring for rare and endemic species.

2. Content Creation for Conservation – Documenting the landscape and its inhabitants to support future fundraising campaigns, leveraging the power of storytelling to build financial support for ongoing protection.

Working alongside local experts, our small team trekked through steep, moss-covered slopes and mist-laden canopies, navigating a maze of hidden streams and towering buttress roots. This patch of rainforest, now protected from logging and agricultural conversion, represents not just an island of biodiversity, but a living laboratory for understanding resilience and adaptation.

It is a place where the work of conservationists and indigenous communities comes together, where the boundaries between research, protection, and storytelling blur, and where the fight for preservation extends beyond data collection to the deeply human act of bearing witness.

As we build the case for expanded protections and larger-scale conservation finance, this plot of land will stand as both a living laboratory and a critical piece of the global conservation puzzle.