Women of the Rio Napo

Along the Rio Napo in the Ecuadorian Amazon, over 100 women in five Kichwa communities—Sani Warmi in Sani Isla, Hatun Urku, Munditi Urku, Isla Flor Amazonico, and Flor de Pantano—are leading projects that generate income and build economic opportunity for themselves, their families, and their communities. These five communities alone own and manage 149,500+ acres of some of the most biodiverse rainforest in the Amazon—and in the world. 

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Rainforest Partnership’s team in Ecuador, along with our partners, Centro Lianas and Conservacion y Desarrollo, support these communities’ women-led enterprises to sustainably produce traditional foods and products like handicrafts, cacao, honey, medicinal plants, and native fish. 

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This work helps the women create new and reliable livelihoods, builds local capacities to manage long-term sustainable enterprises and conservation projects and to maintain the infrastructure and technology needed for this work (like solar panel systems, or greenhouses for agroforestry) and builds long-term resilience to external threats to the communities and the forest itself.

Community Partners: Sani Isla, Isla Flor Amazonico, Hatun Urku, Munditi Urku, Flor de Pantano  

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‍Organization Partners: Centro Lianas, Conservación y Desarrollo

Creating sustainable pisciculture

• Raising native cachama fish in communal and family pools as a sustainable source of food security and income

Supporting agroforestry and sustainable agriculture 

• Growing a range of native rainforest-sourced products to diversify income sources in the short and long term
• Improving the ecological health and biodiversity of community chakras (communal land used for cultivation)