Sangay Foundation

Act Locally
Think Globally
Deepen Ecologically

Spanish Version


  1. What Is
  2. Goals, Strategies, Field Projects
  3. How to Contact Us

What Is

Sangay Foundation is a native-based environmental, cultural, educative, scientific, independent and non-profit institution.

Sangay Foundation is legally registered in Ecuador, a country of utter importance, in terms of biological and cultural diversity, for the sub-continent and the whole planet.

Sangay Foundation is committed to envisioning and devising long-term strategies aimed at consciously interpreting and improving native community life in the Alao area in view of the conservation efforts devoted to the nearby Sangay National Park.

Goals, Strategies, Field Projects

Our main goal is to preserve the Sangay National Park's pristine environments and the native cultures that sustain.

Sangay Foundation is an Alao community-based institution that wants to tackle the problem of the conservation of Sangay National Park via a global approach and from a native ecocentric perspective and involvement. Thus, our projects span the whole conservation effort and community life. We care for the protection of deer populations in the Park as much as we care for improving the level of health and education amongst Alao children.

The factors that influence what strategies we choose and adopt are complex and ecological, as well as social, economic, and even political. For example, there is no hope of protecting high altitude cloud forests, within and without the Park, unless local natives actively participate into the process, and are made capable of supporting it. This implies a better understanding of how to manage páramos areas, traditionally devoted to cattle ranching. Similarly, the possibly only way of diminishing the natives' hunting pressure on the Park's threatened animals, like deer and tapirs, is to implement alternative proteic sources within the community itself.

The main projects we are currently working on are:

We are committed to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the knowledge of the native people in relation to the natural environments where they live;

We emphasize the fundamental and indispensable role played by the native communities in conserving pristine environments;

It is our priority to collect bibliographic resources, as books, journals, articles, audio/visual material and so forth, that will be put a disposal of the environmental community on large.

How to Contact Us

Sangay Foundation
Argentinos 38-82 y Carlos Zambrano
Riobamba - Ecuador
P.O.Box 88
Tel: (593) 3 2955 141
Fax: (593) 3 2955 142


Last updated July 1, 2001. This material is Copyrighted © 2004 by Sangay Foundation, and cannot be indiscriminately used, but it can be freely circulated for personal, educational, and non-commercial purposes.