Fundación Estación Biológica Guayacanal

We are a non-profit organization dedicated to research, consultancy, development and dissemination in ecological restoration, land planning, urban ecology and eco-urbanism. Our main issues include urban protected areas, cities and mountains, forests and wetlands restoration, and environmental management for mining projects and urban settlements. We work in a wide variety of ecosystems in Colombia. Our approach is based on the empowerment of local communities, the strategic use of biodiversity, and the ecological understanding of anthropogenic transformations. Our slogan: "Going back to nature, bringing back the nature, is not going backwards. Is to create a new harmony when everything has changed".

Guayacanal Foundation is an organization that emerges from a long process of social and environmental management with local communities and rural women between the regions of lower Chicamocha river and upper Sogamoso river basins. This process begins in 1993 and takes the form of Foundation in 2005, keeping its ongoing endeavor in this area until today, and opening new fronts in socio-environmental management and consulting services in several regions of the country.

In line with its commitment to community, the Foundation has focused its work towards the use of native biodiversity as a sustainable natural resource that allows the recovery of the profitability of farming in marginal areas, depressed by agro-environmental mismanagement. This strategy is directed to conceiving and appreciating these arid and semi-arid areas as development poles, even more necessary as new pressures reduce the availability of arable land. Part of the results of this process are evident in the Foundation’s Field Station, located in the municipality of Los Santos.

In recent years, the Foundation’s team has permanently led the scientific and practical development of Ecological Restoration in Colombia, as well as its disclosure and ongoing training among institutions, grassroots organizations and the private sector. Proof of this has been its critical participation in the formulation of the National Protocol for Ecological Restoration (IDEAM, 1997), the District Protocol for Native Ecosystem Restoration (DAMA, 2000), the District Protocol for Wetland Restoration (DAMA, 2004), the Technical Guide for Participatory Ecological Restoration (Parques Nacionales, 2007), and the Ecological Restoration Protocol for Middle Magdalena Wetlands (Development and Peace of the Middle Magdalena Corporation - Guayacanal Foundation - ALMA Foundation – ECOPETROL, 2012).

By their nature, Guayacanal prioritizes the generation, rescue and socialization of knowledge as the key for solutions. This involves all ways of knowledge, formal, traditional, or any kind. Since knowledge is multiple, solutions must go through the assessment of human diversity, processes as learning to listen, learning to learn, and the building of networks for discussing, sharing and cooperating.