Our flagship conservation project emerged as a priority need in the region of the San Antonio Forest Key Biodiversity Area (CBA), due to the worrying results found on deforestation and fragmentation in the region, from the research “Extirpations of birds and dynamics of the bird community in an Andean cloud forest during more than a hundred years of changes in land use ”led by Ruben Darío Palacio, scientific director of Fundación Ecotonos, Gustavo Kattan (RIP) who was a member of the assembly of associates, and Stuart Pimm, world renowned expert on extinctions, Senior Lecturer at Duke University, United States.

General description

The project is based on three fundamental pillars of ecological restoration: ecological integrity, long-term sustainability, benefits and social participation. The work plan for the construction of the corridor follows national and international guidelines for the practice of restoration and has a strong applied science component that seeks to emphasize the adaptive management of the rural landscape. The importance of this project lies in the need to recover the ecological connectivity between the fragmented forest patches in San Antonio with the continuous ecosystems of the Cali Farallones. This need starts from an accepted basic fact: the existence and quality of human life, as well as the

socio-economic development, are linked to the health of ecosystems

One hundred years of changes in the bird community of the San Antonio cloud forest (Valle del Cauca, Colombia)

In this research, it was found that the loss of connectivity between the San Antonio ACB and the Farallones de Cali PNN is the greatest barrier to the dispersal of species and influenced the extirpation of bird species that are still found in the Farallones de Cali. such as the white-faced nun (Hapaloptila Castanea), the Toropisco (Pyroderus scutatus), the Gallito de Roca (Rupicola peruvianus), among others. In addition, given the state of fragmentation and the loss of forest that amounts to almost 50%, the researchers concluded that the preservation of forest remnants, especially those of greater size, was an essential need to guarantee the ecological integrity in the ACB Bosque of San Antonio.