As global temperatures rise, wildlife around the world are on the move, and one of the planet’s most biodiverse countries is no exception.
In central Ecuador, where the Andes meet the Amazon, lies a patchwork of protected areas and Indigenous territories. But climate change and persistent deforestation are widening the gaps between them — leaving species like jaguars, tapirs and monkeys with few safe paths to find more suitable habitat.
The solution: Stitch some of these areas back together.
Today, the Ecuadorian government, with support from Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund and the Global Environment Facility, announced the Palora-Pastaza corridor, which links protected forests with Indigenous territories to enable wildlife to more easily migrate to higher and more temperate elevations.
Spanning 316,000 hectares (781,000 acres) — an area roughly the size of Rhode Island — the corridor is the largest of its kind in Ecuador’s Amazon.
“Rising temperatures coupled with deforestation are pushing wildlife into smaller and smaller areas,” said Joy Woolfson, who leads the Amazonian Connectivity Corridors project for Conservation International-Ecuador. “Corridors that connect remaining patches of healthy habitat are a lifeline."
A jaguar in the Palora-Pastaza conservation corridor.
But where will wildlife migrate in the future? To answer this, Conservation International and EcoCiencia-Kolibria analyzed factors including the distance between primary forest and ease of travel, considering roads and landscapes.
Protected areas are one of conservation’s most effective tools, but by design, they can create isolated islands of healthy habitat for wildlife, Woolfson said. Corridors help bridge these gaps, linking fragmented ecosystems and providing safe routes for wildlife in search of food, mates or space.
Though protected areas typically limit human activity, protected corridors are different: They're designed to support wildlife and people, allowing sustainable land use while allowing animals room to roam.
A South American tapir in the Palora-Pastaza conservation corridor.
With Sangay National Park in the Andes to the west and Indigenous territories in the Amazon to the east, establishing the protected corridor required buy-in from local and Indigenous communities whose ancestral lands it connects to, Woolfson said.
Eighty-four percent of the land in the Palora-Pastaza corridor belongs to three Indigenous communities — the Shuar, Achuar and Kichwa — who along with two provincial and six municipal governments elected to include their territories in the protected corridor. Since 2023, Conservation International has worked with representatives from each group to plan and manage the corridor and ensure its long-term protection.
“The forest is important to us. Our father always told us to share with other communities — show others the importance of protecting the forest,” said José Vargas, president of the Arutam Forest, a Shuar core area located within the corridor. “It makes me happy to see other nationalities participating, because unity will help us conserve nature.”
Without support from these communities, establishing the corridor would have been impossible, Woolfson said. As research has repeatedly shown, Indigenous peoples are some of the most effective stewards of the environment, and deforestation on Indigenous-managed lands is consistently lower than average.
The corridor, its backers say, will directly benefit more than 2,000 people who live in the area by providing them with funding or technical assistance to shift to sustainable farming practices and livelihoods.
Woolfson says that the effort is part of a larger strategy in Ecuador, where there is little remaining land in the country — about the size of the U.S. state of Nevada — to designate as protected.
“Ecuador is a small country,” she said. “Even in the protected areas that we have now, a good portion is occupied by people. By targeting protected corridors, we’re maximizing protected areas’ potential, while also protecting wildlife and the livelihoods of people living there."
The vast majority of the new conservation corridor belongs to three Indigenous communities. Deforestation on Indigenous-managed lands is consistently lower than average.
Mary Kate McCoy is a staff writer at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates. Also, please consider supporting our critical work.