Ecotourism in Amazonian Ecuador – bosque medicinal project

Abstract

Bosque Medicinal was established in Ecuador to protect the rainforest. Its founder, Roman Kollar, who lives in Ecuador, set it up in 2018 and has since been raising money to save the tropical forests there. His organisation and its Czech partners, Forest Ink, buy up former farms with remnants of rainforest. The aim is to turn the pastureland back into a high-quality forest, and to protect forests that have not yet been damaged by cattle ranching. Although the organisation has an international focus, most of the volunteers who come to help are from the Czech Republic. Their holidays mean buying tickets to Ecuador and working for free on the farms they buy, restoring forest to the slopes of the Ecuadorian Amazon. In 2019, the UNIDA Consortium was formed, bringing together universities and associations in Europe and Latin America to to share knowledge about the Amazon and contribute to the conservation of the region's nature and traditions. Mendel University is a founding member, and the first group of students travelled to the Amazon in 2021 with the aim of collecting the basic data needed for the reforestation of farmland.