Kaya Foundation

The Kaya foundation is a registered 501 3c charitable organization that specializes in tropical rainforest preservation and sustainable community development. Our approach to conservation is unique in that we work with families who already own parcels of rainforest and plan to exploit the land. We have dissuaded deforestation of these lands through the establishment of community banks who offer low-interest micro-loans to families in exchange for their contractually bound agreement to preserve the rainforest they own. These loans give families access to vital resources and break the link between deforestation and socio-economic impoverishment. Currently, we have established two of these communal forest banks in the highly bio-diverse Napo province of the Ecuadorian Amazon, which is adjacent to the UNESCO Volcan Sumaco Bio-sphere reserve.