Going to the Source: Quito pays for Water
Condor Bioreserve, Ecuador
“My father has been a para-biologist since the prior USAID-funded project in 2000. Since I was 10 years old, I have been in contact with biologists, ecologists, and researchers who have come to work in our community of Oyacachi. I have learned to love nature, and from the researchers, I realize that I need to study it more to understand it better. Now, I am 17 years old and am studying biology in high school. I want to go to the university in the city to study biology or ecotourism by getting a scholarship, because my family has limited economic resources.”
Adelaida Aigaje, Environmental Community Leader, Oyacachi, Condor Bioreserve, Ecuador
Ecuador’s capital city of Quito gets 100% of its drinkable water from Andean creeks and rivers. Around 1.5 million people, local industries and irrigation fields use more than 4.5 billion gallons per month of water taken directly from the mountains–enough to fill almost 15,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. All this water comes from Condor Bioreserve, and its protection represents one of Ecuador’s biggest conservation challenges.
Named for the legendary Andean condor (Vultur gryphus), the Condor Bioreserve is a 5.4 million-acre mosaic of public protected areas, farms, ranches, and indigenous territories that encompasses snow-capped volcanoes, cloud forests, páramos (high altitude grasslands), rain forests, and innumerable creeks, lagoons and rivers. The Bioreserve is home to the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus), Andean tapir (Tapirus pichaque), neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis), more than 760 bird species and 19 poisonous frog species. The Bioreserve includes seven protected areas: Sumaco Napo-Galeras National Park, Cotopaxi National Park, Llanganates National Park, Cofan-Bermejo Reserve, Cayambe-Coca Reserve, Antisana Reserve and Pasachoa Wildlife Refuge, as well as several watershed protection areas and private reserves.
In 2000, TNC, USAID, the Municipality of Quito, the Quito Electric Company, the Quito Municipal Water and Sewage Agency, and the Andean Beer Company teamed up to create a Quito-based water conservation fund. Known as FONAG, the fund receives payments that the people of Quito and local industries make with the purpose of financing projects that will conserve their water source. The fund’s main goal is to maintain sufficient water quantity and quality to meet the needs of the people of Quito, as well as to provide long-term protection of water sources in the Condor Bioreserve.
PiP has helped strengthen the fund to manage the implementation of conservation and development projects in the Condor Bioreserve as well as its financial resources. With PiP support, FONAG has also begun to attract funding from international donor agencies. By 2004, FONAG had $2,112,000 in capital, which provided a budget of $301,000 for projects in 2005. In 2007, the Metropolitan District of Quito adopted an ordinance that sets aside 1% of Quito’s water and sewer fees for the capital fund of FONAG. This contribution will increase to 2% of fees over the next four years. The design of the fund allows the capital and funds available for projects to increase each year and by 2011, it is projected to have over $5.5 million in capital and generate over $250,000 for projects each year.
In addition to the work with FONAG, PiP has supported other valuation of environmental services projects across Latin America and the Caribbean, including reforestation projects in Guatemala, watershed management in Bolivia, economic valuation of tourism in Ecuador, and palm, fish and freshwater turtle management in Peru.
