South America Farms

From the start, our Finca Botanica Farm has embraced Gary Young’s mission of conservation. Our ylang ylang crops are adorned with majestic Ceibo trees, which were here long before urban expansion. Because Gary loved these trees, he ensured they remained on our farm, where they continue to benefit the land and its wildlife.

At the Finca Botanica Farm, we’re always striving to give back to nature for nurturing our crops. Our conservation projects aim to safeguard the species surrounding the farm and its threatened and fragmented tropical dry forest. These projects include the orchidarium, the wildlife camera trap monitoring, the ecological corridors, the Dry Forest Reforestation Project, our Native Pollinator Project, and the Palo Santo Reforestation Project.

The orchidarium, initially a home for beautiful Ecuadorian orchids, now shelters native endemic orchids rescued from nearby forest clearings. Through propagation efforts and in-vitro reproduction, we strive to increase their survival rates and reintroduce them into protected forests.

Wildlife camera trap monitoring helps us understand the movement patterns of native species on our farm, allowing us to create safe corridors for their transit. We have a “no hunting or harming wildlife” policy and encourage the Finca Botanica team to report troubled wildlife or relocate them elsewhere. We are always willing to provide shelter to animals with whom we coexist and have multiple bird nests set around the farm for this purpose.

The Finca welcomes birdwatchers, as it has its own bird database with labels and QR codes of registered species and where they are seen on the farm. This project has helped us to further identify threatened species and figure out ways to protect them. An example of this is the almost-endemic bird known as the Trogon ecuatoriano, which is only found in the coast of Ecuador and north of Peru.

There is currently an accelerated urban expansion in lands surrounding our Ecuador farm. By creating ecological corridors, we connect our farm to the surrounding dry forest, preventing habitat fragmentation and allowing wildlife to be able to move and thrive as they need.

These corridors are directly linked to our ongoing wildlife monitoring and
Dry Forest Reforestation Project, which restores the area with native trees to benefit existing wildlife and ecological processes. Our conservation efforts ensure a safe haven for native endangered species like the Pijío tree to thrive without any danger for the rest of their lives.

Our Native Pollinator Project encourages native birds and insects to pollinate the dry forest by planting native flowers and setting up Morpho feeding stations. Additionally, our meliponarium project protects native bees, including lesser-known species like stingless bees, which are crucial for pollination.

The Palo Santo Reforestation Project focuses on replenishing Palo Santo trees in their natural habitat through seed harvesting and greenhouse cultivation. Here on the farm, we also have our own Palo Santo forest, which merges with protected ecological corridors and provides a home to native species. We planted 700 trees on our Palo Santo forest in Loja in 2023, and we have more than 2,000 saplings in our greenhouse at Finca waiting to be transferred and planted during service trips and other conservation projects.

Our team actively participates in conservation events, beach cleanups, plantings, and workshops, fostering environmental awareness not only at their workplace, but in their daily lives. As a team, we are continuously searching for ways we can support and protect the species that we coexist with.

As part of our regenerative agricultural practices, we use earthworm casting beds to break down dead plant matter into natural fertilizer for our crops. We also use cover crops across our ylang ylang fields to aid in soil health and nitrogen fixation, and we are certified organic since 2023.