Serendipitous conservation: Impacts of oil pipeline construction in rural northwestern Ecuador

Since the early 1980s investment has moved into the Nono-Tandayapa-Mindo-Los Bancos region of NW Ecuador largely through a rapid expansion of ecotourism facilities. Cows and pastures have been replaced with lodges and secondary growth forest. The creation of the Mindo-Nambillo Bosque Protector that was subsequently declared Birdlife International's first IBA (Important Bird Area) in South America, the completion of the tarmac Calacalí-Independencia Highway in 1981 connecting Quito, Ecuador’s capital, to Mindo and then the coast, and the completion in 2002 of the New Trans-Andean pipeline Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP) seems to have facilitated this expansion. The new Calacalí-Independencia road cut transit times from Quito to Mindo from 6 to 8 h to 2 h while the new OCP pipeline access road, renamed the “Ecoruta Paseo del Quinde,” provides access to the upper Choco endemic bird area. It appears that the OCP construction protests were a unifying force for good, motivating four distinct groups to challenge the building of the OCP oil pipeline; to try to develop ecological sound, sustainable development in Mindo, the Tandayapa Valley and Los Bancos; purchase conservation tracts; and initiate non-local investment in these three locations. Drawing on findings from unstructured interviews with NGO representatives, ecolodge owners, and key environmental activists in the region, this paper examines how Nono-Mindo-Tandayapa-Los Bancos region has become the most popular ecotourism destination in Northwest Ecuador.