Project to save Ecuador's critically endangered vizcacha wins Premios Verdes award
Save Loma Delgada, run by the Fundación Amazonía Productiva, won the land ecosystems category out of 2,087 projects from 29 countries. It aims to buy and restore 35 hectares in Quilanga, southern Ecuador, home to one of only eight known populations of this Andean rodent. The award brings visibility; the land still has to be paid for within two years.
It looks like a rabbit with a squirrel’s tail and lives among the rocks of the southern Ecuadorian Andes. The Ecuadorian vizcacha (Lagidium ahuacaense) is listed as critically endangered in the country, and one of its eight known populations lives at Loma Delgada, in the parish of San Antonio de las Aradas (Quilanga, Loja province).
Save Loma Delgada, led by the Fundación Amazonía Productiva, won the land ecosystems category at the 11th Premios Verdes, Latin America’s sustainability awards, held in Cuenca. There were 2,087 entries from 29 countries; 52 reached the final and there were ten winners, one per category.
Buying the land so it isn’t lost
Loma Delgada is private land. According to the Adventure Travel Conservation Fund, which backs the project, after 15 years of informal stewardship it was at risk of being sold for illegal mining, grazing or other uses. The foundation has a signed commitment to buy 35 hectares from the owner and two years to complete the payment, which it is raising through donations and grant funds.
According to the award entry, the area has the highest rate of forest loss to fire recorded by Global Forest Watch in 2025, and it is also part of the Podocarpus-El Cóndor Biosphere Reserve.
The forest’s gardener
“The vizcacha is our flagship because it’s the forest’s gardener: it spreads the seeds that later save us years of reforestation,” Karen Gudiño of the foundation told Diario Crónica. The plan includes planting 8,000 native seedlings, bringing back species such as the wax palm and promoting shade-grown coffee as an alternative to mining for local young people.
Another image of the Ecuadorian vizcacha. Photo: Fundación Amazonía Productiva.
With the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, the team set up camera traps and catalogued 50 endemic species. The Loma Delgada micro-watershed feeds the Catamayo-Chira system and directly benefits around 3,500 people in San Antonio de las Aradas and Fundochamba. The project also aims to train three residents as Quilanga’s first certified tourist guides.
The purchase and restoration are under way but not finished. The award carries no direct funding: according to Premios Verdes, 36% of projects surveyed from past editions later secured outside funding.
