Perceptions and Motivations about the Declaration of Bellavista as the First Private Protected Area in the National System of Protected Areas of Ecuador

Abstract

The research takes a journey from the creation of Bellavista in the 1990s, as an initiative that combines conservation and ecotourism, to its declaration as the first private protected area of the National System of Protected Areas (SNAP, by its initials in Spanish) in 2019, following the technical-regulatory procedure established by the National Environmental Authority. The objective was to document the process that led the owners of Bellavista to conserve their land through the category that represents the highest protection in Ecuador. We carried out in-depth interviews with key actors, fieldwork based on participant observation, and collection of documentary information. The owner’s perception is that, at an institutional level, the SNAP constitutes the ideal form of conservation in Ecuador, which allows forest conservation in perpetuity and shields against the expansion of the extractive sector. The latter is the reason for the motivation to declare the land as a SNAP Private Protected Area. With the Bellavista Private Protected Area declaration, a conservation initiative was integrated into the private SNAP subsystem for the first time in Ecuador, setting the tone for other actors to follow the same process.