Please donate to the Ecuadorian Rivers Institute to support our river conservation initiatives in Ecuador. For this fundraiser, the ERI will not be charged any fees for using the Pledge platform, and Pledge will cover credit card fees on donations of $1,000 or less. Pledge will ask for an optional donation to help cover their platform expenses, but you can opt out if you like. To set up a matching donation, or for donations greater than $1000, please write to info@ecuadorianrivers.org. Spread the word: Text ERI to 707070 to donate on Pledge.

The Ecuadorian Rivers Institute is dedicated to preserving natural, free-flowing river corridors and addresses informal and illegal mining, logging, oil development, poorly-conceived hydro projects, and other inappropriate development through monitoring, administrative procedures, and legal actions. Our annual fundraiser is essential to meeting the growing financial needs our of river conservation efforts in Ecuador, and we greatly appreciate the ongoing support provided by our generous donors.

The ERI is a US 501c3 non-profit volunteer-driven organization that works with local partners to help protect and conserve the most outstanding rivers in Ecuador. Your donation will be used exclusively to cover program expenses and will not be used to pay salaries or overhead. Our goal is to raise $20,000 to support the following efforts and initiatives in 2026:

Experiential education

In the past year we carried out an innovative experiential education program with 150 students in seven schools along the Jondachi-Hollín-Misahuallí-Napo watershed corridor, who participated in water quality monitoring, an orientation on cultural identity and environmental awareness, sustainable production alternatives, outdoor recreational activities, mural painting, and other cultural activities focused on strengthening relationships and connections with rivers. Due to limitations of working within narrow time slots in the classrooms, we are now preparing for a transition of the RIOS VIVOS program towards extracurricular activities based on water quality monitoring, stewardship, and experiential education to allow for greater flexibility and open the participation to a broader range of students and community members. Your support will keep this program active.    

Stewardship

This year, our efforts to document and report environmental infractions finally succeeded in the suspension of alluvial gold mining activities along most of the Jatunyacu River by the Ministry of Environment for flagrant violations of the company’s environmental management plan. We are now working with government authorities to establish riparian buffer zones within the mining concessions along the rivers that are paddle sports destinations. The ERI is also working to improve the management of instream gravel mining operations on the rivers in the Quijos valley, and identify alternatives for the production of aggregate construction materials. As we move forward, we hope to monitor and address untreated wastewater discharges. Your support helps to monitor, document, and report environmental threats, and to engage government authorities to regulate and control these watershed issues.

Legal Defense

Our legal actions have succeeded in preventing hydro development from moving forward on the Jondachi River for over 10 years, and have stopped hydro development on the Piatúa River for 6 years. However, a new group of judges in Ecuador’s Constitutional Court recently rejected the admission of the appeal we made on the temporary suspension of the hydro project in the Piatúa case that has been pending for several years, and has sent it back to the lower court to resolve. In addition, a new proposed hydro project on the Cofanes River that has been fast-tracked through the permitting process, will likely require significant legal actions. Your support will help cover the cost of professional legal services to stop hydro development on the Piatúa and Cofanes Rivers.

Environmental flows

When we are unable to stop the development of a hydro project, and for existing dams, the ERI works to enhance the consideration of recreational river uses for environmental instream flows. We monitor the operation of diversion dams and report flow violations to government authorities. The consideration of recreational river uses in the determination of environmental instream flow was eliminated in the new water law passed in 2014, which was supported by several big environmental NGOs. The ERI is trying to reinstate the consideration of recreational river uses through a legal reform. The current regulation specifies a minimum environmental flow as 10% of the median annual flow, which is unacceptable. Your support will help our efforts to improve the consideration of recreational river uses for environmental flows.

River protection

The ERI has been working for many years to cultivate a movement to create an International Wild and Scenic Rivers program to preserve Ecuador’s most popular kayaking rivers. The Ministry of Tourism has recognized 12 rivers in the Napo Province as tourism attractions. The next step is getting formal protection and management for these rivers. In 2022, the ERI presented a petition with almost 160,000 signatures to the Minister of Environment to establish a river protection program. We must keep the pressure on this initiative to convince the government to protect these waterways. Please continue to use the hashtag #riosturisticos when posting pictures of kayaking in Ecuador to promote recreational uses of these rivers. Getting a river protection program established in Ecuador will not only set an important precedent in the region, but will also help preserve the most emblematic paddle sports destinations from further inappropriate development and extractive activities. In order to move the international river protection agenda forward, the ERI has also been actively engaging the United Nations to require member countries to report the number of river kilometers under protection, and to establish a global river protection program to prioritize the preservation of free-flowing river corridors, with leadership, standards, and guidance to build local capacities, leverage funding, and provide incentives to host countries and land owners to protect their most emblematic rivers. The ERI recently participated in a planning meeting for the next United Nations Water Conference which will be held in the United Arab Emirates in December 2026. The ERI pushed for including the protection and restoration of freshwater resources in the main themes of the agenda. Your support will further the ERI’s efforts to protect free-flowing rivers in Ecuador, and continue engagement with the United Nations to establish a global river protection program.  

Community outreach

The Jondachi Fest is our main community outreach activity to raise awareness about watershed issues and promote the protection of free-flowing river corridors. The event receives widespread participation and ample media attention. The river festival includes an educational watershed forum, the Class V Upper Jondachi Race, a group descent of the Class IV Jondachi-Hollín Rivers, a kid’s painting contest, films, a triathlon, and activities for all ages with river trips, a community fair, cultural program, as well as downriver flatwater races for kids and beginner kayakers, and traditional dugout canoes. Other cultural and ecotourism activities are also promoted throughout the Jondachi-Hollín-Misahuallí-Napo watershed corridor to help get more people on board with protecting this outstanding resource as a model for the protection of other free-flowing riparian corridors, which are strategic for the conservation of freshwater biodiversity as well as paddle sports destinations.   

The Jondachi Fest helps to support everything that the ERI works on throughout the year, which involves documenting and reporting threats and impacts from mining and development and other issues in an effort to control these activities, meeting with government authorities and local stakeholders, including Indigenous communities who live along this river corridor, discussing the benefits of protecting the river for future generations instead of the short-term financial benefits that they get from logging, or by negotiating with mining companies, and hydro developers. Your support will cover organizational expenses and allow the Jondachi Fest to continue to have a lasting positive impact.

Please donate

Thank you for supporting our annual fundraising appeal. The Ecuadorian Rivers Institute has been fighting for Ecuador’s rivers for over twenty years and is the leading voice for paddlers and river conservation in Ecuador. The ERI is working hard to foster a local community of river stewards to continue this work in the future. Please donate to the Ecuadorian Rivers Institute and help us meet our fundraising target.