20-05-2025
María José Iturralde
The destruction of the Amazon rainforest often perplexes outsiders, who might attribute it solely to corporate greed. But for many forest inhabitants, there are often 'literally no other alternatives to make money' but by clearing land for cash crops, says María José Iturralde, executive director of Fundación Pachaysana, an Ecuadorian nonprofit that partners with Indigenous communities to restore the rainforest.
Iturralde is flipping that script. In 2019, Fundación Pachaysana launched its Humans for Abundance program, a radical intervention that involves paying locals to become stewards and restorers of their ancestral lands. Today, 12 families receive monthly paychecks to collectively revitalize 370 acres of what was once farmland and protect another 740 acres of pristine forest.
For Iturralde, the mission is personal. Her grandfather, the former president of Ecuador, signed a resolution while he was in power that absolved Texaco, a U.S. oil company, from responsibility for dumping billions of gallons of toxic wastewater into the rainforest, contaminating an estimated two million acres. Iturralde says. 'I feel like my own grandfather is righting the wrongs through me.'
Through the foundation, Iturralde, a former teacher, also operates the Forest School, which teaches local children Indigenous knowledge and promotes the ecological value of the Amazon, cultivating the next generation of restorers.
