Magnolia recovery and forest restoration in the Colombian Andes

Fundación ProAves is a Colombian conservation organisation working to protect biodiversity and restore threatened ecosystems through science-based conservation, long-term land stewardship, and strong community participation. Our work focuses on some of Colombia’s most endangered and biodiverse landscapes, including Andean cloud forests, Chocó rainforest, tropical lowland forests, and critical wildlife corridors increasingly threatened by deforestation, agricultural expansion, habitat fragmentation, and climate change.

Through a network of more than 27 Nature Reserves protecting over 30,000 hectares, ProAves collaborates with local communities, Reserve staff, researchers, women-led community groups, young conservationists, landowners, and regional partners to restore degraded forests, reconnect fragmented habitats, and safeguard globally threatened species. Women and youth play an increasingly important role in nursery management, seed collection, restoration brigades, environmental education, monitoring, and long-term stewardship activities across several Reserve landscapes.

This project focuses primarily on the restoration and conservation of threatened Magnolia species across multiple ProAves Reserves in the Andes and Chocó regions of Colombia. Colombia is one of the world’s most important hotspots of Magnolia diversity, with many species found nowhere else on Earth. Unfortunately, many Colombian Magnolias are now critically endangered due to severe habitat loss and fragmentation, surviving only in small and isolated forest remnants with extremely limited natural regeneration. Several species face a very real risk of extinction if active restoration and propagation efforts are not expanded.

Across these landscapes, we have monitored more than 400 individual Magnolia trees from at least 20 threatened or endemic taxa, collected more than 13,000 seeds, established native plant nurseries, and propagated thousands of seedlings for restoration. Our work includes canopy monitoring, ecological surveys, seed collection, nursery propagation, restoration planning, environmental education, and long-term habitat recovery efforts.

The project directly supports the conservation of highly threatened species such as Magnolia wolfii, Magnolia gilbertoi, Magnolia hernandezii, Magnolia urraoensis, Magnolia sambuensis, Magnolia yarumalensis, Magnolia frontinoensis, Magnolia silvioi, Magnolia cespedesii, Magnolia jardinensis, Magnolia lenticellata, and Magnolia chocoensis, while also benefiting many other threatened plant and wildlife species dependent on healthy forest ecosystems.

Funding from this initiative would help us expand native plant nurseries, strengthen women- and youth-inclusive restoration brigades, improve propagation capacity for threatened Magnolia species, and accelerate restoration in strategic forest corridors across ProAves Reserve landscapes. One of the greatest challenges remains the long-term investment required for seed collection, canopy access, propagation, monitoring, and maintenance of restoration sites in remote tropical forests.

By restoring these forests, the project contributes to biodiversity conservation, watershed protection, climate resilience, erosion control, ecological connectivity, and long-term carbon storage while strengthening local conservation leadership and long-term stewardship among nearby communities and Reserve staff.