Carolina Toapanta

Speaker Biography

Carolina Toapanta is the President of BOMACO Foundation (Bosques, Mares y Comunidades) developing projects related to establishment of Areas of Conservation and Sustainable Use (ACUS) with local governments, biodiversity monitoring, bio-enterprises programs, and humanitarian assistance in Manabí, Santa Elena and Galápagos in Ecuador. She sees TFD as an opportunity to present practical and collaborative solutions to forest conservation and sustainable forest management challenges, as well as articulate community-level perspectives. She has had a long history with conservation at the Ecuadorian Coast: she completed her undergraduate degree in Biology; she later worked as a teaching assistant and logistics coordinator for several years at Ceiba Foundation helping with it’s summer and semester courses; after several years as Projects Coordinator in Ecuador, she assumed the position of Executive Director of all operations in the country for the same foundation. This year she funded and now runs her own initiative BOMACO Foundation. She has led conservation efforts on the Pacific Coast for more than 15 years and has been instrumental in establishing large-scale conservation areas there with the development of Areas of Conservation and Sustainable Use (ACUS), Pacoche Wildlife Refuge and in the Andean highlands, including the new Choco Andino de Pichincha Biosphere Reserve, declared in 2018. She earned her title as Biologist with emphasis on Ecology and Sustainable Development in the Latin University of Costa Rica in 2005. She obtained her Master’s in Environmental Conservation at the University of Wisconsin in 2015.