WELCOME TO el bosque y la niebla FOUNDATION

We reconciliate urban and rural communities with cloud forest to contribute to climate change mitigation, planetary health,  life in land protection, and sustainable cities and communities (Sustainable Development Goals).

El Bosque y La Niebla (The Mist and the Forest Foundation) contributes to protect and restore cloud forest ecosystem (located between 2700 and 2980 meters above sea level) in the Private Nature Preserve  La Ilusión (OEMC) which is located in the Eastern mountain range of Colombia. It is located to 52 km from Bogotá (Colombia), one of the six megacities in Latin America.

Since 2007 the Nature Preserve has left a positive impact on El Rosal municipality, in Hondura- Tibagota village, located in the Sabana Occidente Province. It has being a role model of private land  stewardship, participating in social fabric processes, and raising awareness about the vital link human beings Nature share.

The OECM La Ilusión has implemented reconversion and restoration processes in critical degraded areas formerly used for livestock and potato cropping. The conservation and expansion of the original ecosystem have been critical practices for increasing water supply for the region, and raising levels of biodiversity and providing healthy natural spaces.

So far we have been identified 450 species of native flora (six species of them listed as near extinction), 120 bird species, and 40 orchid species. 

Through out camera trapping program we have evidenced the presence of oncilla  (Leopardus tigrinus, shown in photo, Categorized as VULNERABLE by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) among other mammals like the two toed sloth (Choloepus hofmanni),  and the endemic Brown Hairy Dwarf Porcupine (Coendou vestitus) which are wonderful indicators of good health of the cloud forest, besides revealing the urgency of expanding its habitat, and raising awareness for their conservation with another landowners.

La Ilusión is associated to the Colombian Network of Natural Preserves of Civil Society (Resnatur) that has promoted for near 30 years conservation and sustainable production practices in private lands in Colombia.

Every year hundreds of rural kids visit La Ilusión Nature Preserve to learn and experience Shinrin-yoku, or Relational Forest Bathing (TM). This practice has help them to remember the forest in a different way as improve or regulate their stress levels, attention, creativity and reinforce bonds and values as compassion.

El Bosque y la Niebla Foundation was born in 2019 to protect the natural, agricultural and cultural heritage of the cloud forest of unprotected areas of the western ecological structure of Bogotá region to the West of the Plateau. We have stablished an alliance with different actors interested and involved in our mission: Alianza (private sector), Universidad Nacional,  Philipps University Marburg, Universidad Distrital, Resnatur, municipal governments, another NGOs,  land owners in the region, and private donors. 

To reconcile society and nature through:

1. Strengthening ecosystem connectivity.

2. Strengthening  social fabric 

3. Socio environmental knowledge generation

4. To provide mental and physical health to different target groups and vulnerable populations, throughout Relational Forest Therapy TM.

Contact information:

direccion@fundacionelbosqueylaniebla.org

Instagram and facebook: @shinrinyoku.colombia - @elbosqueylaniebla