The windy, cold, dry and variable weather on the Patagnonian Steppe of Argentina make it one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth. Yet it is an environment rich in biodiversity with several endemic, rare and threatened species, including the threatened Hooded Grebe. ICFC is partnering with a local organization, Ambiente Sur, which has identified and has plans to address each of the factors adversely affecting this species.

ICFC is engaged in a long-term effort to strengthen capacity of the Kayapó indigenous people to protect their officially ratified territories which span an area of tropical forest twice the size of Nova Scotia in Brazil's southeastern Amazon.

This project is aimed at consolidating and strengthening the protection and management of the Abrolhos network of marine protected areas, which will serve as a model for improving marine conservation in Brazil and beyond.

Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica protects 163,000 ha of lowland forest, rain forest, cloud forest, and a marine sector. ICFC's Parataxonomist Fund helps train and support local community members as parataxonomists, who both guard the park and contribute to the biological inventory for ACG. We also support an after-school program in marine biology and ecology for children from a neighbouring fishing community.

With our Guatemalan partner, ICFC is supporting the Laguna Grande Reserve to protect an area of lagoons, mangroves, lowland and inundated forests, and karstic mountain forests in Caribbean Guatemala.

ICFC joined forces with several other conservation organizations to purchase 2298 hectares of the Sierra Caral Cloud Forest in Guatemala. This site is one of the most biodiverse forest remnants in Central America and protects nine endangered and seven endemic amphibian species.

This work effectively promotes the conservation of the endangered maleo (Megacephalon maleo) and marine turtles that nest in the Tompotika area of Sulawesi, while building a local foundation for conservation in Sulawesi.

Mali's desert population of elephants has evolved a unique nomadic strategy that includes a migration circuit of 600 km to cope with the widely dispersed and variable food and water resources in the Sahel area of Africa. This project is securing the future of this northern-most elephant population by reducing human-elephant conflict and ensuring continued access for elephants to key habitats.

The Los Amigos Conservation Concession (LACC) conserves the Los Amigos watershed and 146,000 ha of biodiverse old-growth forest in the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru. It indirectly protects a far greater area of tropical forest and an area with uncontacted indigenous people. Working with the Amazon Conservation Association, ICFC has created a trust fund to endow the salaries of park guards to provide basic protection this important reserve in perpetuity.

In 2003 a small group of researchers and volunteers realized that urgent conservation action was needed to stop the decline of the Endangered Vinaceous Parrot and other species of the highly threatened Atlantic Forest hotspot. Measurable progress has been made through research, education and habitat restoration, with population declines reversed.

This small project offered a rare opportunity for young participants in a conservation club in the city of Fort Dauphin to have their first view of lemurs. Such exposure can inspire a lifelong engagement with nature and conservation and influence the future course of conservation in this biodiversity hotspot.

This project contributes to Nature and Culture International's effort to increase protection of the Sierra de Alamos Reserve in southern Sonora, Mexico to conserve the rare tropical dry forest ecosystem and its considerable biodiversity as well as to improve management and sustainable use of the resources within the reserve to benefit the local people.

The Critically Endangered Blue-throated Macaw is found in only one place on Earth: the Beni Savannas of Bolivia. This project was aimed at protecting and increasing the Blue-throated Macaw population at the Barba Azul Nature Reserve in this area of Bolivia.

Provision of infrastructure at the Jorupe Reserve

This project consisted of ground work in preparation for a biodiversity reserve network consisting of priority cloud forest sites (Morningside and others) in the highlands of southwestern Sri Lanka. This reserve system is being created to protect threatened species, notably amphibians, lizards and freshwater crabs and to provide other environmental benefits.