Community Development in Ecuador

Our Land, Our Forest, Our Community

Most retreat centers describe their work in terms of what they offer participants. We want to tell you about something else: what we are building in the world between the retreats.

The land

Our retreat space in Mindo sits on 10 hectares of primary and secondary cloudforest. We did not buy this land to develop it. We came to it because we fell in love with it, and over time we understood that part of the work — maybe one of the most important parts — was to protect it.

The Mindo cloudforest is one of the most biodiverse places on earth. Per square kilometer, it hosts more bird species than most entire countries. It is home to dozens of species of orchids, hundreds of species of insects, amphibians found nowhere else. It is also under continuous pressure — from agricultural expansion, from deforestation upstream, from the slow encroachment of development.

We are not wealthy enough to save the forest on our own. But we can protect what we are stewards of. And we can try to make the case, by the way we work, that a living forest is worth more than a cleared one.

The nonprofit

In 2024, we formalized our conservation commitment by founding a nonprofit organization dedicated to the long-term preservation of the cloudforest surrounding our retreat space.

The nonprofit holds the land we work with in permanent protection. It also supports the neighboring community project, Nuestra Tierra Aldea Creativa — a local collective that works with sustainable agriculture, ecological building, and community education.

The vision: a creative village

The retreat work and the conservation work are related, but they point toward something larger. The vision we are working toward — slowly, practically, without rushing — is a creative village: a space where scientists can study the forest, artists can create work inspired by it, healers can work with the medicines it produces, and all of these activities exist in genuine relationship with each other and with the local community.

This means, in practice:

• Residency spaces for researchers studying the plant and animal life of the cloudforest
• Studios and spaces for artists working in clay, paint, sound, and other materials
• A continuing ceremonial center for healing and plant medicine work
• Gardens, food forests, and sustainable infrastructure
• Community education programs connecting local people with the conservation work

Some of this already exists in early form. Most of it is still a dream. Dreams, held with enough clarity and enough patience, tend to become real.

How this connects to your retreat

When you come to Alma Healing Center for a retreat, you are not simply purchasing a service. Part of what you are participating in is this larger project — the use of plant medicine work to generate the resources, the community, and the relationships needed to protect a living forest and build something that will outlast all of us.

We think that matters. And we think it is part of why the medicine works the way it does in this place — because the land is being cared for, not exploited.