We want to live in a world where communities engage in their environments, people build homegrown initiatives, and cultures thrive on their tradition.
Areas of Focus
Cooperative Development
Towne and Forrester works with farmers in Latin America to build capacity to organize themselves in cooperatives and associations. Often the goal of this activity is to help associations become Fair Trade certified.
Indigenous Biodiversity
Towne and Forrester works with indigenous communities in Latin America to stress the importance of the agroforestry system as a portal to alternative economic, eco-friendly activities.
Conservation Finance
Towne and Forrester works with farmers associations, indigenous communities, and international non-profit organizations to look for innovative financing options for conservation. We work to help write grants from US foundations, international development agencies, and private/public partnerships.
Immersive Internships
Towne and Forrester independently runs an internship program without a direct relationship to any particular school. Interns live with local homestay families and their work is directly overseen by Towne and Forrester’s managers or long-term volunteers. Interns work on a variety of our projects including environmental education and agricultural cooperative development.
Creative solutions, collaborative communities.
Towne and Forrester has been collaborating with forest conservation and environmental education for the past 10 years. We are now exploring more creative realms for environmental impact including art and music.
Small-Scale Focus.
Individual Farms.
Back to the Basics.
Our hope is to increase the quality of local chakras/fincas in order to promote indigenous forest conservation and sustainable land use, develop retro-alternative livelihoods, and improve community health through basic solutions to extractive practices, deficiencies in nutrition, and product saturation.
*We are currently transitioning our leadership, impact and annual reports will be made available soon!
