Hello, I'm Nicola M.

Darío is of Catalan/French/Ecuadorian descent. He spent the first 18 years of his life living in the Andes, where he was a passionate mountaineer. Eventually he made his way to Bahía where he was involved in both local and provincial tourism projects. For many years he was the Director of Tourism for Manabí, and later he was the Director of the Coastal Resource Management Program where he played a key role in defending the mangrove forest through the creation of protection agreements recognising the cultural and environmental heritage of local communities. Nicola is a New Zealander who arrived in Ecuador in 1989. She studied horticulture, management of protected areas and non-polluting agriculture. Before coming to Ecuador she taught non-polluting agriculture at Christchurch Polytechnic. She originally travelled to South America to attend the first Latin American conference in organic farming, which was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Her first two years in Ecuador were spent developing Alandaluz, an ecological hotel in the southern reaches of Manabí, and working for different foundations teaching organic agriculture. Nicola is an inspector of organic farms and has trained leaders in community based verification schemes.