Manifesto

Fundación Loros should not exist. If parrots lived free in the forests where they have always belonged, if no one pulled them from their nests to sell or display them, if their habitat were not disappearing under concrete and chainsaws, this organization would have no reason to be. But it exists, because all of that is happening.

Every animal that arrives at the Foundation — rescued from illegal trade, seized, abandoned, or surrendered after years of unauthorized possession as a pet — carries a story, damage to repair, and the right to a second chance. We care for individual animals. That care is the starting point for everything we do.

Three simultaneous preparations

Returning freedom is not just opening a cage: it requires that both the individual and the environment receiving them are ready. All of our work is aimed at building those conditions.

Preparing the individual

We rehabilitate, train, and accompany each animal until it has the flight, foraging, socialization, and threat-response skills to survive and thrive in the wild. We work with biologists and veterinarians, under CARDIQUE supervision.

Preparing the natural environment

We restore the tropical dry forest that receives the released birds: we grow native plant material in our own nursery, reforest, maintain artificial nests, and build the ecological infrastructure the ecosystem needs — food, shelter, and connectivity — to support viable wild populations.

Preparing the human environment

We work with communities across the territory to transform the relationship between people and wildlife: so they understand that psittacines are intelligent, sentient beings, that capturing and keeping them is illegal in Colombia, and that a free animal is worth more than one in captivity. We believe conservation can drive local development — birdwatching tourism, scientific tourism, and nature tourism are real alternatives to capture.

An austere, naturalist model

We follow an operational model aligned with international animal welfare standards. We apply a principle of minimal intervention: we avoid confinement in small cages, isolation, and unnecessary handling. We recognize that parrots need ample space and interaction with their own kind.

Each animal's path follows a clear hierarchy: first, reintegration into the natural environment through gradual release; second, semi-freedom or intermittent freedom with support; third, temporary rehabilitation custody; and only when none of these paths is viable, permanent custody. Indefinite captivity with no ecological, educational, or scientific function is not an acceptable outcome.

Beyond the sanctuary

The wildlife we release does not stay within the boundaries of the farm. That is why our model extends beyond the rehabilitation center and becomes a participatory territorial biodiversity management model: we work with neighboring landowners, rural communities, and local authorities to build biological corridors, protected areas, refuges, and productive practices compatible with wildlife.

We bring in farmers as guardians of the territory, promote silvopastoral and agroforestry systems, and share replicable protocols with other organizations so that the science we generate in Villanueva serves the country.

The best possible outcome

The success of Fundación Loros is measured by a simple question: are we needed less and less? The best possible outcome of this effort is that psittacine populations sustain themselves, that communities have made conservation and coexistence practices their own, and that the territory functions without an organization to watch over it.