La Pedregoza Natural Reserve's first partner is Amazonia Reforestation, the entity our founders represent and the entity that created our natural reserve. Despite the fact that Amazonia is a commercial enterprise that plants, grows and harvests tropical hardwood trees, it believes in acting in an environmentally sustainable manner. Together with our natural reserve and others, Amazonia is actively engaged in the collection of native tree seeds and the discovery of the best ways to germinate those seeds in tree nurseries and the best time to transplant the seedlings for future forest. Amazonia Reforestation has an official policy of planting and caring for native trees and fruit trees as a means of expanding habitat for endangered wildlife and the long term conservation of native trees threatened by past logging practices and indiscriminate clearing.

We are proud to be associated with the world-renowned Omacha Foundation, which has been instrumental in establishing our natural reserve. Omacha has assisted in the registration process, provided advice on numerous logistical issues and helped with our native tree nursery program. They are the entity that will conduct a biological inventory of La Pedregoza Natural Reserve, as well as set up motion sensors for night photography, so that we can track our noctural residents in the gallery and inundation forests. There is a formal Memorandum of Understanding between our organizations, making this a partnerhip in fact as well as practice. We are committed to being part of the larger conservation and preservation program for the protection of Orinoco basin flora and fauna that the Omacha Foundation represents. We look forward to working with Omacha in future years, especially benefitting from their experience when we set up our river turtle hatchery facility and program.

A very important partnership for La Pedregoza Natural Reserve is the link between the University of Alberta's ("U of A") Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences and our founders. Thanks to the vision shown by the U of A there is a Memorandum of Understanding in place between us and their institution, which includes making use of our natural reserve for studies and research into numerous areas of science and other disciplines. One study being planned involves carbon sequestration by tropical trees and the soil they grow in. Within the Faculty there is also a Department of Rural Economy, with plans for a study on the impact of reforestation on equatorial forest comunities. This partnership promises to benefit the natural reserve, science and graduate students in both Canada and Colombia. We have no doubt that this relationship will grow and expand in future years and that La Pedregoza Natural Reserve will figure prominently in many instances.

Another partner is the CO2 Tropical Trees program, which plants tropical trees for carbon sequestration purposes in the fight against climate change. The average tropical tree planted by CO2 Tropical Trees sequesters or captures 50 lbs or 22.6 kg of carbon a year, so for instance 250 tropical trees planted balance the annual CO2 emissions of the average North American car (12,100 lbs as per the E.P.A.). CO2 Tropical Trees will assist La Pedregoza Natural Reserve by funding the planting of native species of tropical trees, many of which have excellent carbon sequestration capacity. This means that industries or fleets looking to balance their CO2 emissions or to neutralize their carbon footprint can purchase CO2 Tropical Tree planting services, which in turn leads to the planting of native tree species for expanded wildlife habitat at our natural reserve.

We are very proud to be associated with Tree-Nation out of Barcelona, Spain. Tree-Nation is an important portal for tree lovers in Europe and prominently features our natural reserve and our Amazonia Reforestation program. The CEO of Tree-Nation has been to Vichada to visit the natural reserve and our afforestation and reforestation efforts. We are looking forward to many years of cooperation as we both encourage people all over the planet to plant trees for bio-diversity, carbon sequestration and expanded wildlife habitat. Please sign up and become a Tree-Nation member, as it is also a social networking web site for tree lovers and people concerned about the Earth, desertification and deforestation. Tree-Nation is helping us with our native tree seed collection, germination and propagation program, especially because some of our native trees are listed in CITES.

The Reserva Natural La Pedregoza is registered with RESNATUR, the Colombian agency responsible for the establishment of natural reserves in Colombia. They are also the Network of Civil Society Natural Reserves (Asociación Red Colombiana de Reservas Naturales de la Sociedad Civil) in Colombia, allowing the various natural reserves to work together, lobby together and share experiences. La Pedregoza also belongs to the Orinoco node of RESNATUR, which is a group of natural reserves located in the Orinoco River basin of Colombia. This enables us to share programs specifically designed for the region in which we are located. RESNATUR celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, which is a very respectable length of time for conservation and preservation work. Let's hear it for the next 20 years and more!

It was a pleasure for us to associate with Weforest, a Swiss and Belgian based NGO dedicated to planting trees all over the planet. Our two organizations have many shared beliefs and objectives. Weforest has been kind enough to help us market our children's book, Arbolito the Saladillo, in their newsletter. We also find ourselves exchanging a steady stream of information regarding all things "trees". Weforest has big plans that we are confident will include us and our joint efforts to combat climate change and the desertification of the planet. Besides cloud seeding through reforestation, Weforest is interested in using perma-culture techniques.