Who we are

SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras (SVSF) –RAINFOREST-LIFE WITHOUT FRONTIERS – prides itself in being an independent, action oriented and non- profit NGO, officially constituted in Ecuador in 1997 and in the Netherlands in 2010. Inspired by Professor Archie Mafeje, SVSF is a grass roots organization with a structural approach and serves as a vehicle for social change, decision making and participatory development.

Founded by our Executive President, Mariana Almeida, SVSF incorporates cross generation professionals with many years of field experience, who recognize that safeguarding the Amazon Rainforest and its ancestral inhabitants, is essential in guaranteeing the life of their children and their future generations.

SELVA-Vida sin Fronteras sustains that Nature is Life and Life exists and reproduces in Nature. The two are interdependent and indivisible. Under international law, – ratified by the world community of nations in the major UN Declarations, Charters, Conventions and Resolutions-, Nature and Life have the moral and legal right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate vital cycles, structures, functions and processes in evolution.

Harmonizing Nature with Human activity is plausible and SVSF gives what it takes to provide concrete and viable solutions to the serious human and environmental problems affecting vulnerable eco-systems of universal significance. Most of our activities are concentrated in a geographical region that comprises the head –waters of the Amazon Rainforest and River Basin.

Institutional philosophy also suggests that words, like theories, have to be proven within empirical reality. Results speak for themselves, and cannot be substituted by words.

However concerted efforts and actions and their impact may be, they are also determined and qualified by the empirical setting.  Therefore when the question of who we are is posed?, the answer has to contemplate where we work and what we do.  We are what we do, and how we do it.