Jatun Sacha (

Kichwa Kichwa (, , also Spanish ) is a Quechuan language that includes all Quechua varieties of Ecuador and Colombia (''Inga''), as well as extensions into Peru. It has an estimated half million speakers. The most widely spoken dialects are Chimborazo ...

: ''hatun sacha'', "big forest",

Southern Quechua Southern Quechua ( qu, Urin qichwa, es, quechua sureño), or simply Quechua (Qichwa or Qhichwa), is the most widely spoken of the major regional groupings of mutually intelligible dialects within the Quechua language family, with about 6.9 mil ...

: ''hatun sach'a'', "big tree(s)", "great wilderness", also written with j, sounding "h") is best known as the name of a biological station established in the Ecuadorian Amazon in 1985, the Jatun Sacha Biological Station. The management of this station and its associated nature reserve is undertaken by Ecuador's Jatun Sacha Foundation, which since its birth in the 1980s has grown to be Ecuador's largest national level conservation organization with projects distributed throughout mainland

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

as well as on the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...

. In the 21st century the name ''Jatun Sacha'' was also adopted by the Bolivian government for their Proyecto Jatun Sach'a, a forest conservation initiative in collaboration with

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

, and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

. In 2007, a U.S. affiliate of Ecuador's Jatun Sacha Foundation legally titled 'Jatun Sacha USA' adopted the English translation "Great Wilderness

as their public name in the United States.

References

*Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino, Lingüística Quechua, Centro de Estudios Rurales Andinos 'Bartolomé de las Casas', 2nd ed. 2003

External links

Jatun Sacha Foundation, Ecuador
Official website for Ecuador's Jatun Sacha Foundation (in English and Spanish)
Proyecto Jatun S'acha
Official website for Proyecto Jatun S'acha, a forest conservation initiative of the Bolivian government (in Spanish)
Great Wilderness
Official website for Great Wilderness, a California-based international non-profit acting as Jatun Sacha Ecuador's US affiliate {{authority control Science and technology in Ecuador Organizations established in 1985 Biological research institutes 1985 establishments in Ecuador