Cotacachi Cayapas Reserve contains 752,235 acres (3,044 km2) of land and is located in the Imbabura and Esmeraldas provinces of Ecuador 87 miles (140 km) from Quito.

This region has not been extensively farmed and replanted with eucalyptus or pine trees, as so much of the interandean highlands have been, so the preservation of the plant species here is a very important effort.

The reserve is particularly important because it safeguards one of the few remaining examples of Ecuador's coastal rainforest, a much threatened ecosystem which forms part of the Choco; an internationally recognised bio-region which extends from Southern Panama to northern Peru and has been rated as a global biodiversity hotspot.

Unfortunately it is often the case that the park rangers struggle to patrol the long borders of the reserve and are ill -equipped to manage conflicts when they arise.

During the early 1990s, areas of the reserve and its buffer zone were included in a mineral surveying program called PRODEMINCA which was partially funded by the World Bank and aimed to support the development of extractive industries in Ecuador.

To date these protests have been successful in preventing publication of the project data and have also resulted in the withdrawal of international mining interests from Intag, an area of cloud forest which lies to the southeast of the reserve.