Ecobiosfera has 28 years of experience designing and developing “unique experiences, in unique places”
Ecobiosfera Expediciones is a nature-based travel company located in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. Our focus is connecting people to nature with adventurous tours to some of the most dramatic natural protected areas and authentic indigenous communities in Oaxaca & Chiapas, Mexico. Conservation International ranks Mexico as a Mega-diverse country and Oaxaca is #1, and Chiapas #2 in terms of biodiversity. From morning coffee with Resplendent Quetzals flying over our campsite to forests of 80 foot tall cacti, our mission is to conserve the most important biodiversity and cultural heritage of Mexico.
Nature-based tourism can be a tool for
Ecobiosfera
conserving the cultural & natural heritage
We strongly believe in our Mission:
Nature-based tourism can be a tool for conserving the cultural & natural heritage of the sites we visit. We believe nature-based tourism can create local employment opportunities, gender equality, and empower local community members to development and integrate the local vision of the owners and guardians of the territory, that our tours offer instructive experiences to visitors that inspire their interest in getting involved in the conservation of these sites. At the end this is the key for tour participants, creating behavioral change to support, participate and promote conservation values as well as culture and local livelihoods.
Our company offers trips that responsibility manage impacts (mitigating negative and enhancing positive impacts), a commitment to generating local jobs by paying a fair price, a commitment to site conservation, and offering high-quality service on each trip, focusing on the needs and expectations of participants. As part of our commitment to the conservation of Southern Mexico, we are working in a key collaborative initiative with a regional non-profit based in Chiapas, Fondo de Conservacion El Triunfo, and El Triunfo Conservation Foundation based in US.
This is an exciting model in which we are using nature tourism as a tool to motivate our clients to financially support key natural heritage conservation initiatives in this region. Each tour directly supports the conservation of the areas we visit.
The Sustainable Tourism Program
Ecobiosfera Expediciones was born as a non-governmental organization in Chiapas with the objective to respond to the need to manage visits in the protected natural areas of this Mexican region, as well as to offer a unique experience to our visitors. We were pioneers organizing birdwatching tours in this region more than 25 years ago.
At Ecobiosfera Expediciones, we believe that travel can be a tool for conservation. That is why our Sustainable Tourism Program aims to support conservation initiatives and programs connected to the territories we visit. Every journey with Ecobiosfera contributes, in a responsible way, to conservation, monitoring, environmental education, and community-based efforts.
Our journeys are designed to go beyond conventional tourism. We create expeditions that integrate biodiversity, culture, natural history, local communities, and environmental interpretation. We travel through tropical rainforests, cloud forests, mangroves, volcanoes, mountains, coffee landscapes, biocultural deserts, natural reserves, and community territories where nature and culture meet.
More than taking you to a destination, we invite you to understand it and become part of its conservation.
Meet the Ecobiosfera Team
Claudia Virgen
Founder and Director
Claudia holds a degree in Tourism from the Autonomous University of Chiapas and has dedicated more than three decades of her professional career to the conservation of natural heritage, with a strategic focus on sustainable tourism. Her commitment to the environment began in 1993 at the Institute of Natural History of the Government of the State of Chiapas, a pioneering institution in Mexico in its approach to biodiversity conservation, created by the renowned Mexican naturalist Miguel Álvarez del Toro, from whom she had the opportunity to learn about the importance of understanding and protecting regional biodiversity. Between 1995 and 2000, her work at the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve marked a turning point, as she led the sustainable tourism program, one of the first models in Mexico to link conservation, environmental education, and income generation for people in local communities.
In 2001, she participated in the creation of two fundamental organizations for the management and financing of conservation in the region: Ecobiosfera El Triunfo S.C. and the El Triunfo Conservation Fund A.C. Since 2005, she has dedicated her work to Ecobiosfera, where she currently serves as Director, leading training processes, territorial planning, and conservation projects with a holistic approach, in which the people who live in the territories are key actors for their implementation.
Her vision combines community strengthening, strategic management of protected natural areas, the design of responsible tourism models, and innovative financing mechanisms for conservation. She is particularly noted for her focus on the transformative role of the nature tourism guide as a key agent in raising awareness, environmental education, and territorial coordination, which positions her as a leading figure in building sustainable solutions for the most biodiverse territories of Chiapas and southeastern Mexico.
Eric Hernández-Molina
Biologist, Experienced Ornithologist and Tour Leader
He completed his professional studies at the Faculty of Biology of the Universidad Veracruzana. He has a career spanning over 25 years in scientific research and ecosystem preservation in southern Mexico. His work stands out for the design and execution of field research aimed at connecting scientific rigor with the sustainable development of rural communities.
Through funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Eric has dedicated over 15 years to researching the Golden-cheeked Warbler in southern Mexico and Central America. In this role, Eric coordinates the Research Committee of the Alliance for the Conservation of Mesoamerican Pine-Oak Forests, leading an international collaborative network with strategic partners in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Mexico. This position has allowed him to build a strong capacity for dialogue, mediation, and governance among academic institutions, government agencies, and the communities that inhabit these biological corridors.
Furthermore, he has led international initiatives in southern Mexico, such as the Central American Waterbird Census (CCAA), the Reddish Egret International Working Group, the Motus station network in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the Community Monitoring Initiative of the Sierra Madre and Coast of Chiapas, where he collaborated for over seven years with organic coffee community cooperatives.
Backed by over two decades of experience evaluating and strengthening conservation projects, Eric now focuses his efforts on birdwatching tourism. His vision is clear: responsibly executed birdwatching is a powerful tool to protect Mexican ecosystems. In this way, he transforms every trip into a unique opportunity to explore the country through the eyes of a scientist and the heart of a conservationist.
Mark Willuhn
MBA & Tour Leader
Over the last 30+ years I have worked in the conservation of nature, in an area called Ecosystem Service, and focused on nature-based solutions strategies for long term conservation of important natural areas in the US, Mexico, & Central America. While my core area of my expertise is developing sustainable tourism platforms, I have adopted a more holistic, integrated approach to include complementary activities such as carbon sequestration (focusing on blue and arid lands soil carbon), large-scale ecological restoration, organic agriculture, and circular systems that positively self-reinforce.
The breadth of my experience includes public use plans & business plans for protected areas, development of high integrity carbon projects, tourism cluster development, formation of organic agricultural & tourism cooperatives, fundraising program development, and business planning for micro-small & medium size enterprises as well as for non-profit entities. The overarching effort has been creating strong and resilient protected areas and buffer zone communities based on viable business ventures to improve livelihoods of local people that add value to conservation and expand the management capacity of protected area managers. Mark has a BS in Forestry from Colorado State University; and a Master of Business Administration-MBA from San Francisco State University. Besides managing a regional non-profit, Alianza Mesoamericana de Ecoturismo, Mark is currently focused on launching a $4 million conservation campaign for Oaxaca & Chiapas, Mexico, using a conservation-based tourism strategy.
Heber Diaz
Tour Leader (NOM 09) International Certification as a Leave No Trace Master – National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS Patagonia)
A graduate in Tourism Business Administration with 16 years of experience collaborating on social projects and local initiatives in various regions of the state of Chiapas and southeastern Mexico. With 12 years of experience planning and coordinating trips to remote areas, these trips incorporate low-impact practices and environmental interpretation to ensure and promote the conservation of biodiversity in the visited sites.
He has extensive experience leading groups interested in birdwatching, flora and fauna observation, nature photography, and hiking. One of his main interests is providing safe, authentic, and enriching experiences that promote knowledge, appreciation, and conservation of the natural heritage of the sites visited, fostering a deep connection between people and nature. He is currently leading the training process for a group of community forest rangers in the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, with whom he is building a shared long-term vision for the conservation of their natural heritage.
Mauricio G. Martínez-Martínez
Biologist, Nature Photographer and Tour Leader (NOM-09)
Biologist, Tour Leader, botanist, and nature photographer specialized in exploring and documenting the biodiversity of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. His work combines science, conservation, and visual storytelling to showcase the biological richness of the cloud forests, tropical rainforests, mountains, and biocultural landscapes of southeastern Mexico and Guatemala.
He has guided and led nature, birding, botany, and photography expeditions across different regions of Mesoamerica, integrating species observation, environmental interpretation, and landscape reading as central elements of each experience. His expeditions include research projects, biological monitoring, and conservation processes linked to Neotropical species, endemic flora, birds, cycads, palms, and priority ecosystems.
Throughout his work, he has collaborated with local communities, scientists, herbaria, environmental organizations, and conservation initiatives in the development of outreach strategies, biodiversity documentation, and sustainable tourism. His field experience allows him to connect scientific knowledge with the traveler’s experience, creating journeys that help interpret the relationship between species, ecosystems, local culture, and conservation.
His work has been featured in scientific publications, environmental communication projects, media outlets, and photographic exhibitions, consolidating his perspective as an explorer and visual storyteller of Mesoamerica.
Jessica Thompson-Ambriz
Biologist and Tour Leader
Jessica is a researcher and conservationist combining fourteen years of expertise with community-led biodiversity protection. She began her bird research in 2012 at Chamela Biological Station, later expanding her field experience through Peru’s Manu Bird Project and initiatives across the United States. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Ecology and Sustainable Development at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, focusing her thesis on avian diversity within anthropogenic landscapes in the Chiapas Highlands.
Her extensive background includes a specialized Park Flight Migratory Bird Program internship with the U.S. National Park Service. Deeply committed to the Conserva Aves project, Jessica bridges the gap between ecological monitoring and rural development. She specializes in ecological restoration and environmental education, firmly believing that successful long-term avian preservation is achieved only through collective community action and territory governance.
Francisco Daniel Ruz-Rosado
Biologist and Tour Leader
Francisco is a skilled field biologist, ornithologist, and ecotourism guide with twenty years of experience in ecology and natural resource conservation. He holds both a Bachelor’s in Biology and a Master’s in Ecology and Fisheries from Universidad Veracruzana. His deep expertise in bird management includes a pivotal Park Flight program internship at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, where he led mist-netting efforts for Neotropical migratory songbirds and ran community education programs.
In addition to monitoring marine protected species in the North Atlantic, Francisco collaborates in the “Conserva Aves” program and leads extensive birdwatching tours across the hyper-diverse ecosystems of Oaxaca and Veracruz. Seamlessly blending field science with professional ecotourism, he offers an unmatched, educational birding experience rooted in collective conservation efforts.
Kashmir Wolf-Roque
Biologist, Conservationist and Tour Leader
With over 25 years in the field, Kashmir represents excellence in birdwatching tourism in Mexico and Central America. A specialist in monitoring resident and migratory birds, he has dedicated the last 18 years to leading active conservation projects that demonstrate how ecotourism can be a sustainable economic engine for local communities.
For a decade, he coordinated the prestigious international Veracruz River of Raptors program. Kashmir holds international certification as a Guide Interpreter from the National Association for Interpretation (NAI, USA, 2019), one of the most rigorous credentials globally, guaranteeing a scientific and immersive narrative. Traveling with Kashmir is not just about birdwatching; it’s about deciphering the secrets of nature alongside one of its principal guardians.
Laura Baas
International Markets & Europe Liaison
Originally from the Netherlands and based in Mexico since 2010, Laura Baas blends a global perspective with a deep connection to Latin America. Her journey began in 2000, exploring Chile, Peru, and Bolivia as part of her university studies, before consolidating her fluency in the language and her experience managing social and research projects in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
With 16 years of total immersion in Mexican culture, Laura possesses a profound understanding of the country’s social, logistical, and biological environment. Her solid academic background and international experience are the cornerstone that allows Ecobiosfera Expediciones to forge high-level professional connections, adapting the vast biodiversity of Southern Mexico to the expectations and demands of the European market.