Our History
The Orchid Conservation Alliance (OCA) was founded in 2004 as a California corporation and a 501(c) 3 federal tax-exempt organization. A more detailed account of the history was published in Orchid Digest in 2019. Currently the OCA has a mailing list of over 700 members and about 25 orchid societies.
The focus of the OCA has been to raise money to conserve land in orchid-rich regions of the world. Since its inception, the OCA has raised over $650,000 to support the creation or expansion of 7 orchid reserves, and preserved nearly 4600 acres of pristine, primary biodiverse orchid rich habitats.
Our fund raising is a mix of different activities: presentations to orchid societies, booths at orchid shows, a presence on Facebook and Instagram, direct mailing to our membership, and telling people what we are doing every chance that we get. In addition, our Orchids in the Wild™ Ecotours have succeeded in introducing hundreds of orchid lovers to the wonders of seeing orchids growing in their natural habitats in countries around the globe: North America (Ohio (USA), Newfoundland (Canada)), Chiapas (Mexico), South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Rio Negro, Bahia)), Europe (France, Greece (Crete, Rhodes), Sicily, Spain, Switzerland), Asia (China (North and South Yunnan, Sichuan, Fujian), Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, as well as South Africa and Madagascar.