The 1st of April 2012, Julio Marin, our field coordinator, and Fernando Arbelaez, our reserve coordinator, spent the Reserve for the first time, after purchasing the original El Silencio plot. The land had been used for cattle extensive farming, with degraded soils and wetlands with low vegetation cover that surrounded a small well-preserved forest patch. At the time, animals where distant and difficult to see. 10 years after, grasslands have been transformed into a developing forest and biodiversity has regained El Silencio, and from the research station we see night monkeys, tamarins, grisons and many species of birds (even a blue-billed curassow 5 m away from the station!), and wake up with the sounds of chalachalas and howler monkeys. The response of Nature to our efforts is the highest reward we can have and gives us the strength to keep going to preserve this amazing ecosystem.