The Oaxacan Fund for Nature Conservation began in the year 2000 as a public trust, by 2004 the Fund’s committee established a strategic alliance with the Oaxaca Community Foundation, establishing itself as an environmental fund within this nonprofit organization.

By forming the alliance with the Oaxaca Community Foundation, the Fund becomes a nonprofit, non-political, non-religious initiative, generating an ongoing space for active and responsible plural citizen and institutional participation in the conservation of the state’s biological diversity.

Presently, the Fund’s governing committee involves the Oaxaca Community Foundation, the Oaxaca State Ecological Institute (IEEO), the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) of Oaxaca and the Mar University (UMAR).

Besides the joint programs between FCO and the Oaxacan Fund for Nature Conservation, the Fund also executes programs and projects related to environmental education, research, and institutional development, promotes and strengthens community conservation areas, promotes and strengthens development of productive processes that promote sustainable practices.

The Fund has established two strategic focuses that highlight priority ecosystems and priority species.  Within this focus, it has identified the Chimalapas jungle and sea turtles as its strategic lines.

Of the lines of action related to the Chimalapas Zoque Jungle it is emphasized that with over one million hectares (1,133,370.53 Ha) of high, mid and low jungles, as well as pine and oak forests, associations of pine oak and mesophilous forests, the Zoque Jungle is the tropical forest land mass with the greatest ecological integrity in the northern part of the continent.  At the same time the rivers that flow in the region form part of the high river basin of the Usumacinta-Grijalva and Uxpanapa-Coatzacoalcos rivers, which conduct 40% of Mexico's river runoffs.  It can be affirmed that what happens in the Chimalapas region considerably influences the rain and climate regiments in southeast Mexico.