In 1990, The Lovett School science teacher Bob Braddy and his wife Connie traveled to Ecuador to study cloudforest ecology.

While passing through Santa Rosa, a village within the Andean cloudforests of Northwest Ecuador, they found the town's local school in desperate need of repair. The teachers pledged to assist the community with rebuilding the school. Within a year The Lovett School's Ecology Club raised funds, and the village fathers built the school.

Extending its link to the cloudforest community, Lovett then purchased several hundred acres of primary cloudforest in 1991 to create a protected preserve and to establish a research center to support conservation education.

The Ecuadoran government declared Lovett's property, Siempre Verde, a "protected forest," ensuring that its now 825 acres of upper montaine cloudforest will be held in perpetuity. Located on the Siempre Verde Preserve, the research center offers U.S. and Ecuadoran students an opportunity to learn conservation methods through conducting research and exchanging ideas.