Through purchases made in 1994 and 1998, the Foundation acquired a majority interest in a remote 125,000 acre parcel of primary rainforest and savanna, known as El Refugio Huanchaca, in eastern Bolivia. Adjacent to the recently expanded Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, the parcel plays periodic host to elite teams of biologists from the Field Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Missouri Botanical Garden, American Museum of Natural History, and an assortment of Bolivian scientific institutions including Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado.