In 1987, professionals of the Datacenter for Conservation (CDC: “Centro de Datos para la Conservación” in Spanish) and of the National Museum of Natural History of Paraguay (MNHNP, for its name in Spanish), both at that time dependencies of the “Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería” (Ministry of Agriculture), altogether with foreign scientists; The Nature Conservancy (TNC) (from the United States of America), and the Missouri Botanical Garden (USA), completed a series of field studies 
in the forest which they called Mbaracayu (in honor to the mountain range).
Within the mentioned study they determined the biological importance of the area and the necessity to turn the property a protected wild area. A document called “Technical Justification for the incorporation of 60,000 hectares of land in the Department of Canindeyú to the System of Areas Handled of Paraguay” (unpublished) was elaborated.
During the Annual Meeting of TNC, which took place in Snowbird, Utah, that same year, the Director of the Datacenter for Conservation, Raul Gauto, displayed to TNC the idea of the Mbaracayu Reserve as an opportunity for the conservation of natural resources in Paraguay. The Latin American Division of TNC decided to develop actions, at the request of the Body of Governors, for the conservation of that area, and designated Alan Randall to work with Raul Gauto in that task.
The following year, in January of 1988, the Official Document of Constitution of the Moises Bertoni Foundation for the Conservation of Nature (MBF) was signed.
This organization was created with the objective to contribute to the conservation and sustainable development of natural resources of the country, being Mbaracayu and other important ecosystems and reserves part of that objective.
The first Assembly of the novel organization chose Raul Gauto to hold the position of Executive Director of the MBF, who was in charge of the MBF until 1998. After that year, the Assembly chose Nancy Cardozo to direct the organization, and she did so until 2005, when Yan Speranza assumed the institutional Direction.
