The rainforest in Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful and special places on earth with a high biodiversity existing of plants and animals. These are essential to maintain in order to ensure healthy current and future generations. We make sure that this can happen by means of acquiring rainforest ourselves. This land is directly registered under the nature conservation law of Costa Rica, which ensures it’s protection against commercial exploitation indefinately. But this is not where Work With Nature stops… Together with Oscar, our Costa Rican ranger, we take care of the involvement and awareness of the local inhabitants. This ensures that they will not continue the illegal logging or poaching. With our trapcams we have delivered evidence that a multitude of mammals have returned to the area already! Our next goal is to protect a grand total of 400 hectares of rainforest, this is enough area for the sloth and different species of monkeys to return.
The involvement of the locals is essential for the success of our foundation. And, in return, the work that the foundation does, helps the locals. By protection the rainforest, we create employment opportunities and a healthier living environment. At this moment we have two local employees, Oscar and Maria. Oscar goes with the research students into the reserve as a guide, and Maria is our daily cook at the project. Both are very happy with the opportunity to be able to work for us and to support our great cause. Their alternative is hard and unhealthy labor in the banana-industry. It is that important, that even Oscar’s mother thanked us, saying it was from the bottom of her heart. She was grateful for the opportunity that we gave her son, which gives her more confidence in his future.
Only to protect the tropical rainforests is not enough. It is important to create awareness in regards to the beauty and importance of these forests in order to inspire people to change their daily routines and contribute to the global interests. The project area will be a place where we can receive guests who want to contribute and who want to learn by means of volunteering activities, research internships and Spanish courses.
Research
Sustainability
Local community
In the past a lot of rainforest has been logged. Unfortunately this happened all around Costa Rica, including the land we are currently protecting. By replanting the right trees, we give nature a hand in order to regrow the rainforest even faster. In this way we connect separated plots of forest and thus making it possible for animals to roam around freely and spread seeds and plants in a natural way. Most important is that the main goal is to let the original tree- and animal species return!
Knowledge greatly determines which choices you make in life. By means of our knowledge in regards to the importance of nature conservation and by sharing this knowledge, we create awareness. With our Costa Rican activities, our aim is to reach and educate locals as well as our guests. Within the Netherlands, we aim ourselves on schoolkids by giving free workshops. Especially for the Dutch kids, we started a project called ‘the rainforest of the kids’(Regenwoud van de Kinderen). In our opinion, it is enormously important that the future generations can enjoy te rainforests as well. And this is the exact reason that it is our ambitioun to teach this to every single kid in the Netherlands. The Rainforest of the Kids is a project which enables Dutch kids to be actively engaged in the conservation of the rainforest.