Dispatches from the Field & Project Summaries
Project Summary: La Cusinga Eco Lodge, Costa Rica
June 4, 2010
La Cusinga Eco Lodge is an outstanding example of a tourism business where quality service is accompanied by a sincere dedication to sustainability. Built to blend in with the natural environment, the lodge buildings occupy a stunning hillside location overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the relatively undeveloped southwest coast of Costa Rica. La Cusinga is surrounded by its own private 250-hectare nature reserve that is home to toucans, monkeys, and countless other wildlife species. Various trails lead through the mostly primary rainforest and down to the beach below the lodge.
Since the beginning, the environment has been at the center of La Cusinga’s mission and philosophy. John Tresemer, La Cusinga’s founder and manager, first came to Costa Rica as a college student from the United States more than 30 years ago. He fell in love with the unspoiled reefs just offshore, as well as the old-growth rainforest along the coast. At the time the site that is now La Cusinga was at risk from slash-and-burn deforestation, while the surrounding area under threat from proposed aluminum stripmining and the planned construction of a deepwater port.
Tresemer ended up staying in Costa Rica and, with the help of his parents, buying the land that is now La Cusinga. From the beginning his goal was to preserve the land and restore what had already been damaged. He tried various schemes for generating income from the land in a sustainable way, including chocolate production, before finally establishing La Cusinga Eco Lodge. Through his friendship with Alvaro Ugalde and Mario Bozo, the founders of Costa Rica’s national parks system, Tresemer was also instrumental in establishing several nearby protected areas, including Ballena Marine National Park, located just offshore from La Cusinga. In large part thanks to Tresemer’s efforts, what could have ended up an ecological disaster area is now an environmental success story.
La Cusinga takes sustainability seriously in all aspects of its operations. The lodge restaurant serves delicious food made with organic ingredients from La Cusinga’s own gardens and farm. Lodge buildings and furniture are made from sustainably harvested wood produced on La Cusinga property. The lodge has its own composting system, wastewater treatment system, and recycling center, and produces some of its own energy through solar and hydroelectric power. Tresemer and general manager Geinier Guzmán would like to further expand La Cusinga’s energy self-sufficiency but have been hampered by a lack of trained experts in Costa Rica to help build and maintain alternative energy infrastructure.
A key part of La Cusinga’s sustainability efforts is its involvement with the local community. Nearly all the employees are from the local area. In addition, the lodge has a close relationship with ASANA (the Association of Friends of the Nature of the South-Central Pacific), a regional organization that focuses on environmental education, biodiversity monitoring, and protected areas conservation. One of ASANA’s major projects is the creation of the Tapir Path Biological Corridor along Costa Rica’s southern coast between the Savegre and Terraba River. La Cusinga has been very supportive of this project, and the lodge’s private reserve represents an important refuge for wildlife species in the biological corridor. La Cusinga guests have the opportunity to volunteer with ASANA’s sea turtle hatchery program, and the lodge is involved in hosting workshops and training programs, controlling illegal activities that harm the environment, and coordinating work with local schools.
One school with which La Cusinga works closely is the Escuela Líder La Flor de Bahia, a primary school located in the nearby town of Uvita. La Cusinga helped the school set up a recycling program and also brings students to the lodge on field trips to learn about ecology, conservation, and sustainable agriculture.
Since the establishment of Ballena Marine National Park, La Cusinga has worked hard to help local fishermen develop alternative sources of income as boat tour operators. The park is ideally suited for marine tourism, with a dramatic, rocky coastline, offshore reefs, and islets where seabirds nest in great numbers. Bottlenose and spotted dolphins frolic in the deeper waters, and humpback whales – the park’s namesake ballenas – are commonly seen. Initially it was a challenge to convince local fishermen to stop exploiting the marine resources; once established, the whale and dolphin watching industry brought with it new challenges, as the tour boats began having negative effects on the whales. La Cusinga brought in outside experts to educate boat drivers about how to avoid disturbing wildlife and continues to work with a local tour operator, Bahia Adventures, to develop sustainable practices and train guides.
This emphasis on community and living within the natural carrying capacity of a place are at the heart of La Cusinga’s philosophy. The lodge currently has space for a maximum of 40 guests in private and group cabins, but its popularity has prompted many travel agencies to push for the construction of additional facilities. La Cusinga’s management isn’t giving in. With 250 hectares, “we could create a lot of rooms around here,” says Guzmán. “But that’s not our business.” Despite the pressure to expand, La Cusinga is committed to remaining a small, sustainable operation where protection of the environment is an integral part of the bottom line.
Project Summary: The School for Field Studies, Costa Rica
June 4, 2010
The School for Field Studies (SFS) offers experiential study abroad programs for primarily college undergraduates at field stations in Costa Rica, Australia, Kenya, Tanzania, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Baja California, Mexico. Each center has a different environmental focus, ranging from marine resource conservation to wildlife management to tropical rainforest studies. In Costa Rica, the focus is on sustainable development, and students gain hands-on experience in field research, conservation, and community-based development.
SFS Costa Rica students live at the Center for Sustainable Development Studies in Atenas, a small city in the central highlands, about 45 minutes from the capital city, San José. The Center is located on a hillside overlooking the Río Grande Valley a couple of miles from the center of town. Students live in dormitories and attend classes in the Center’s indoor and outdoor classrooms, as well as off-site in field locations. They eat in the Center’s dining hall and participate in a wide range of activities and chores, ranging from kitchen duty to gathering eggs from the henhouse to working in the plant nursery and orchard.
Studying with SFS is a life-changing experience for many students. Most have never had an educational experience of this kind, where most of the learning takes place outside a traditional classroom setting. Although students attend lectures in the indoor and outdoor classrooms at the SFS Center, the majority of their time is spent out in the field, conducting research, visiting national parks and other sites, speaking with stakeholders ranging from park managers to the Ministry of Environment to local farmers, and giving back to the local community.
“We’re not only collaborating with the students and the professors who are really invested in what we’re doing. The community is absolutely an integral part of everything we’re learning,” says Helena Manzella, a senior at Muhlenberg College and a student at the SFS Center in Costa Rica. “It’s amazing to be able to actually work with people that are people we wouldn’t be able to come across elsewhere and then, furthermore, to be able to put what we learn into action almost every day.”
Field research is a major part of the SFS curriculum, and much of it is tailored to the needs of the local community. For example, since 2005 SFS has been working with a local coffee producers’ cooperative and has helped three of the nine member farms obtain organic certification. One of these is Finca El Pino, a shade-grown coffee farm located on a steeply sloped hillside not far from Atenas. Run by Gerardo Calderón and his family, El Pino has a particularly close relationships with SFS. For the past year and a half or so, SFS Professor Achim Häger has been conducting research on the environmental benefits of various plants and agroforestry methods. The research gives SFS students hands-on experience with scientific research and sustainable agriculture, and provides information that the Calderóns can use to improve their production.
Another important part of the SFS curriculum is field trips to places such as the Tárcoles River and Carara National Park, on the Pacific Coast by the Gulf of Nicoya. Field trips may include excursions into different ecosystems, field lectures by SFS staff, and visits with local park rangers, government officials, and other local stakeholders. For example, an SFS lecture about water pollution take place not in a classroom but at the mouth of the Tárcoles River, where herons, osprey, egrets, cormorants, and wood storks are just a few of the countless bird species picking their way along a beach littered with plastic bottles, rubber tire tubes, and other trash carried downstream from communities in the central highlands.
At nearby Carara National Park, SFS students conduct research projects that are jointly established according to the park’s needs. Every semester the school holds a symposium at which students present papers or other research that the park can use in its management plans.
When SFS was founded in 1980, one of the key goals was to create environmental literacy in people of all professions, so that they could work together to address environmental issues. This mission remains at the heart of SFS. Students come to the Center for Sustainable Development Studies filled with idealism and passion for solving environmental problems. Through their field experiences they discover just how complicated the issues are and learn how to go about finding solutions that enhance local livelihoods while also conserving biodiversity and natural resources.
Center Director Gerardo Avalos is an ecologist who studied in the United States and completed his PhD research in plant physiology at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, before returning home to his native Costa Rica. He joined SFS after realizing that a pure science degree was less relevant than an interdisciplinary approach to environmental issues.
The work that SFS students do makes a measurable difference in the lives of local farmers, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies that lack the budget to conduct their own research. At the same time, students develop skills that will serve them well in any profession. “We provide authentic opportunities for research, for community interaction, for people who are basically starting their careers,” says Avalos. “We have the chance to influence very young people that eventually will occupy positions that could be very important for the future of conservation, not only in the tropics, but also in the U.S. and all over the world.”
Project Summary: The Leatherback Trust, Costa Rica
June 4, 2010
Of all the different species of sea turtles, the leatherback is the largest and one of the most endangered. Typically weighing between 500 and 1,500 pounds, leatherback turtles are truly prehistoric creatures; fossils dating back 100 million years have been found.
From October through February, leatherbacks come ashore to lay their eggs on Playa Grande and other nearby beaches in Guanacaste Province on the northwestern coast of Costa Rica. Although 20 years ago as many as 1,500 leatherbacks nested here, the number has declined precipitously to a low of 28 turtles in 2008-2009. The turtles are threatened by a range of factors including climate change, natural predation, land development, and, until the creation of Las Baulas National Park, human poaching.
Fortunately, efforts to save the turtles are well established at Playa Grande. At the center of these activities is the Leatherback Trust, a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 by Dr. James R. Spotila of Drexel University and Dr. Frank Paladino of Indiana Purdue University. Although they originally began coming to Playa Grande for scientific reasons, both Spotila and Paladino have been involved with turtle conservation in Costa Rica for decades and were instrumental in the establishment of Las Baulas Marine National Park in 1991. The park protects three of the main nesting beaches for leatherback turtles: Playa Grande, Playa Ventanas, and Playa Langosta. Together these beaches stretch approximately six kilometers (roughly 3.75 miles) along the Pacific Ocean near the Tamarindo Estuary. Spotila and Paladino founded the Leatherback Trust to save leatherbacks and other sea turtles from extinction because they did not see any existing organizations that could play a similar role, particularly in the Playa Grande area.
Science remains at the heart of the Leatherback Trust’s work. The organization is closely affiliated with the Goldring Marine Biology Station at Playa Grande, where Spotila and Paladino are the lead scientists. Researchers come to Goldring from all over the world to conduct research on the turtles. From October through February, researchers – many of them graduate students who come to Playa Grande for the season – patrol the beaches every evening from three hours before until three hours after the high tide, looking for turtles. The station also operates a hatchery on the beach to help the leatherback population recover. Eggs that are laid below the high tide line or in other exposed areas are moved to the hatchery, where they are placed in holes that replicate the conditions of the original nest but are at less risk for destruction. The research generated through the Goldring Station’s activities has formed the basis for dozens of theses and scientific papers, as well as the backbone for the management of Las Baulas National Marine Park. Outside the nesting season the Goldring Station often hosts researchers studying other aspects of the national park and the surrounding area.
The Leatherback Trust is funded largely through the Earthwatch Institute, and Earthwatch volunteers are crucial for the organization’s work. Throughout the nesting season, the Leatherback Trust hosts volunteers from the Earthwatch Institute, who join the researchers in patrolling the beaches and assist with other monitoring and conservation activities. In addition to providing what Jim Spotila calls “extra legs on the beach” to help with the patrols, Earthwatch serves as the major funding source for the Leatherback Trust, although the organization has also received support from National Geographic, the National Science Foundation, universities affiliated with the project, and private donors.
Another key component of the Leatherback Trust’s work is education. The organization has a close relationship with local schools, including the Matapalo School in a nearby village, as well as with U.S. institutions, from grade schools to universities, that bring their students to Playa Grande every year. One school with a longstanding relationship with the Leatherback Trust is the Bullis Charter School in Los Altos, California, which has been bringing sixth graders to Playa Grande every year for five years. Bullis students learn about sea turtles and conservation and also participate in cultural activities with the Matapalo School.
The Leatherback Trust also works closely with a variety of other local organizations, including the national park, the local guides’ associations, and the local women’s organization, the Association of Women Friends of Las Baulas Marine National Park, which undertakes a number of environmental education and conservation programs in and around the park. Spotila believes that one of the reasons for the organization’s success is that rather than being a bunch of foreigners coming in and telling the Costa Ricans what to do, the Leatherback Trust provides the background support to help local people and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) protect their beaches and their turtles.
One of the great successes of Playa Grande is the involvement of the local community in the national park and turtle conservation. Before the park was established, just about every turtle egg laid was collected by poachers and either eaten or sold for profit. With the creation of the park came education and alternative sources of income. The local people who used to collect the eggs are now working as local guides in the national park and have become passionate about the protection of the leatherback turtles.
Nevertheless, the Leatherback Trust has faced significant challenges, including the uncertain status of the national park. Back in 2001, Spotila says, things were “almost chaotic,” with “a lot of confusion as to what the boundaries of the park were, who owned what land, what enforcement there was.” Together with local communities and conservationists, the Leatherback Trust worked to clarify the legal aspects of the park and rally support for its continued existence. Although the confusion over the boundaries has been cleared up, the park remains under threat from lawmakers who want to eliminate it altogether, as well as developers who are buying up the surrounding land. Landowners whose property became part of the national park are angry because they are unable to build on their land; the Leatherback Trust is working to convince the government to provide fair compensation and is helping to find sources of funding to assist with these efforts. The Leatherback Trust and its conservation partners are determined not to let Playa Grande be turned into another Tamarindo, the community across the bay that has seen rapid and uncontrolled tourism development to the extent that turtles no longer nest on its beaches.
Despite the challenges, Spotila is optimistic. He believes that the leatherback population will begin to rebound as a result of conservation efforts. The 2009-2010 season already saw a slight but significant rise in the number of nesting turtles compared to the all-time low of the previous season, suggesting that conservation efforts are beginning to pay off. Spotila also believes that the status of Las Baulas National Park will be confirmed and consolidated under Costa Rica’s new president, Laura Chinchilla Miranda. He says, “We’re going to try and cooperate with the new president, make her as successful as she can be so that Costa Rica is successful. And the turtles and the people will all benefit from that.”
Project Summary: Rios Tropicales, Costa Rica
June 4, 2010
Ríos Tropicales, one of Costa Rica’s leading rafting companies, has been a pioneer in sustainable tourism and ecotourism since long before they became buzzwords. The Ríos Tropicales Lodge, located in the scenic Pacuare River Gorge, is built to harmonize with its natural setting. Most Ríos guests arrive and leave by raft, the majority on two- or three-day packages that include lodging and meals. Others do the whole trip down the river in one day.
Rafael Gallo, the founder and president of Ríos Tropicales, is a native El Salvadoran who fell in love with river running while studying in the United States. He came to Costa Rica in the mid-1980s and began building the Ríos Tropicales Lodge in 1990 after purchasing the land from Dina Fuentes, a local woman who raised her family on the banks of the Pacuare River and in the nearby community of Bajos del Tigre (often called simply El Tigre). Fuentes now manages the Ríos Tropicales Lodge, and several of her children work as guides.
The lodge itself is an oasis in the tropical forest, with the rushing river providing the backdrop for a relaxing stay far from roads and other signs of modern urban life. Rooms are simple but comfortable, and meals – served in the thatch-roofed dining pavilion overlooking the river – are delicious, buffet-style spreads.
For Fuentes, the coming of Ríos Tropicales changed her family’s life completely. Before Ríos the family struggled to get by, clearing the land for farming and living by other subsistence activities. Ríos provided not only a good job for Fuentes herself but also expanded the educational and employment opportunities for her children. The family has been an integral part of Ríos Tropicales from the start and is proud to contribute to the conservation of the Pacuare Gorge area. One of the first projects that Ríos initiated was the reforestation of areas that had been cleared. “We had to reforest everything that we ourselves had cleared,” Fuentes says with a laugh, “but everything we had done was out of necessity.”
The sustainability ethic pervades everything Ríos Tropicales does. Ríos guides and staff monitor the protected areas along the river for poaching, deforestation, and other illegal activities. On rafting trips, the guides make very sure that no garbage is left behind at the picnic lunch stop, where guests are asked to separate compostable waste for regular trash. The company is also working with the community of El Tigre on a wide range of sustainable community development projects. Located at the top of the Pacuare Gorge, El Tigre is home to about 25 families that previously made their living through agricultural and hunting activities that had a negative impact on the environment. Ríos Tropicales has worked with the local school to improve school restroom facilities and promote recycling. The company is also working to set up a town-wide waste management center and recycling program. Previously El Tigre residents would simply burn plastic together with other garbage.
A key element of Ríos Tropicales’ work in El Tigre has been helping to develop sustainable local sources of income that benefit the local community and provide incentives for protecting, rather than destroying, rainforest resources. El Tigre resident Javier Mora is the sustainability manager for Ríos Tropicales. He says that sustainability was a new concept for him but that the efforts of Ríos have breathed new life into the community. Mora now works with Ríos on projects such as reforestation, forest protection, waste management, and sustainable tilapia farming. Ríos has also helped build an Internet café to provide a source of income for Mora’s wife, Patricia González, and their daughter, Helen. The Internet café will also provide El Tigre residents with a way to connect with the broader world.
Down the rutted road from the Internet café is the Sepentarium, another Ríos-supported project. The project is run by Carlos González, a young local man without formal higher education whose interest in snakes caught Rafael Gallo’s eye. Although not yet fully complete, the Serpentarium will house more than 130 species of snakes, with interpretive signage and glass display cases. More developed is the Pacuare Butterfly Garden, where Ríos Tropicales has helped Mario Achoy Vega combine his two passions, butterflies and plants, into a business venture that is already drawing tourists from local ecolodges. Butterflies fly free inside the enclosed garden and are raised for sale to collectors in the nearby laboratory.
Rafael Gallo believes that El Tigre can serve as a model for sustainable community development elsewhere. In fact, with grant support Ríos Tropicales is already working with the country of Bhutan on developing similar projects there. The idea is that when financial and environmental sustainability go hand in hand, everybody benefits.
Central America Expedition 2010: Day 16 – Leaving Nicaragua
March 31, 2010
As I’ve mentioned a few times already, you have to be prepared for early mornings as a member of a Green Living Project expedition. On no day was this more true than the day we left Nicaragua. We were picked up at our hotel in Managua at 3 a.m. for the roughly eight-hour journey by car back to San José, Costa Rica, where I would be leaving the expedition due to another commitment that required me to fly back to the States a few days early. The guys, on the other hand, were headed to Panama, where they would visit two more projects before returning to the States. They had a 1:10 p.m. flight to catch from San José’s Pavas Airport to Bocas del Toro, in the islands off Panama’s northwest coast.
With plenty of room in the van to stretch out, we snoozed in the early-morning darkness all the way to the border. As it turned out, we needn’t have left quite so early. We arrived at the crossing at 5 a.m., but the border didn’t actually open until 6. Now wide awake and with time to kill, Ryan and Rob set off to explore with a videocamera. Soon afterward I spotted someone who looked a lot like Rob pedaling toward the van on a rickety bicycle cart like those used by produce vendors. As he approached I realized it really was Rob. He had borrowed a bicycle cart and was now entertaining himself – and quite a few bystanders – by cycling unsteadily down the road calling, “Lettuce! Tomatoes! Carrots!”
Shortly after 6:00 the border opened, and as some of the first travelers in line we completed our documentation procedures on both sides without hassle. We sped down the road to Liberia, where we had to change vans and drivers, and then on toward San José. As the morning went on – and particularly as we began to climb the winding road into the Central Highlands – traffic became more and more of an issue. Knowing the guys were supposed to be at Pavas Airport at noon to check in, we watched the clock anxiously as the traffic slowed to a crawl behind a line of buses and semi-trailer trucks. With no way to pass, there was little our driver could do.
We finally arrived at the airport around 12:40 p.m. to find all the other passengers already on board the Nature Air flight and the airline staff wondering whether Rob, John, and Ryan were going to turn up. Fortunately the guys and their luggage were able to get on the plane, and off they went to a new country and new adventures. I went to an airport hotel for the afternoon and flew out early the next morning, sorry to miss the Panama portion of the expedition but inspired by all the great projects we had visited in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Central America Expedition 2010: Day 10, part 2 – Traveling to Nicaragua
March 25, 2010
After barely making our flight from Palmar Sur we soared back north along Costa Rica’s west coast, passing directly over La Cusinga and the bay of Uvita, followed by endless palm tree plantations (the palm oil is sold as cooking oil). We touched down briefly at the landing strip in Quepos before continuing on to San José’s Pavas Airport, a place we had come to know well by this time. We had never seen it quite like this, however – with driving rain so strong it was coming down sideways, forcing us to hold the airline-issued umbrellas as shields while we waited for permission to make the short walk across the tarmac to the terminal building.
Once inside, we found that the rain was wreaking havoc with Nature Air’s scheduling. With such small planes, all flights were grounded until the weather improved – including our connection to Liberia. We hung around Pavas for an extra hour before finally being allowed to take off. When we finally arrived in Liberia, it took a little while to find our driver, who had gone to have a meal while waiting for our delayed flight. By coincidence, our late arrival did have one benefit – as we exited the terminal we spotted Bibi Santidrián and Tera Dornfeld, two of the researchers from Leatherback Trust, waiting in the arrivals area to pick up co-founder Dr. Frank Paladino. Our brief reunion was like a meeting of old friends.
From Liberia it was a five-hour drive to our next destination, the lovely colonial city of Granada, Nicaragua, where we would be visiting several businesses participating in Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable tourism program. Our driver kindly stopped at a supermarket in Liberia so that we could pick up some food for the road. While we were shopping he discovered a new problem – the vehicle documents needed to cross the border were missing. It took various phone calls and a trip back to the car company’s office near the airport to track them down. Finally – a good two and a half hours late, if not more, by this time – we were on our way.
The border crossing involved standing in lines for passport stamps on both the Costa Rican and the Nicaraguan sides, but otherwise it was uneventful. Darkness fell as we sped up the Nicaraguan highway, past the countless fruitstands lining the roadside. Around 8 p.m. we finally arrived at the Hotel Patio del Malinche in downtown Granada, where Jessica Webb, communications coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Tourism Program, was starting to wonder what had happened to us. By the time we had finished dinner at a the restaurant El Tercer Ojo, one of Jessica’s Granada favorites, our travel-weary bodies were more than ready for bed. Fortunately the courtyard rooms at our hotel were both comfortable and quiet.
Central America Expedition 2010: Day 10 – La Cusinga Eco Lodge, Costa Rica
March 25, 2010
After hearing about La Cusinga’s good work from members of the local community, it was time for us to speak with the people most closely involved in making the lodge what it is: the managers and the staff. It was clear to us all that La Cusinga staff are very invested in the lodge and its mission. Lodge administrator Cindy Thiele called the La Cusinga “a paradise” and “much more than just a job.” She told us how inspiring it is to work in such a beautiful natural environment and how much she appreciates the opportunity to involve guests and the local community in environmental education and other sustainability-related projects. Similarly, La Cusinga’s chef, David Mahler, who came to Costa Rica from San Francisco, takes pride in creating delicious menus using organic ingredients from the lodge’s own gardens and farm. Our entire team agreed that the food at La Cusinga was some of the best we had anywhere in Costa Rica.
It’s also clear that La Cusinga invests a lot of effort in its employees and sees them as members of a special lodge community. Jason Retana, who describes his role at La Cusinga as “a bit of everything,” explained how he was once given a three-month leave of absence to learn about birds, trees, and other ecological topics from a visiting professor from England.
Not surprisingly, La Cusinga has been a labor of love from the very beginning. John Tresemer, La Cusinga’s founder and manager, shared the story of how he first came to Costa Rica as a 20-year-old college student from the United States more than 30 years ago and wound up staying. At the time the site that is now La Cusinga was being threatened by proposed aluminum stripmining and the planned construction of a deepwater port, as well as by slash-and-burn deforestation. To make a long story short, John got involved in fighting the project and, with the help of his parents, ended up buying the land that is now La Cusinga. “Instead of this becoming an ecological disaster area it’s now an example of ecological stability,” he said. John was also instrumental in initiating marine conservation in Costa Rica and establishing Ballena Marine National Park and other protected areas near La Cusinga.
After wrapping up our final interviews with La Cusinga staff, including General Manager Geinier Guzmán, who spoke about La Cusinga’s recycling, waste management, and other sustainability efforts at home, we set off down the road to another tiny airport for another Nature Air flight. With all we had to accomplish in our limited time at La Cusinga, our departure from the lodge was a bit later than planned. We arrived at the airport at Palmar Sur just 10 minutes before our flight. As we piled out of the vehicle and started unloading our bags, a Nature Air official came over, ascertained that there were four of us – the number of passengers he was missing – and started tagging our bags – no ID check, no asking our names, no nothing. We were the right number of people, we were foreigners, and we had luggage. He thrust our boarding passes at us and off we went.
Central America Expedition 2010: Day 9, part 2 – La Cusinga Eco Lodge, Costa Rica
March 23, 2010
One of the most important aspects of La Cusinga’s sustainability efforts is its involvement with environmental organizations and the local community. During our morning in Uvita we visited Escuela Líder La Flor de Bahia, a local primary school with which La Cusinga has a close relationship. Our arrival was serendipitous for one teacher who happened to be practicing English greetings with her class of fifth graders. As we passed through the school gate she popped out of her classroom and invited us in to speak with the students, who rarely had the opportunity to try out their language skills on native English speakers.
After running through “How are you? What is your name? Where are you from?” and so on for a while with the students, we found an empty classroom where we could film an interview with computer science teacher Ronny Duarte, who spoke of the importance of environmental education and conservation. 
The school’s partnership with La Cusinga includes field trips to the lodge, where students learn about ecology, forest protection, natural resource conservation, and sustainable agriculture. La Cusinga has also helped the school set up a recycling program. Two of the fifth graders, Noah and Nelson, showed us the recycling station and demonstrated how they sort trash.
Back at La Cusinga we spoke with Ronald Villalobos Hoffman, the director of ASANA (the Association of Friends of the Nature of the South-Central Pacific), a regional environmental organization that works on environmental education, biodiversity monitoring, and protected areas conservation. Villalobos explained that La Cusinga has been of great help to ASANA and other organizations working on the protection and conservation of the area. The lodge coordinates work with local schools, provides a location for workshops and training programs, and assists with efforts to control illegal activities that threaten the environment. In addition, La Cusinga guests have the opportunity to volunteer with ASANA’s sea turtle hatchery program.
One of ASANA’s major efforts is the establishment of the Tapir Path Biological Corridor between the Savegre and Terraba Rivers along Costa Rica’s southern coast. La Cusinga has been very supportive of this project, and the lodge’s private reserve represents a significant tract of protected land that provides a refuge for tapirs, jaguars, birds, turtles, crocodiles, and other threatened species.
Central America Expedition 2010: Day 9 – La Cusinga Eco Lodge, Costa Rica
March 23, 2010
La Cusinga Eco Lodge is a stunning place where sustainability goes hand in hand with excellent service and opportunities to explore some of Costa Rica’s most pristine rainforest and marine environments. It merits much more than a single day, but unfortunately one full day and a few hours the following morning were all the time we had to film the lodge and its community projects, but by splitting up into two teams for some of the time we made the best of it.
Having arrived after dark the night before, we got our first good views of La Cusinga in the morning. Built to blend in with its natural environment, the lodge sits on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by a 250-hectare private reserve of mostly primary rainforest. Numerous trails lead through the forest and down to the beach; toucans, monkeys, and other wildlife are commonly seen. The howler monkeys were particularly active, starting up their raucous noisemaking well before dawn.
After breakfast John set off to shoot the grounds, the facilities, and the surrounding forest. Rob, Ryan, and I headed to the nearby town of Uvita, where La Cusinga General Manager Geinier Guzmán had arranged for us to visit some of the local organizations partnering with the lodge. First up was a boat trip in Ballena Marine National Park, a protected area that La Cusinga was instrumental in establishing. The boat tour company, Bahia Aventuras, has also worked closely with La Cusinga to develop sustainable tourism practices and train its guides. Our tour took in the rocky coastline around La Cusinga, dramatic offshore rock formations, and a trip out to deeper water to see a pod of spotted dolphins frolicking in the waves.
Our interview with Bahia Aventuras owner Walter Brenes later that morning was a study in persistence. We scouted out a good filming location on the front porch of the company’s office – only to find the interview constantly interrupted by trucks rumbling by with materials for construction up the road. Giving up, we drove back down to the beach and selected a new spot– only to have people continuously wandering through the scene, including a man with a baby carriage who wandered into the background and stopped, oblivious to the filming. Through much trial and error we finally got the interview done and headed back to La Cusinga for a late lunch.
Central America Expedition 2010: Day 8 – School for Field Studies, Costa Rica
March 22, 2010
Our last day with SFS was a field trip day for the students, which offered a great opportunity for us to experience what the program is all about. Together with Gerardo Avalos and Ola Russell we followed the student bus as it set off shortly after 6:00 a.m. for Carara National Park, near the coast about an hour and a half from the SFS Center. Upon arrival at the Tárcoles River, we boarded launches for a trip downriver. Almost immediately we began spotting some amazing birdlife: nesting tiger herons, great blue herons, roseate spoonbill, caracara, osprey, egrets, cormorants – even a pair of scarlet macaws flying high overhead.
We disembarked at a beach near the mouth of the river, where the SFS students found seats on driftwood and rocks for an outdoor lecture about pollution of the Tárcoles River basin. This is the essence of SFS programs – experiential, on-site learning that gives students first-hand insight into environmental issues, their causes, and potential solutions. The beach was no pristine swimming beach – it was covered in garbage that had drifted downstream from communities in the Central Highlands. Plastic bottles, rubber tire tubes, and even a couple of dolls’ heads littered the sand. The trash, however, didn’t stop a wealth of birds from congregating in the area around the beach. In addition to the ubiquitous egrets there was a large group of wood storks wandering the beach, several pelicans bobbing in the water, and black and turkey vultures perched in the trees. I even spotted a small colorful bird with a long, unusually shaped tail. Gerardo later identified it from my photo as the turquoise-browed motmot, the national bird of Nicaragua.
After the class on the beach, the SFS students – with our team following in another launch – headed back upstream and then down a side channel that led into the mangrove forest. We disembarked again at a wooden boardwalk, where the students found seats on the platform for another lecture, this one on river and mangrove ecosystems.
Following the lecture, the students headed back to the town of Tárcoles for a picnic lunch on a local beach, where we interviewed a couple of them about the SFS experience. Junior Jay Creech from the University of Southern California and senior Helena Manzella from Muhlenberg College were both enthusiastic about the opportunity to do field research and learn about issues from the people involved, as well as the chance be part of a collaborative community with other students and professors from different disciplines.
After lunch the students went on to Carara National Park for an orientation hike, while we interviewed Giovanny Soto, coordinator of public use programs and interim director of the park. SFS works closely with the national park on research projects that are jointly established according to park needs. Every semester the school holds a symposium at which students present papers or other research that the park can use in its management plans.
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to explore Carara ourselves, as we our time with SFS was coming to an end. Instead, we headed back to Atenas, arriving back in time for a late lunch in the SFS dining hall and a few final minutes of filming. Then our transfer van arrived and we said goodbye to Gerardo and Ola and set off down the road toward new adventures in sustainability at La Cusinga Eco Lodge.