Chocüaco's Forest Corridor, Tronadora, Costa Rica

Do you want to give to a project that has vision? High impact? Passionate leadership? Long-term dedication? Look no further than La Reserva. Roberta Ward Smiley, founder of La Reserva, is a kind, intelligent, and welcoming individual who has been taking high impact action to restore and preserve the beautiful rainforests of Costa Rica. Roberta has been at this for the last 15 years but has been living in Costa Rica for around 30 years and is no stranger to the landscape. I met Roberta on April 5th. Prior to this I had little knowledge of the importance of biological corridors, tree nursery maintenance, and biodiversity. By the end of our day together Roberta had explained these things and much more. In addition, she took me to see several of the project sites that La Reserva was in the process of reforesting. Roberta works with homeowners to build biological corridors on their properties. For the homeowners this translates into free tress and a more aesthetic property. For La Reserva this fulfills their philosophy. This philosophy and work ethic recently resulted in La Reserva receiving two grants through the Ford Foundation. This competition was not taken lightly and only the best organizations were selected—La Reserva was selected twice!!! For those of you that have seen the movie Avatar you may recall “Hometree.” This is both the spiritual and physical home of the Na’vi people. Roberta has a project “Hometree” in her back yard—literally. It’s a reforestation project with countless amounts of species and it’s called “Project Hometree.” For me this was the most profound experience from my visit. I realized that we can all have our own project “Hometree.” Not all of us will dedicate our lives to restoring and preserving trees as Roberta has. But ALL of us should realize the importance of balance and interconnections the way that Roberta does. Trees are the foundation of life. This is the message that La Reserva is trying to advocate for and teach others. This is why organizations such as this are so vital. By supporting La Reserva you are supporting many Hometree’s and generating more oxygen for all of life’s creatures. Roberta went from dairy farming to what she calls “oxygen farming.” This is the type of farming that we should all feel inclined to applaud.