Improving lives with value added wood, Costa Rica

Amidst COVID, We Continue to Plant Trees

This report is sent in times of the COVID 19 pandemic. Costa Rica has had a very careful and responsible approach to the emergency, implementing a lockdown on non-essential activities, while quickly building up our medical facilities to be able to; on one hand, flatten the curve, and on the other, be ready to attend the cases we would have. Fortunately, Costa Rica is the Latin American country with the lowest mortality rate, where only 7 people have died from COVID, even though we have had 792 people ill.

This has affected our organization, of course, slowing down some of our activities such as visiting farms- yet others we have to continue, such as caring for the tree nursery and also, assuring the farmers have their trees as soon as they are ready. 

While all this happens, we have not ceased to look for new opportunities, to sell value-added wood. For example, recently we were contacted by a buyer from San José (our capital), who was eager to commit to purchasing dry wood.

Meanwhile, at a national level, a new National Forestry Plan is being devised, hopefully,   to formulate strategies that will open the doors to organizations like ASIREA,  that desperately need to find economically viable options for farmers who invest in tree planting on their farms.

So we continue to save up for our wood dryer. The good news is that- little by little, together we have achieved 30% of our goal, with $5535  donated out of $17,265 that we need! Thank you for your support with this project and we hope you can continue contributing and sharing this project with others. The truth is that being able to add value to wood will always be an important option to stimulate the local economy through conservation. 

Hello and ASIREA wishes you the best for this new year 2020! 

This year we continue to promote reforestation with local families. Last year 25,864 trees were planted in small farms plus 35,000 planted by private companies, which is over 100 hectareas of trees!  We continue to offer assistance when the trees achieve comercial volume so that farmers can continue to plant and harvest wood from sustainable plantations. It is important to remember that wood is carbon that trees have captured from the atmosphere, so the more planting we can do, we can capture more CO2. This also has to benefit the tree planters, and, the whole value chain from planting to marketing must be organized, to assure that each collaborator earns enough to cover costs and earn income for his/her family. We dream of seeing our wood in furniture, in homes, and useful products. 

Last year we also gained more experience in wood marketing and have learned that the best way to move forward is by producing for clients that are commited to buying wood from our association. This year's plan is also to innovate by marketing  finished products on internet- as a trial- because we continue to compete with cheap plastic, and imports- and still are trying to find the best marketing options for local wood. The conflict between local ecological production and non-sustainable products sold by big businesses can be seen world wide. In this context, consumers have the power to change the world when they prefer sustainably produced  products. 

Baseline, this means we still are depending on the opportunity to dry our wood, to be able to develop new products. As you see, thanks to our donors, we have saved up 5,476 dollars, and our goal is $22,800, which is the cost of a solar dryer. Please continue to donate whatever you can, and share this idea with your friends and families. We think this is a project that has the potential to be a game changer for local families who do reforestation. The path is not easy, but we will not give up! 

Thank you so much!