Preserving Rainforest and Education in Costa Rica

Omar Quesada has conserved this 93-hectare rain forest for decades. He, and his daughter Miriam, must come up with the resources to provide an education for Miriam’s daughter. She has only a couple of years of school left to graduate with a degree. Although Miriam works they live in constant financial distress and her daughter's degree is in jeopardy.

Recently we have spoken with them about the environmental service payments and they have agreed that if we can get together half the amount we promised to pay them ($30/ha/year) they would accept that until we can raise the other half. This will pay the family for conservation of this forest so that Omar's granddaughter will be able to finish school.

Payments for environmental services to the Quesada’s for 1 year saves the 93-hectare forest from being sold/developed, preserves habitat necessary for the wildlife, gives resources badly needed by this family and removes much CO2 from our atmosphere.

This forest is removing approximately 1115 metric tons of CO2/year from the Earth’s atmosphere. Why not help offset your CO2 whilst helping this family?

Omar Quesada would like to continue maintaining the 93 hectares of tropical rainforest under his care--930,000 square meters that sequester 1,116 tonnes of CO2 per year and help to protect the biodiversity of untold beneficial species. For every hectare lost to the deforestation often necessary for local inhabitants to subsist, the world edges closer to a disaster: decimated indigenous populations, permanently depleted biomes, devastated pharmaceutical opportunities.

And Omar's granddaughter would like to finish school. We should do everything we can to help her, because by investing in her, we invest in our collective future. Every additional year of school increases a girl's future earnings by 10 to 25%, ninety percent of which they reinvest into their families. Women, their families, the community, the region, and the world--all of us--benefit from educating girls.

We have so much to gain if we act to support Omar and his granddaughter--and so much to lose if we don't.

[Source for statistics on girls: http://girleffect.org/media/about/ ]

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