Rainforest and Turtle Conservation In Costa Rica

The last year has been a very challenging one for everybody in every corner of the world. In Costa Rica, a country that depends on the tourism industry to finance the conservation of ‘one of the greenest countries in the world’ the lack of international visitors has heavily affected the funding of environmental protection and all the people involved. In Tortuguero this loss of external revenue put a big strain on the livelihood of local people and the projects in the National Park. The slowly increasing numbers of international visitors in the beginning of this year, inspired us to restart our projects again.

The beneficiaries of this fund collect essential data on diversity, abundance and behavior of the wildlife in an endangered habitat. In close cooperation with the local national parks service, SINAC, we are able to collect data that is essential to the management decisions in the conservation of the National Park and its residents. Located at the southern end of the National Park, we collaborate with the only field station collecting this essential information in the most remote part of the park. Although we are able to do the research with minimal resources, funds gathered through GVI Charitable Funds allows our partners to acquire essential field tools to expand the reach and efficiency of our projects. We also believe that community is closely related with conservation. Only an empowered community has the luxury to think about conserving its environment.

Thanks to local and global collaboration with various partners and your much needed donations through GVI Charitable Funds we are able to continue and expand our efforts to conserve this unique habitat on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

We thank you wholeheartedly for your support in our efforts to create a greener and cleaner future!

We were delighted to be able to fully re-open our projects in Tortuguero National Park in January of this year! The past year has been difficult for everyone, with the whole world locking down in various ways. However COVID-19 did not get in the way of the vast biodiversity Costa Rica is home too, and our surveys that we have conducted in the past 3 months has shown that the abundance of life here is thriving. 

We have spent an astonishing 4,393 hours in the field on our various projects, conducting over 100 surveys. Our database is ever expanding with the variety of species that we have sighted, which has included rare sightings of the Manatee, Northern Tamadua, Glossy Ibis, Dickcissel, Orchard Oriole, White Whispered Puffbird, Neotropical Otter and the incredible Leatherback Turtle.

The dedication and passion for conservation drives our collaborative projects however we can unfortunately see the negative effects humans are having on this protected area. Poaching rates have risen, and through the upcoming turtle season that our work and presence in the more remote southern part of the park will be vital to deterring such illegal activity.

We are so fortunate to have incredible people supporting our work, and without that we wouldn’t be able to continue to successfully contribute to our partners objectives, conserving Tortuguero National Park and all species found here. We want to thank you so much on behalf of the park for helping, and hope that you continue to support our work into the future too. 

We are currently taking part in GVI Charitable Programs “The 6th Mass Extinction” campaign, to help raise awareness of the current conservation and climate crisis we all face, actions we can all take to help tackle the issues, and to raise funds to help support critical conservation and climate action projects. At Jalova we will be conducting a 24 hour species count, to highlight the amazing biodiversity of tropical rainforests forests and the importance of conserving them. Please see our campaign page link below. 

Links:

• The 6th Mass Extinction - Jalova campaign page
• GVI Chartable Programs "The 6th Mass Extinction" campaign