Costa Rican Rainforest preserved by Utah Businessmen as Conservation and Education Model

The Bosque Lluvioso is a rain forest and field exploratory located in central Costa Rica. The Bosque reserve was originally established in 1996 by two Utah businessmen who purchased the core mountain landscape for conservation and education purposes before it was to be deforested by commercial logging plans. While Costa Rica covers barely 0.3% of the earth's land surface, its ecosystems contain between 5-9% of all of the earth's biological species. The Bosque helps expand this protected area in Costa Rica. The Foundation's board of trustees include some of the most respected individuals in the world of conservation biology today including: Dr. Oscar Arias, former President of Costa Rica and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; Dr. Jane Goodall, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute; and E.O. Wilson, Professor of Biology, Harvard University. The goal of the Bosque's conservation, education and forest restoration efforts is to serve as a model for similar programs in other developing countries where deforestation threatens entire ecosystems.

Costa Rican citizens have taken bold action to protect their natural heritage. In only 15 years a network of government and non-government organizations have joined forces to establish 28 national parks and reserves, creating a comprehensive national park system in this tiny country. The Exploratory is unique in the world as it integrates the Bosque Lluvioso Academy, a school and research station directly in the rain forest by offering a variety of environmental education opportunities, an ecotourism facility near the nation's capital, San Jose. and multiple adjacent lands connecting it with Braulio Carrillo National Park. The Bosque Lluvioso Foundation, is a private U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation but the project and lands are managed and co-owned by Costa Rican Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (InBio). The project ultimately will protect approximately 4,000 acres of rain forest landscapes.

This new facility is important to the work of worldwide biodiversity investigations because it serves not only as a rain forest preserve but also as a ecological corridor between various other Costa Rican ecosystems. When successfully implemented, the Bosque Lluvioso Exploratory will have established a 4,000 acre ecological buffer zone contiguous to Braulio Carrillo National Park. At present rates of deforestation, all unprotected primary forest in Costa Rica could be gone in less than 10 years. According to current bulletins from The Nature Conservancy, Costa Rica plans major decisions to complete a park system which affords some form of protection status to nearly 27% of the nation's territory within this same time period. This commitment to conservation is extraordinary considering that the world average for protected areas in a country is about 3 percent of national territory. The INBio biodiversity inventory model and pioneering work has also been recently suggested as the model for an international inventory program announced by Dr. Edward O.Wilson at Harvard University.

Tropical rain forests are by far the richest habitats on Earth. As many as 30 million species of plants and animals--more than half of all life forms--live in tropical rain forests but a lack of resources within most developing nations makes it difficult to enforce protected zones. The Bosque provides a rain forest preservation model, combines an international environmental education exploratory in the forest and establishes a major field biology research station in central Costa Rica. This will provide an important buffer zone contiguous to the Braulio Carrillo National Park and to help perpetuate the meso-American biological corridor which will protect the national park from encroachment and degradation. Ongoing plans for restoring primary and secondary rain forests on adjacent lands and testing forest restoration technologies are a major part of the Bosque Lluvioso Foundation.

The Bosque Lluvioso Foundation is currently working to implement a five-year Master Plan that will establish a self-sustaining program to effectively protect, manage, and restore the rich natural resources of both this property (168 hectares/415 acres) and an expanded protected reserve area outside the core landscape. Plans for additional land acquisition are central to this goal. An estimated 230 square miles of forest land (150,000 acres) are cleared annually in Costa Rica and approximately 3500 acres remain unprotected outside the Bosque lands. The five-year plan will hopes to secure these additional un-protected lands during the development period. This will be accomplished by acquiring at least 3500 acres of additional primary and some secondary rain forest; establish forest trails totaling nearly 5 miles; establish educational pavilions include a flora and fauna pavilion, an indigenous medicines and culture pavilion; a sustainable design center, on-going forest restoration research and technology demonstration projects and education programs which will help generate on-site jobs, program-related employment, and local services income. "Roots & Shoots", the pioneering primary and secondary school, experiential environmental, program established by Jane Goodall, will have an ongoing facility at the Bosque where students can continue direct 'hands on' activities in the rainforest. The completed Exploratory will be a model of preservation in Central America and elsewhere.

As part of this important Costa Rican rainforest conservation, education and restoration effort, Pondaray Enterprises, Inc. has begun to offer an wall poster of Costa Rica tree frogs to potentially help provide additional funds for the on-going goal of forest land acquisition to prevent deforestation on adjacent Bosque landscapes. A donation for this land acquisition effort is offered to visitors to the Company's website (www.pondaray.com) when one of these new posters is purchased. Many of the tree frogs depicted on the poster are presented for the first time having only been recently discovered. Pondaray is the exclusive distributor of this poster in North America.

Quote from Randall Tolpinrud, the Ex. Director/President of the Bosque Lluvioso Foundation, about his recent trip to Costa Rica: "Thanks to all and may the leaders of the world look to Costa Rica as an example of how a small nation with limited resources can lead the world in so many important ways. Thank you Costa Rica for your shining example of peace among peoples and now peace with nature. It is such an honor for us all to be a part of this great country in some small way."


Price: $15.95

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For more information, contact:
Wm. Hugh Bollinger, PhD
Founder/President
Pondaray Enterprises
P.O. Box 58843
Salt Lake City, UT 84158-0843
whbutah@ix.netcom.com
Web site: http://www.pondaray.com

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