To All Friends of Corcovado
and Strategic Partners of Lapa Rios
San Jose, June 11, 2003
RE: Five additional Park Rangers
for Corcovado National Park
Dear friends:
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Corcovado National Park: Scarlet Macaw near Corcovado National Park.
click on photo to enlarge |
As you might have read in the local
press or heard from experts in the field that recently the Corcovado
National Park has come under severe pressure by hunters. As you
are well aware, Corcovado is one of Costa Rica’s greatest
natural treasures and one of the most important tourism attractions
of the country and it is in all of our interests to protect this
National Park.
Lapa Rios and its staff have started
an initiative to add an additional five park rangers to the staff
of Corcovado and has prepaid the first new ranger’s salary
for one year. We expect this first new ranger to start working by
the end of this month. Our goal is to raise funds to dispatch an
additional four park rangers in the park. We are now asking our
guests, suppliers and partner hotels and tour operators for their
help with this very important project.
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Chestnut mandibiled Toucan
click on photo to enlarge |
The total cost per guard per year,
including social benefits and equipment is $8,231.32 and we have
chosen to work with the Corcovado Foundation in the administration
of this project. Any contribution from your side is very much appreciated
and would guarantee you a link on our website promoting you as a
supporter of the “Corcovado Park Ranger Project”. Parallel
to this initiative of adding more park rangers, your contribution
will also support the ongoing educational efforts in the areas bordering
the park, convincing especially young people that hunting in the
park endangers their own futures.
Should you have any additional questions
or need further information, please feel free to call me at 288-5803
or contact me by e-mail to hans@cayugaonline.com.
I am looking forward to hearing from
you soon.
Sincerely,
Hans M. Pfister
Managing Director & Vice President
Cayuga Sustainable Development
The Management Company of Lapa Rios
Patrols Protect Corcovado and Piedras Blanca
National Parks
from Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Illegal logging and hunting in Costa Rica's Corcovado
and Piedras Blanca national parks and the unprotected corridor between
them has posed a serious threat, with experts predicting decimation
of the forests. Logging, unsustainable agricultural activities and
development threaten most of the peninsula.
The Corcovado Foundation, a local nongovernmental organization (NGO),
aims to reverse the trend and establish a sustainable future for
the area's richly diverse wildlife.
"We are already having an impact but there's a lot more to
do. Incredible treasures could be lost," said Alejandra Monge,
executive director of the Foundation. "Corcovado's beauty is
inspiring. We must ensure that it's protected."
Now with support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF),
the Foundation is working in partnership with the government ministries
of environment and security to enable patrols of the national parks
to reduce the incidence of illegal hunting, logging and fishing.
The foundation covers operating costs to conduct the park patrols,
while the ministries provide personnel and equipment. The foundation's
effort also includes education and awareness-raising activity in
local communities near the parks.
Situated on the Osa Peninsula in the southwest of Costa Rica in
the Mesoamerica hotspot, the rain forest of the Corcovado and Peidras
Blancas national parks is home to wild pigs and jaguars, both of
which are under severe threat. The peninsula contains the finest
example of lowland tropical rainforest in Central America. The area
also includes the Golfo Dulce, one of only four fjords in the tropics.
Recently, observers have discovered that the Golfo Dulce is a calving
area for both northern and southern Pacific populations of humpback
whales, a circumstance unknown anywhere else.
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Corcovado National Park: Bright colors of fungi growing in the rainforest. click on photo to enlarge |
Very little of the 51,000-hectare area is well protected and areas
that are protected are widely separated and too small to maintain
the biological processes necessary to keep the present levels of
populations or diversity. Large mammals such as the jaguar, puma
and tapir as well as rare species of plants are particularly threatened
by fragmentation of habitat and face possible extinction.
Through this new partnership effort, the Department of Environment,
Department of Security, local communities and the Corcovado Foundation
are consolidating their resources and so anticipate strengthening
the protection and control of the park areas.
The Foundation hopes that through the physical
control and protection of the parks, combined with environmental
education and sustainable economic management of alternatives for
the local communities, healthy numbers of wildlife in the area can
be maintained alongside a human population that understands and
is interested in the protection of the natural resource on their
doorstep.
"This project is groundbreaking as the first time such an arrangement
engaging ministries of environment and security as well as an NGO
has been worked out in the country," said Michele Zador, CEPF
grant director for Mesoamerica. "It is being watched as a potential
model for other parks in Costa Rica and even other Central and Latin
America parks."
The first task in the joint project has been to
gain control of the illegal activities that threaten the two national
parks. The Ministry of Security has collaborated with the parks
by bringing together members of the rural police force from all
over the country to jointly patrol with the existing park guards.
They hope that together they can drive illegal hunters and gold
miners from the park and, by making arrests, discourage them from
returning.
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Crocodile in River
click on photo to enlarge |
Already, there have been more than 59 patrols
in the park since the project began in July-a level of patrolling
not seen in the area for years. The patrols are carried out by teams
of at least two guards and sometimes six depending on the level
of danger anticipated. Some patrols can be carried out in a day;
others take 2-3 days with the guards camping along the way. The
Ministry of Environment is setting up training for patrols in the
environmental aspects of their trips.
With the help of the CEPF grant and others, the
Corcovado Foundation has employed eight new park rangers and implemented
a program to involve community members in efforts to combat illegal
activity. It has also been possible to check licensing anomalies
and as a result logging permits have been reduced from 132 to 16.
Under threat is the wild pig or white-lipped peccary
due to illegal hunting inside the national parks. Travelling in
groups of 20-30 in a herd, they make an easy target for poachers.
They are also the primary food source of the jaguars. The decrease
in the population of wild pig has caused these large cats to leave
their natural habitats and move into populated areas in search of
food in the form of goats or dogs.
The Foundation has also established a special
youth group. Weekly workshops are held for children and activities
such as beach clean-ups give them a hands-on opportunity to participate.
The hope is that as well as encouraging a new generation of conservation-aware
citizens, the wider community can also be reached through these
young people aged 12-20. It isn't easy, however.
"A local kid who lives in rickety shack reported
in one session that his dad had only shot one pig the other day,"
Monge said. "These are hungry people who must survive however
they see possible."
The Foundation is keen not to alter local culture but to establish
a freshly educated sense of custodial care of the parks. The wildlife
in these parks is the biggest attraction of tourists who create
work for the local communities. In terms of the human population,
the tremendous natural wealth of the zone, if protected and properly
managed, represents the true basis for the development of a sustainable
and abundant economy.
- November 2003
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Mr. Hans Pfister
Lapa Ríos Hotel
Osa Peninsula
Dear Hans:
On behalf of the Corcovado Foundation and the Ministry of Environment in the Osa (MINAE), I would like to express gratitude for your generous contribution and continuous support. Lapa Ríos has taken the lead in supporting protection efforts in the Osa Peninsula . For the last two years, you have shown that private conservation together with sustainable tourism can have a significant roll in protecting natural resources.
With the support of responsible companies like your company, the Corcovado Foundation has been able to work on the frontlines fighting to preserve the natural resources of Corcovado National Park and the other protecting areas. The commitment of our loyal supporters are an integral part of the success of ACOSA´s (Osa Conservation Area) latest actions to prevent hunting, mining, logging and other illegal activities.
The following chart shows some of the accomplishments of the efforts in the Osa Peninsula .
During the worst of the latest emergency, the large scale poaching during the dry season, the most significant assistance we could give to the National park was to supportthe park rangers on the ground in their effort to protect the wildlife. The government did not have the funds necessary to protect it. Although other activities had been planned, the best use of our resources at this time was paying the salaries of additional rangers. This has enabled the park to increase the essential anti poaching and surveillance patrols and to keep motivated. It is hard, hot and dangerous work but it is due to their valiant efforts that the jaguars are still surviving in Corcovado .
Out of the chart the come to the following conclusions:
- The 2 to 4 day patrols were almost three times more during 2003 when compared to 2002 and we expect to triple that amount.
- During 2003 we doubled the amount of one day patrols in Corcovado and Piedras Blancas National Parks and in 2004 the amount of patrols are already more than the previous year.
- During 2002 there could have been more hunters in the parks than the park suggests but due to the limited number of patrols it was hard to detect such activities. In 2003 it was realized that hunting was out of control and that the protected areas had become a no mans land. Since 2003, when 8 new park rangers started to patrol the area more hunters camps were found and destroyed and more arrests and charges filed against aggressors were made. We believe that these numbers are descending in 2004 due to the effective presence of park rangers which has scared away the hunters.
- A new ground breaking program supported by the critical ecosystem partnership fund is bringing together members of the rural police force to jointly patrol with the park guars at Piedras Blancas and Corcovado National Park. Members of the Natural Resources Vigilance Committees have join in these efforts and the results have been encouraging.
- A new environmental education program has increased the number of meetings with the local communities and the schools and raised awareness of the hunting crisis. This program has also offered workshops where leaders of local environmental organization have been able to coordinate efforts and reached out to interested youth people in the community with several field trips.
Again, thank you very much for your support during these two years and we encourage you to keep promoting the sustainable tourism concept and eco-responsible operation, concepts of which you have been such a great example for the tourism industry in this country.
Best regards,
Alejandra Monge
Executive Director
Corcovado Foundation
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This is Carlos Luis Castillo. He works as Park Ranger at Corcovado National Park and his salary is provided by Lapa Rios Ecolodge. If you want to help us to support these efforts to crack down on illeagal hunting, send us an e-mail to info@laparios.com |
Corcovado National Park: Corcovado National Park Ranger, sponsored by Lapa Rios Ecolodge |
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