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Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
When you Adopt an Acre® with The Nature Conservancy during the 2007 - 2008 year, your gift directly helps to protect the Osa Peninsula, a place of intense beauty and biodiversity known as Costa Rica’s last wild frontier.Recently, Nature.org spoke with Ricardo Kogel, Osa site manager for The Nature Conservancy’s Costa Rica program, about the ongoing conservation work in this unique piece of paradise.
nature.org: What makes the Osa Peninsula so special?
Ricardo Kogel: The way the landscape interacts. The trees provide homes and shelter for the wildlife. They also produce moisture in the air that feeds the streams and rivers, giving drinking water to everyone who lives here—people, plants and animals alike. It’s a system that works perfectly.
nature.org: If everything works so perfectly, why does it need to be protected?
Ricardo Kogel: Osa’s breathtaking beauty and abundance of natural resources have not gone unnoticed here in the rainforest of Costa Rica. Unsustainable tourism-related development, poaching and illegal logging are all threats that could change this place forever, unless we act quickly.
nature.org: What is the Conservancy doing to protect Osa's rainforests?
Ricardo Kogel: There are actually already two parks on Osa — Corcovado National Park and Piedras Blancas National Park. But, these main protected areas are not big enough to sustain in the long run the peninsula’s populations of jaguars, tapirs, monkeys and macaws. Restricting these animals in too-small areas causes genetic drift and inbreeding. So, the Conservancy is working with our partners to create a 100,000-acre biological corridor connecting the two parks.
We’re also helping to train and hire park rangers and staff. During the past three years, we financed 67 government staff members for Osa’s conservation areas. These people have done a tremendous job of decreasing illegal poaching and logging. Now, the Costa Rican government sees their value and has incorporated them into the national budget.
nature.org: Have there been any recent conservation successes?
Ricardo Kogel: Oh yes, many! Because of the generous donations of Nature Conservancy members, we recently bought more than 1,000 hectares (about 2,500 acres) and incorporated them into Piedras Blancas National Park.
Also, don’t forget, Osa is a peninsula, so the surrounding waters are critical to the health of the entire region. They’re also important for migrating marine animals — humpback whales and dolphins calve in the Pacific waters off the coast. We’re in the process of creating a marine protected area to keep the Osa’s marine environment pristine.
nature.org: What do you like most about your job?
Ricardo Kogel: Wow, that’s tough — there are so many things. I enjoy working with the wonderful people of Osa. Also, watching the landscape change as I make the seven-hour drive from the Conservancy’s main office in San Jose is always amazing. You see flat land turn into mountains, rainforest, beaches and finally into vast ocean. Osa is a stunning place, and I’m so thankful to all the generous supporters of the Conservancy and the Adopt an Acre program who make it possible for me to do my job.
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Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Graham Marsden/The Nature Conservancy (Central American squirrel monkey); Photo © Joshua Paul (Ricardo Kogel).
