Nature solutions for Community development

The Drake Bay area in the Osa Peninsula is probably the most beautiful place in Costa Rica, at least that is our opinion at the Corcovado Foundation. The communities that live in this amazing place are sometimes little unmindful about its beauty, its incredible biodiversity and its fragility.  Our environmental education program strives to create awareness, especially among children, about the particularities of their surroundings and the incredible heritage that they have received.

Due to its coastal location, many tourism-related activities in Drake Bay take place on the water, including the transportation of supplies for hotels. As such, we have focused our efforts on the protection of the marine environment. Many of the children that we work with one day will become boat captains, guides, dive masters, or tour leaders, so we are promoting responsible practices through our environmental education program. How do we create mindful citizens? How can we promote a responsible and active role for children, so that in the future they feel empowered and motivated to take proactive steps toward conservation? It is a big challenge!

We want to start by promoting good leadership values: sharing, standing up for what you believe in,  supporting your peers and their interests, loving, protecting the defenseless, and conserving nature.

For the last ten years we have taught environmental education in schools in the Osa Peninsula, incorporating it permanently into their curriculum, and for the last five years we have maintained several out-of-school youth groups in the villages. These last three months we organized several activities with these groups in order to promote these values. We hosted Christmas parties with children in two underprivileged communities, held two environmental festivals, and coordinated weekly meetings and activities to try to help foster a generation of more environmentally mindful children.

During the Tree Festival, our five environmental groups spent two days together playing and learning about trees, wild animals, and how to live together more sustainably.

The Sea Turtle Festival was another grand event. Organized by our turtle conservation team, it gathered 200 people from all over the regions – hoteliers, tourists and members of local communities – who enjoyed all kinds of artistic performances, games and competitions, and cultural and environmental events.  The highlights of the day were the children’s presentations. Their songs, plays and  messages invited their parents to protect their environment, to stop turtle egg poaching, to plant trees, to refrain from hunting, and to love nature.

The children of Drake Bay are the future environmental leaders of these communities, and we need to make sure that we inspire them, support them, and provide them with the resources they need so that they can change their communities and the world. And they will.

Please help us to maintain our program by making a donation to our environmental education program. We are striving to produce the environmental leaders that will protect this amazing place:  The Osa Peninsula.

Links:

• Facebook, environmental education