About Talamanca

Costa Rica is one of the world’s most biologically important areas due to its high level of biodiversity—Talamanca alone contains at least 3 percent of the world’s species. But it has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, even though more than 10 percent of the country has been designated as “protected areas.”

Costa Rica has long been the most stable democracy in Central America, but turmoil in neighboring countries has turned it into a magnet for poor, landless peasants who have immigrated in search of a better future. The lack of infrastructure and resources to support these immigrant communities has put at risk Costa Rica’s hard-earned gains in education, economic development, and protection of its natural resources.

Even so, as an emerging developing country, Costa Rica promises to be a model for Central America and the rest of the world.

Biodiversity and virgin forests

Talamanca, located in the southeast corner of the country, is the poorest of Costa Rica’s regions socio-economically, but the richest in biodiversity and remaining virgin tropical forest ecosystems.
The region encompasses the full range of Costa Rica’s altitudes, from the highest point in the country, Mt. Chirripo at 12,533 feet, to sea level. This range incorporates steep mountainsides, rich alluvial plains, large expanses of wetlands, and a variety of marine ecosystems, including Costa Rica’s only coral reef.

The lower altitudes and coastal areas in particular are under increasing pressures from the growing population and development. Talamanca is one of only two areas in the country with significant areas of virgin forest outside of declared protected areas, so pressure to harvest its wood is incredibly high.

The people and their income

Three ethnic groups make up the region’s population of 35,000:

• Bribri and Cabecar Native Americans—the largest concentration of Native Americans in the country
• English-speaking blacks with roots in the West Indies
• Hispanics and mestizos, mostly from other Central American countries and other regions of Costa Rica

All three groups have traditionally been reliant on growing food for consumption at home, supplemented by hunting, fishing, and a small service economy.

Today, the three main generators of income are agriculture, forestry, and tourism. In this context, ANAI’s community-based programs, aimed at economic and environmental sustainability, face stiff competition from development pressures—such as logging and clearing large areas of forest for monoculture-based export crops—that offer short-term benefits, but unsustainable solutions to poverty.

Sustainable developmentz

ANAI works across five main areas to address development pressures in ways that support both economic and ecological sustainability:

• Agriculture and agro-ecosystems
• Marine and coastal environment
• Land conservation
• Ecotourism
• Education

Agriculture and agro-systems: Helping Talamanca become Central America’s largest exporter of organic agricultural products

Historically, the major cash crop in Talamanca was cocoa, a relatively low-impact agriculture system that closely resembled the structure of the natural forest. However, in 1979, a cocoa disease known as monilia pod rot virtually eliminated this local economy.

In search for alternatives to the most obvious new options—logging, ranching, selling land, and chemical agriculture—ANAI worked with local farmers to establish diversified agroforestry systems (including cocoa). These systems would mimic the functions of the natural forest, but produce enough income from a small area to enable each farmer to preserve a portion of natural forest. This effort resulted in the formation of APPTA (Asociación de Pequeños Agricultores de Talamanca), a farmers’ cooperative that has become the largest exporter of organic agricultural products in Central America.

To create an organic agriculture option in Talamanca, ANAI:

• Identified and quantified market potential for organic crops
• Identified and developed markets, locally and worldwide
• Founded the first organic certification program in Costa Rica, arranged for certification of the first 500 farms, and extended the program to other regions
• Assured the continuation of the organic certification process by facilitating the creation of ANAO (Asociación Nacional de Agricultura Organica)
• Facilitated the construction and management of the first cocoa-processing plant, later building an extension to handle other crops
• Provided technical assistance and guidance throughout every phase of the process

In 1995, a major breakthrough occurred. At that time, world chocolate prices had dropped 50 percent, threatening to cancel out the progress ANAI had made with farmers. Working together with the Organic Commodities Project, they identified a buyer for all of Talamanca’s organic cocoa.

A year later, Newman’s Own began making their Organic Chocolate Bar with Talamanca’s beans. The higher price of these contracts, combined with fair prices paid by the farmer-owned co-op, resulted in farmers receiving three times as much money for their cocoa than they had previously received.

Cocoa is just one of many successes. ANAI, APPTA, and the farmers of Talamanca have developed processing and marketing methods for other crops, including organically grown bananas, tropical fruits, and ginger. A decade ago, family farms in Talamanca looked like they would soon become history. Now they are one of the most vigorous components of the Talamancan economy and part of the solution to the biodiversity crisis in one small, but very important, part of the planet.

Marine and coastal environments: Saving the leatherback turtle from extinction

The keystone of ANAI’s work in Talamanca’s coastal region is protecting the leatherback turtle—the largest of all sea turtles—which nests annually on Gandoca Beach. In 1985, the population was headed toward extinction due to overharvesting of eggs (an alleged aphrodisiac). Today, as a result of an annual collaborative effort between ANAI and the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment, this trend has been halted:

• Loss of eggs to poachers has been cut from over 95 percent to less than 10 percent
• Establishment of hatcheries on the beach has boosted survival rates by protecting egg clutches formerly lost to beach erosion
• Turtles have been tagged since 1993 and data on populations shared with a worldwide sea turtle conservation network
• Local jobs have been created for young conservation technicians
• Services provided for the more than 500 annual volunteers from Costa Rica and the rest of the world is seven times more lucrative for the Gandoca community than the sale of an average yearly lot of turtle eggs
• Managed tourist visits to the nesting beach, add a source of community income
• ANAI’s project is now providing technical assistance to fledgling sea turtle conservation projects throughout Central America

Land conservation

The national parks in Talamanca occupy mostly high-altitude, uninhabitable zones. ANAI, in collaboration with the Costa Rica government, created the 25,000-acre Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge in 1985. This area, which includes a 12,000-acre marine area, contains at least five econsystems found nowhere else in Costa Rica. The refuge is pioneering a “mixed management” protected area concept, meaning that private property rights are respected and normal human activities go on, but with special restrictions to protect the environment.

In 1991, ANAI partnered with the Nature Conservancy to establish the Talamanca/Caribbean Biological Corridor, and later connected it to the San San/Pondsak National Wildlife Refuge in Panama, which includes 33,000 acres of coastal wetlands. Fifty years from now, these refuges and corridor may be the only Continental Divide-to-the-sea forested area to exist in the world.

ANAI uses multiple tools to conserve land. These include land swaps, in which farmers receive needed agricultural lands in exchange for forests, agricultural planning that is compatible with biodiversity goals, reforestation programs and, as a last resort, land purchases.

Ecotourism

ANAI has helped more than 12 ecotourism organizations get off the ground. ANAI’s work in ecotourism combines four objectives. It must:

• Benefit local people economically
• Increase their self-sufficiency in a sustainable manner
• Strengthen their organizational capacity
• Actively contribute to biodiversity conservation

The organizations ANAI has worked with, together with APPTA, are now combining their experiences, talents, and diverse cultures to begin offering tourists and those working in the conservation field the opportunity to learn about sustainable tropical agriculture and forestry, community conservation, and community development.

Education

Underlying all of ANAI’s work is education. All programs contain practical training and educational outreach for landowners, school children, employees, volunteers, visitors, and the public at large. On the Educational Farm (Finca Educativa) that ANAI helped establish, ANAI engages deeply with all key stakeholders in the community, giving high priority to the local Indian population to help develop the practical management skills necessary for making this a self-sufficient training center that will serve Talamanca for generations.

Components of ANAI’s educational program include:

• Basic biology and ecology
• Animal husbandry
• Small business management
• Ecotourism
• Reforestation
• Restoration of endangered species
• Economic sustainability—enabling individuals and groups to define their own paths to sustainability and self-sufficiency

The future

ANAI’s projects have been designed for economic sustainability. However, they do not generate enough positive cash flow on their own to scale to the level that ANAI knows is possible. ANAI wants to invest in technology and other resources to share best practices—in Costa Rica and worldwide—while it continues to grow its award-winning programs and innovate in the vital arena of economic and ecological sustainability.

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