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Friends of the Osa's Land Stewardship program is central to the organization's mission and draws on the following strategies to protect the biodiversity and wildlife of the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica:
- Creation of private protected areas through conservation buyers and land purchase, conservation easements, and expansion of existing protected areas such as the Osa National Wildlife Refuge (ONWR).
- Management of existing private lands and protected areas through direct property management and stewardship, support for MINAET's vigilance efforts, and coordination of volunteer patrolling with private landowners outside of Corcovado National Park.
- Ecological restoration of degraded habitats by planting native tree species and experimenting with innovative methods to diversify seed dispersal by birds and bats.
The 425 acres of abandoned pochote (Bombacopsis quinatum) and teak (Tectona grandis) plantations on our Cerro Osa property offer an excellent opportunity for ecological restoration. To date we are actively working on 100 acres of these degraded forests and have planted more than 19,000 native trees. Improving the ecological quality of these abandoned plantations, which equal roughly 10% of Friends of the Osa's property, effectively increases wildlife habitat within the biological corridor.
Other stewardship activities:
- FOO has also hosted a native plant workshop to encourage local gardeners to choose plants that have a high ecological value for birds, bats and insects over introduced exotic species.
- We operate a native species tree nursery that produces more than 10,000 trees per year, and donate hundreds of these annually to local schools as part of their practical learning about habitat conservation and neighbors to enrich degraded parts of their properties.
- We are working with landowners within ONWR and neighboring properties to remove barbed wire fencing which is detrimental to wildlife and impedes the movement of many large animals, effectively limiting their usable habitat even in a forested landscape.
The Osa National Wildlife Refuge & the Corcovado-Matapalo Biological Corridor
The effort to conserve land in the biological corridor connecting Corcovado National Park and Cabo Matapalo began in 1991 when a group of landowners joined together to establish the Osa National Wildlife Refuge. These landowners made a commitment to never develop the land within the refuge and to put it under long-term protection from development by adopting ecological easements.
Twenty years later, Friends of the Osa is spearheading efforts to continuously improve the management of these private lands. Within the Corcovado-Matapalo biological corridor, Friends of the Osa works with landowners to provide oversight and effective land stewardship to private properties. This includes not only the 4,200 acres owned and managed by Friends of the Osa, but also the neighboring properties that pertain to the entire refuge, which totals more than 6,000 acres of forested land under conservation.
ONWR is a nationally recognized protected area category that allows for multiple uses of lands within the overall context of conservation. Ensuring the integrity of the lands within the refuge is crucial for conservation because this geography provides the continuity of habitat that keystone species like the jaguar, tapir and white-lipped peccary need to survive and flourish on the Osa. The property supports approximately 2,000 acres of old-growth rainforest. |
Native tree nursery
Bat roost and seed trap in restoration plot
Neighbor tree planting
Bat snagged on barbed wire fence. Landowners within ONWR are removing this type of fencing.
Osa National Wildlife Refuge |
