We've recently released our geographic information in an interactive format that allows a remote user to experience our conservation work on the Osa Peninsula from anywhere in the world. The interactive maps below contain interpretive information about flora and fauna found on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. You can download all of our maps in our Resources section.
These interactive maps work best when viewed directly in Google Earth. This will give you full functionality and the formatting is better. If you don't have Google Earth, you can download it here.
To see all of the data contained in the maps below, you'll need to adjust the "time slider." That's the gray bar in the upper left-hand corner of the map. When you hover over that, you'll see that there are two gray tabs that are stuck together. Click and drag the larger tab with three dashes all the way to the right of the slider. Then click and drag the smaller tab, separating it from the larger tab, and slide that all the way to the left. Now all the data should be displayed. Friends of the Osa's conservation properties are outlined in blue. Roads show up in gray.
Use the navigation tools on the right-hand side of the map to zoom in on the information. If you're looking at a tree and want to know more about it, just click. Want to see a cool photo from that camera trap and learn more about a margay, just click on the camera. Pretty sweet! Go ahead and try.
Interactive Trail Map
Trees & Plants
Camera Traps
Forest Restoration
Golfo Dulce
Interactive Interpretive Trail Map
Explore our trails by zooming in and roaming around. Tilt the earth to show terrain. Clicking on the hikers will bring up an elevation plot of that trail along with its description. Clicking on the cameras will show you what the trail looks like in real life.
Trees and Plants
Reinaldo Aguilar identified the trees and plants in this map layer. He has worked for more than 3 years on a project with the New York Botanical Garden and has compiled an impressive amount of data that is stored on the Vascular Plants of the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica website. If you find something on the map that you're particularly interested in, just click on "More on the Species" and you'll be taken directly to NYBG's Vascular Plants of the Osa page for that species, where you'll find a lot more information and photos. As with most of these maps, we're hoping to continually to add information.
Camera Traps
See what our camera traps see and learn about the Osa Peninsula wildlife caught on camera here. Who knows, you may just see a wild cat. Rrraaaarrr! Remember to set those time sliders to show all of the data. Visit the Wild Cats Conservation Program page for more information about this project.
Forest Restoration
One of our largest land stewardship projects is forest restoration. There are 425 acres of degraded forest in the form of teak and pochote plantations on Friends of the Osa conservation properties. Neither teak (Tectona grandis) nor pochote (Bombacopsis quinatum) trees are native to the Osa Peninsula, and because these areas were planted as monospecific (one kind of tree only) forest stands, the amount of biodiversity found here plummeted.
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is funding the restoration of a 50 acre plot of old pochote plantation. The Revive a Rainforest campaign, in which donations are made through their website to plant a tree, is part of NRDC's Save BioGems program. In 2010, we planted 7,710 trees from our own native tree nursery at the Greg Gund Conservation Center on Cerro Osa. Each tree was hand collected as seed from the surrounding forest, raised in the nursery and then hand planted in the restoration plot. Click on the photo points to take a tour through the restoration plot!
Golfo Dulce
Many of you may have read Brooke Bessesen's Project Report and Summary of Multi-Species Marine Sighting Survey in Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica, January – February 2010. Take a cruise around the Golfo Dulce to experience what she saw out there. Psst… click on the dolphins!
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