Corcovado Foundation

“Creating the environmental leaders of the millennium: environmental education programme”

Project Co-ordinator – Zary Feeney
Location – Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

Summary

La Vida has partnered with Corcovado Foundation and ICFC to create awareness by supporting economic development and environmental education in the South Pacific area of Costa Rica.

Description of Project

The Osa Peninsula is the most important conservation area in Central America and one of the most biodiverse places on earth, it is home of half of all species found in Costa Rica, equivalent to 2.5% of all species on the planet. Isolation has help protect the natural resources of the area, but it has also proven to be a huge challenge for its communities, who live in poor socio-economic conditions and hence have to exploit their natural surroundings in order to survive.

The environmental education program has been running since 2003, and at present convers seven schools and 250 students and teachers. In addition, the programme works with 25 companies in the Drake Bay region. The medium-to-long term impact objective of the programme is to:

• inspire children to love nature and to appreciate how special and wonderful their surroundings are
  encourage companies and communities to reduce single-use-plastic consumption, thus reducing carbon footprint and protecting the environment
• promote values such as respect, tolerance, leadership and teamwork by empowering and engaging children to become the environmental leaders of the future
• create awareness among teachers and to provide them with tools to make environmental education a transversal and ongoing topic in schools