Global Renewal Foundation

La Reserva is a Global Renewal Foundation project.
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We have re-printed an excerpt of the article written by Moises Velasquez-Manoff: Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

Biolley District, Costa Rica - Slightly smaller than West Virginia, Costa Rica is a relatively little country. At its narrowest, it’s a mere 74 miles wide. And yet, like much of Central America, it contains an extraordinary diversity of wildlife. The country encompasses mangrove swamp on the coasts, lowland rain forest on the Caribbean coastal plain, drier forest in the foothills of the Pacific slopes, and high-elevation cloud forests on its mountains. Covering only 1/10000th of the world’s surface, Costa Rica hosts 1 out of every 20 species on the planet. As the globe warms, scientists generally expect ecozones – those habitats defined by a specific temperature and rainfall – to move away from the equator and, in mountainous regions, to move uphill.In theory, the wildlife accustomed to these habitats would move, too. But in human-dominated and fragmented landscape – and given the speed of predicted climate change – scientists worry that wildlife won’t be able to adjust in time. Trapped behind agricultural fields, cities, and highways, many species will simply disappear as the climate warms, they say. One-quarter of Earth’s species – plant and animal – could disappear by century’s end, according to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.To improve the situation, scientists propose creating “biological corridors” between wilderness areas – natural spaces that allow wildlife to shift uphill or across latitudes in response to changing climate. Facilitating the movement of wildlife isn’t a new idea. Scientists have long argued that “corridors” would allow animals like the jaguar, which needs about 15 square miles of territory per individual, space to roam, hunt, and breed. Corridors also prompt the exchange of genes between isolated populations, promoting genetic diversity and avoiding inbreeding. (Unfortunately, they provide little help to animals on top of tropical mountains, which have nowhere to go.) But people often live where conservationists would like to put corridors, leaving two options: Remove the people and return the land to nature; or leave the people and work with them to make the land able to serve as a corridor.

This article originally appeared at the following internet location: http://insidecostarica.com/travel/2007/july/07-07-03.htm

Watch crocs, buffalo, and lions fight it out at Kruger Park (South Africa) in this amazing YouTube video.  Don’t worry. It has a happy ending.

Since April of 2007, the website of the La Reserva Forest Foundation has been up and running at http://www.la-reserva.org.  Through its website, it is now accepting on-line donations via PayPal, the on-line payment system.  This marks a key organizational milestone for La Reserva. 

La Reserva Forest Foundation is dedicated to recovery and preservation of indigenous, tropical forests.  La Reserva presently has a reserve in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica.  The recovery and regeneration of tropical forest there has allowed for the renewal of rich and diverse plant and animal life.  The Global Renewal Foundation made a series of organizational grants in 2006 and 2007 to the La Reserva Forest Foundation to assist the organization to become self-sustaining.   

On Thursday, March 22, 2007, the Global Renewal Foundation awarded a $270 micro grant to the La Reserva Forest Foundation. This grant serves to establish the organization’s first bank account and also serves to establish web hosting service with AISO, a solar-powered hosting service.

La Reserva Forest Foundation is dedicated to recovery and preservation of indigenous, tropical forests. La Reserva is currently working to establish forest corridors between existing “islands” of tropical forests in the Tilaran, Guanacaste area of Costa Rica.

This is the third grant Global Renewal Foundation has awarded to La Reserva. La Reserva’s web site is going live in April of 2007. The Global Renewal Foundation awarded two other grants to La Reserva. One micro grant awarded on January 3, 2007, in the amount of $500 served to address required organizational costs in Costa Rica. An in-kind grant was awarded to La Reserva in 2006, valued at over $30,000, served to provide professional web design and administrative and organizational work associated with establishing the organization as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity in the U.S.

Global Renewal’s current project is collaborating with La Reserva Forest Foundation to establish La Reserva as a tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) public charity, and to create the organizational structures necessary for a sustainable non-profit organization. In other words, we’re serving as a midwife to the birth of this non-profit organization. Global Renewal’s philosophy is to lend modest assistance to others (when asked) and then to transition mindfully out of the project.

La Reserva Forest Foundation itself is the result of an eight-year effort to increase indigenous forest in a small region of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The La Reserva land lies within an area principally used for cattle grazing. Much of the natural forest has been removed over the years, replaced by African grasses for pasture. Forested areas that remain are usually small, islands isolated from each other by large tracts of open pasture. The animals living in these small forest remnants cannot move from one location to another.

La Reserva Forest Foundation does not own any lands itself. The goal is to encourage landowners in the Tilaran, Guanacaste region of Costa Rica to voluntarily turn their lands back to tropical forests. La Reserva recognizes the importance of traditional land ownership in a rural culture, where farms pass from one generation to the next and so it does not seek to “buy up” lands from locals. It plans to award financial incentives to landowners in the form of grants to those who are doing projects and research on the lands and who share a common mission, goals and values.

The present lands that represent the La Reserva property was a dairy operation prior to 1998. During those years volunteers planted “tree bridges” between several small forests, observing animals crossing these bridges without touching the ground and exposing themselves to predators. Since then, La Reserva has been regenerating forest on nearly all 100 acres of the reserve. La Reserva is a premontane, wet, tropical forest sitting atop the Continental Divide in northern Costa Rica, a perfect environment for growing these indigenous trees and rapid regeneration of forests. As the forest grows and thickens, Costa Rican and the world is rewarded daily by the ever-increasing abundance of life. Residents have been amazed to see how quickly forests come back to life when left un-grazed. Many new species, some purely forest-dwelling and not seen there before, are now present. Other species, formerly fewer in number, are now in larger numbers. For example, the Mantled Howler Monkey population comprised only two groups eight years ago. Now there are five groups, each containing a larger number of individuals than the two original groups in the Reserve.

Global Renewal supports small projects throughout the world.  Our support can include micro grant awards for projects that request financial assistance.  We define a micro grant as a grant in the amount of $500 or less.   Micro grants provide initial funding for projects that might not otherwise be started.  In this sense, micro grants act as seed capital. 

Successful efforts funded by micro grants have a much better chance to obtain later funding through other traditional means (e.g., grants from larger foundations or governmental agencies) or non-traditional mechanisms (e.g.,  micro loans).   

Although micro loans are a very popular vehicle of microfinance, the Board of Global Renewal prefers micro grants. For one thing, micro grants move projects forward directly and efficiently without moving attention away from the project at hand to the challenges of prompt loan repayment.  The financial cost of administration is lower with a micro grant program while our committment to the project and the grantee is just as strong. 

That’s where we are today - our views on this may change.  For us, micro grants are the simply the most natural way to work.