ANAI’s Vision
ANAI’s Vision for Talamanca
- People will enjoy a high quality of life, with adequate incomes, and excellent education, health and other services.
- Agriculture, forestry and other productive activities will be sustainable and environmentally friendly.
- Capable grassroots organizations will exercise effective local leadership of the sustainable development process.
- A high percentage of the land stretching from the Continental Divide to the sea will remain forested.
- All ecosystem functions will be maintained, including the seasonal visit by migratory birds.
- Privately held lands will be mostly owned by native Talamancans, with a healthy mix of agroforestry systems, sustainably managed forests and totally natural areas.
- The official Protected Areas will be well managed for biodiversity protection and beneficial for the neighboring communities.
A locally owned and controlled ecotourism economy will direct proceeds into local hands, provide incentives for biodiversity conservation, support grassroots organizations and educate both visitors and residents.
About ANAI
While ANAI takes pride in being a “muddy boots” organization in intimate contact with the people and the land, we have no pretension of being a “grassroots” organization ourselves. Rather, we are an intermediary organization, seeking to nurture locally based transformational processes leading to self- sufficient local (“grassroots”) organizations focusing on the achievement of sustainability.
Over two decades ago, when ANAI became the first NGO to establish itself in Talamanca, local organizations were few and weak, and ANAI of necessity played a major role in the design and execution of projects. But from the beginning, we have nurtured the capacity for planning and decision making by local groups wherever we find it. In the case of our early successes, ANAI’s role is now largely one of responding to and facilitating local initiatives. If we continue to be successful, this will increasingly be the case in all of the communities served by ANAI.
The role of locally based Grassroots Support Organization (GSO) like ANAI is increasingly recognized as a necessary part of what may be called an “ecology of organizations”, including specialized technical aid groups, donors, lending institutions, advocacy and watchdog groups, government agencies and grassroots or “base” groups. GSOs operate under one institutional handicap in that they should normally forego opportunities to increase their own economic self-sufficiency when the activity in question can be successfully carried out by one of its constituent organizations. It is our policy that we should help communities develop the capacity to manage existing or potential lucrative activities, rather than seizing on them ourselves. We have also preferred to channel grant money to local organizations to do projects, rather than do it ourselves, in those cases where this has been feasible.
Examples of activities that we have helped local organizations learn to manage, instead of doing it ourselves include marketing of agricultural products, forest management and marketing of forest products, ecotourism, and running the regional training center. The result is stronger local organizations. They not only have a degree of economic self- sufficiency, but equally important, they are learning to carry out projects and run a business. They also have an increasing stake in the success of their sustainable development and conservation activities, making success more likely.
One of the indicators of success as an intermediary organization comes when the suggestions start to flow in both directions; when the unique capabilities of one’s organization begin to be seen as part of the local fabric, rather than as an “outside” resource which might be tapped, but which must be approached with caution.
At every stage it has been appropriate for us to ask ourselves what we should be doing for others and what we should be training our neighbors to do. Increasingly, though, local groups are taking the initiative to let us know what they think they can do, what they would like to learn to do, and where they need help.
ANAI Philosophy
ANAI is special because of its long term, serious commitment, to the people of Talamanca, to its biodiversity, and to its future generations. ANAI has expressed this commitment through hard work and a focus on its long-term goals. ANAI has continually chosen to fulfill their commitment because they are convinced of the importance of the Talamanca process, for Talamanca, and for the entire world.
ANAI’s Core Beliefs:
- No inherent contradiction exists between economic development and environmental conservation. If communities and nations are to thrive, development and conservation must take place together.
- The best stewards of the tropical lowlands are the natives who have dedicated their lives to these lands.
- All natural tropical areas that are not protected will be radically altered during our lifetime. We must work to protect these areas and preserve their biodiversity for future generations to enjoy.
The natural forest and other unique primary ecosystems are Talamanca’s most economically valuable asset in the long term.
Asociación ANAI
Welcome to Asociación ANAI
Asociación ANAI, a Costa Rican nonprofit organization, has pioneered some of the world’s most successful and highly participatory community based development initativies in tropical zones. Since 1978, ANAI has worked hand in hand with the inhabitants of Costa Rica’s Talamanca region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and ‘Biodiversity Hotspot’. ANAI and its Talamancan partners have found ways to advance a sustainable development agenda in one of the most logistically and socially difficult areas of Central America. This alliance has successfully nurtured local entrepreneurs to carry out economically viable activities that are environmentally sound as well as national technical capacity and leadership. (more…)
Accomplishments
ANAI’s Accomplisments Include:
- A national wildlife refuge that is unique for the way it is being co-managed by local communities and government agencies.
- A marine turtle conservation Program that now provides 6 times more local income through funded research and ecotourism than the previous harvesting and selling of turtle eggs.
- A regional conservation alliance working to consolidate and protect a unique forested corridor that stretches from the continental divide at 12,533 feet to the sea.
- Initiation of a regional aquatic biomonitoring program promoting community-based scientific research and scientific validation of the important role small farm agro- ecosystems can play in biodiversity conservation.
- Central America’s only permanent raptor migration monitoring program: one of only three places in the world where more than one million birds of prey have been counted in a single season.
- A regional farmers’ coop serving over fifteen hundred farmers, which is now the largest volume producer and exporter of organic products in Central America.
- 16 locally owned ecotourism ventures which are a growing source of income for the region’s people.
- Youth and local leadership programs and a locally run regional training center that serves over 2,000 people per year.
- The creation and growth – at the regional and community levels – of more than 20 grassroots conservation and development organizations, dedicated to maintaining thriving human communities and a healthy, natural environment. Significant participation and leadership by women has been achieved in most organizations.
- Sharing The Talamanca Initiative model, and the knowledge and experienced gained through this process, with other community groups, NGOs, governments and international agencies working in the tropics.
- Leadership participation in many influential regional, national and international forums and organizations. Promotion of strategies, activities and laws that link economic development with nature conservation.
Strategic Objectives
ANAI’s Strategic Objectives are the following:
- Consolidate the Talamanca-Caribbean Biological Corridor. This may soon be the only forested corridor left in the world that stretches from the ocean to a continental divide.
- Achieve widespread adoption of local sustainable development initiatives, based on organic agro-ecosystems, sustainable forest management, ecotourism, and community conservation.
- Continue to create, strengthen and promote grassroots constituencies that champion conservation, economic development and indigenous stewardship of Talamanca’s natural resources.
Promote the integration of conservation and development in other tropical areas through the widespread dissemination and sharing of our experiences.
ANAI History
Phase 1: 1978-1985
Building the Foundation: Learning, Experimenting, Assessing, and Gaining Experience
Phase II: 1985-1987
Institutional growth and consolidation: Strong steps toward sustainable development in the region of Talamanca
Phase III: 1998-Present
Institutional Stability: Integration of biodiversity conservation with sustainable development on a broad regional level
Phase 1: 1978-1985
Building the Foundation: Learning, Experimenting, Assessing, and Gaining Experience
ANAI’s efforts began as a loose coalition of North American biologists and Talamancan farmers dedicated first to educating ourselves, later broadening our work into the foundation of pilot projects in Talamancan communities. Efforts were focused on an experimental farm, and in the surrounding community of Gandoca. It was a time of learning, experimenting, developing experience in community development projects, and assessing Talamanca´s needs, opportunities, threats, and who’s who. The emphasis was on issues of concern to all poor people everywhere. As the process became thoroughly entrenched in the communities, and as local people began to exercise an increasing level of “ownership”, some of the conservation-development linkages became apparent. As confidence in ANAI and the evolving land management systems grew, these linkages gained more attention. The first formal environmental accomplishement was done in collaboration with the Costa Rican government; it was the establishment of the 25,000-acre Gandoca/Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge in the coastal part of Talamanca in1985.
Phase II: 1985-1987
Institutional growth and consolidation: Strong steps toward sustainable development in the region of Talamanca
This period was a time of enormous change and growth at ANAI. It evolved from a loose coalition of founders with a very local and thematically limited focus, to a consolidated organization with a regional focus, working with rural communities of all ethnic groups. A broad menu of sustainable development alternatives and projects were established and promoted. By implementing this work together with Talamanca’s people, national and international credibility as pioneers in sustainable development and community conservation were gained.
Phase III: 1998-Present
Institutional Stability: Integration of biodiversity conservation with sustainable development on a broad regional level One of the goals of ANAI’s work in Talamanca is to create programs, facilities, and grassroots organizations, the management of which will be fully transferred to local communities over time. Since 1995, ANAI has accomplished this goal with many of the organizations established during the formative years. With these now self sustaining organizations, we currently act as a facilitator, providing logistical, institutional, strategic, and managerial support. We have also greatly expanded our efforts in biodiversity conservation, dedicated time to sharing our experiences in Talamanca with other organizations, and focused on strengthening the linkages between development and conservation.
