In listing the following examples, we would like to stress that many other actors have also made important contributions in each of these initiatives.  While ANAI’s role in all cases was crucial and long term, and most began as ANAI initiatives, the majority are now independently managed, with their own strong and sustainable organizations.  This constellation of grassroots initiatives and their continuing contributions to conservation and sustainable development are perhaps the most salient of our accomplishments. At the same time, while we have been initiators, doers, catalysts, teachers, connectors, synthesizers, enablers, facilitators, nurturers, and friends, their achievements are theirs, not ours.

• The Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge, stretching for 30 kilometers along Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast to the Panama border, and connected to the San San/Pondsak National Wildlife Refuge in Panama, was established in 1985 in partnership with the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment. This 25,000 acre refuge (including a 12,000 acre marine portion and now officially recognized as a RAMSAR site) protects an unusually diverse assemblage of lowland tropical ecosystems, including the only mangroves on the Costa Rican Caribbean, Raphia palm swamps, fresh and brackish water lagoons, mixed hill forest, the largest remaining cativo forest and the only orey swamp in Costa Rica, coralline headlands, a variety of coral reefs, sea grass beds, the lower reaches of a major river (Rio Sixaola) and a critical turtle nesting beach (see below).   All farmers in the buffer zone of the Wildlife Refuge have received clear land titles. This initiative has served as a model of communities, NGOs, and governments working together for the benefit of local people and unique biological resources.

• The Talamanca Marine Turtle Conservation Program, started in 1992 in the community of Gandoca, protects some of Central America’s main nesting beaches for endangered sea turtles and has saved thousands of leatherback, green, and hawksbill turtle eggs from human predation and beach erosion, bringing stability back to the local populations of these endangered animals.  Sea turtle conservation has become the economic motor for several communities, generating up to 7 times more income than was previously generated from the harvest and sale of turtle eggs, through funded research and the provision of services to project volunteers and ecotourists. As one of the most successful projects of its kind in the world, Gandoca has become a center for the training of turtle conservationists throughout Central America and the world. It has been extended to many other beaches along both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of Central America. This program recently established its own NGO, named Widecast, and is now the main sea turtle conservation entity for all of Costa Rica.  This program has been a living example of how conservation can improve a local economy and way of life, which in turn fuels further conservation efforts.

• Stream and Watershed Biomonitoring: While biomonitoring is firmly entrenched as part of the environmental decision-making process in the “developed” countries, this pioneering program is the only long term, participatory biomonitoring initiative in the tropics.  Through this program, adults and children from communities throughout Talamanca enhance their level of knowledge about their own environment, while participating in creating information to guide management decisions at all levels.  At the local level, information gathered in this program provides scientific validation of the important role small farm agro-ecosystems play in biodiversity conservation and environmental protection.  At the other extreme it provides technical support and facilitates informed intervention by local people in development initiatives originating outside the community.  The ultimate vision is a permanent cadre of parataxonomists and local technicians in all the communities and schools of the region, with established linkages to recognized scientific institutions.  A training component built into the biomonitoring program seeks to share this initiative widely, and has already begun to establish a core group of local technicians in both Talamanca and Bocas del Toro Province, Panama.

• APPTA (Asociación de Pequeños Productores de Talamanca / Talamanca Small Farmers Association), founded in 1987 within ANAI’s agroforestry initiative, is a regional organic small farmer’s cooperative, serving over 1500 farmers, that is making it possible for Talamancan small farmers to be successful in a competitive market, maximizing production and environmental benefits. APPTA has developed a local processing infrastructure for organic cacao and bananas, quality control checks, marketing strategies, and an organic certification program, becoming the largest volume producer and exporter of organic products in Central America. In addition to creating completely new markets for some products, farmers are receiving an additional 15-60% revenue for their certified organic products. In demonstrating the vital role that small farm agro-ecosystems play in biodiversity conservation, APPTA is committed to consolidating agro forestry systems as important elements of a regional strategy of biodiversity conservation. As an example of the broad participation that has been achieved in the Talamanca Initiative’s projects, 80% of APPTA’s beneficiaries are indigenous, and 33% are women.   APPTA has also played a key role with ANAI in organizing over 1600 small farmers to reforest with native tree species.

• CBTC (Corredor Biológico Talamanca-Caribe / The Talamanca-Caribbean Biological Corridor), founded in 1992 within ANAI’s conservation initiative, is a regional conservation alliance that is working to consolidate and protect an extraordinary forested corridor that stretches from the continental divide at 12,533 ft. in the Talamanca mountain range to the Caribbean sea, an area of major importance for many endangered species. CBTC works to protect this land (much of which is privately owned) through conservation measures, environmental education, and the promotion of biodiversity-friendly productive activities. CBTC is also a forum for local organizations to gain information, debate and analyze important local and regional issues, and make collaborative decisions on how to best address these issues.

• Ecotourism: Starting with the construction of the first community ecolodge in 1989, we have worked to help local communities develop community-based ecotourism initiatives. Today 16 community owned eco-tourism ventures are a growing source of income for local people and their organizations.  Six ecotourism lodges are owned and managed by community organizations whose objectives include conservation, sustainable economic development and (in the case of the indigenous community groups) protection of cultural traditions.  The Gandoca community ecotourism initiative provides homestays, lodges and services for ecotourists and volunteers at the Sea Turtle Conservation Project.  The Nature Guides Association of Manzanillo provides high quality local guide services for visitors to the local wildlife refuge.  Other community-based ventures provide services of different kinds.  All of these groups are committed to the ideal of ecotourism as both a livelihood and a means for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation.

In 1998, 12 local organizations formed the Talamancan Community Ecotourism Network, a collaborative effort to facilitate supportive relations, product development, information/idea sharing, training, collaborative planning, production of promotional media, and co-marketing efforts.  In 2002, this experience inspired and provided leadership for the formation of a national organization, The Costa Rican Association for Community Tourism, which has transformed the conservation and development opportunities for communities all over the country.

• Central America’s only permanent raptor migration monitoring program has recorded more than 2.9 million birds of prey per season and put Talamanca on the world raptor map. Located on the Kekoldi Indigenous Reserve, and one of only three places in the world where more than one million birds of prey have been counted in a single migratory season, this program has become a living laboratory for conservation education and a new opportunity for integrating scientific research, biodiversity conservation, and environmental education with ecotourism initiatives for the beneift of local indigenous people.  This work is now being independently managed by the Wak Ka Koneke indigenous association.

• The Talamanca Initiative has facilitated the creation and growth – at the community and provincial 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.  These groups carry out a diversity of productive, educational and conservation activities. Additionally, projects have been carried out throughout the region to improve basic services including community potable water systems, schools and other community infrastructure.

• Training and Education: All Talamanca Initiative projects and programs have an important focus on emowering the local people, via practical learning and application of new techniques, skills, abilities and concepts.  Specific educational programs have included community promotors, organic agroforestry sysems, community credit, computers and management for small businesses or organizations.  Environmental education with primary schools and community groups has been an important way of preparing the region’s people to be champions of sustainable development and conservation.

In 1991 a Regional Training Center (Finca Educativa) was established on the Bri Bri Indigenous Reserve, After a 10 year process of construction, program development and practical training, full ownership and management was assumed by the local indigenous communties.  This center continues to serve over 2,000 people per year, providing courses and practical workshops in agriculture, health, appropriate technology, conservation, leadership, secondary and university education.  ANAI has also carried out several grassroots Conservation Leadership Training programs and many national and international sustainable development exchanges.

Sharing, Advocacy, and Leadership:  ANAI and its partners actively participate in various alliances, forums, conferences, and workshops in promoting strategies, actions, policies and laws that further the integration of socio-economic development and biodiversity conservation. By sharing and disseminating the Talamanca model, the lessons learned, and the knowledge and experience gained through this process, the Talamanca Initiative strives to inspire, encourage, and support other organizations and communities to develop similar processes.

The Talamanca Initiative has provided leadership at many levels beyond Talamanca, including the GEF – Small Grants Program for Costa Rica, the Atlantic Regional Environmental Council, the National Association of Community Ecotourism Initiatives, the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network, the Costa Rican and the Central American Sea Turtle Conservation Networks, JUNAFORCA (National Campesino Forestry Consortium), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the International Cooperative Without Borders, and the Latin American Network for Alternative Development.

Some of the tangible results of partnerships beyond Talamanca include organic certification and higher prices paid to more than 1,000 mostly indigenous farmers in Bocas del Toro, Panama, in collaboration with the Cooperativa de Cacao Bocatoreña (COCABO), and the establishment of community-based sea turtle conservation programs in sites throughout Central America.  Through the GEF/SGP program, we have promoted the creation and strengthening of community groups working with conservation and development throughout Costa Rica. Work with carbon offset payments for conservation initiatives by small farmers has been extended to the entire Atlantic drainage area of Costa Rica’s La Amistad International Peace Park, a United Nations World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve.  The training of a core group of local biomonitoring technicians from Bocas del Toro has allowed close cooperation with local indigenous communities in support of their efforts to protect La Amistad and their communities from the destructive consequences of dam construction in the La Amistad buffer zone.

Over the past 20 years, ANAI has sponsored an average of  10 professional interns per year from around the world, including from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, the United States, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Great Britain, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Israel, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast  and Kenya.  Additionally, more than 600 short term volunteers per year have participated in short term practical immersions in sustainable development and conservation work.

In all that we do, be it at the family, community, provincial or national level, our most important measure of success is the continuation and growth of any initiative after our participation has ended.  The Talamanca Initiative has many allies to help us continue addressing the challenges of integrating biodiversity conservation  and sustainable development.

• Achieve widespread adoption of sustainable development initiatives, based on organic agro-ecosystems, sustainable forest management, ecotourism, biomonitoring and community conservation.

• Continue to create, strengthen and promote grassroots constituencies that champion conservation, economic development and local stewardship of natural resources.

• Promote the integration of conservation and development in other tropical areas through the widespread dissemination and sharing of our experiences.

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 ecosystems and ecosystem functions will be maintained.

• 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.

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 conservation and development projects, and assessing Talamanca´s needs, opportunities, threats, and who’s who.  As the process became 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 accomplishment was done in collaboration with the local communities and the Costa Rican government:  the establishment of the 25,000-acre Gandoca Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge in the coastal part of Talamanca in 1985.

Phase II: 1985 – 1997

Pioneering on the ground implementation of integrated conservation and community development initiatives

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 of the region’s ethnic groups. A broad menu of sustainable development alternatives and projects was established and promoted.  By implementing this work together with Talamanca’s people, The Talamanca Initiative gained national and international credibility pioneering the integration of sustainable development and community conservation.

Work covered a diversity of areas and approaches, including nature conservation, organic agro forestry, local processing and marketing, sustainable forest management, land titling for small farmers and community ecotourism.  In all cases, our approach has included local participation and leadership, applied science, synthesis of local and external knowledge and experiences, creating linkages to integrate conservation and development, grassroots organizational development, and forming alliances.

Phase III: 1998 – Present

Deeper and broader.  Scaling up and out.  Regional, national and international contributions.

 One of the goals of ANAI’s work in Talamanca is to create local and regional initiatives, facilities, and grassroots organizations, the management of which will be fully transferred to local communities over time, a goal that has been accomplished with many of the initiatives and organizations established during the formative years. With these now self-sustaining organizations, we currently act as a facilitator, providing strategic and managerial support.   We have begun new initiatives like biomonitoring, greatly expanded our efforts in biodiversity conservation, focused on strengthening the practical linkages between rural development and nature conservation, and worked to form alliances and share our experiences to help others put sustainable development into practice.

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 ecosystems are Talamanca’s most economically valuable asset in the long term.

• A winning strategy to address sustainable development and nature conservation must successfully integrate environmental, social, economic and organizational needs.

ANAI’s work focuses on integrating nature conservation, family and community centered development that is biodiversity friendly, family and community health, and strong community and regional organizations.  We are committed to cultural respect and strengthening, sharing our experiences, and inspiring others to implement integrated conservation and development initiatives in other places and at other scales.  We do this through a lot of hard work, creating new alternatives, empowerment and capacity building, applied science for conservation and development, training, and more hard work.

ANAI strives for sustainability in everything we do.  A successful long term initiative, be it biodiversity conservation, agroforestry, processing and marketing of agricultural products, community ecotourism or environmental monitoring, needs to be biologically, economically, socially and organizationally sustainable.

Our vision is truly long term.  Among our most important beneficiaries are the children of our children.  They need us to be successful today in creating truly sustainable initiatives so that they can live a wonderful life, enjoying a healthy economy, healthy families and communities, and all of the nature’s biodiversity and bounty.  Working to develop a culture of collaboration, cooperation and mutual respect, we strive to help create an inter-generational commitment to sustainability, based on actions with immediate tangible benefits and strategies to ensure that these same opportunities will still be there for our children’s children.

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.

Over three 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.

The role of locally based Grassroots Support Organizations (GSOs) 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 “community based” 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 carry out 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 organic agroforestry, processing and marketing of agricultural products, forest management, ecotourism, running a regional training center and community conservation initiatives.  The result is stronger local organizations.  They not only have a degree of economic self – sufficiency, but equally important, they learn to carry out projects, plan and manage new initiatives, and run businesses.  They also have an increasing stake in the success of their sustainable development and conservation activities, making success more likely.

Increasingly, local groups are taking the initiative.  As local capacity grows, this creates opportunities for ANAI to scale our work, thematically and geographically, and renew our creativity and innovative actions for conservation and development challenges.

The biomonitoring program developed in Talamanca, Valle de la Estrella and surrounding areas of Panama, focuses on the monitoring of rivers and watersheds of these areas, in order to assess the health of river ecosystems and to obtain information on possible causes (anthropogenic and / or natural) of the conditions observed, thus providing guidelines for the design and development of management strategies to protect and restore  the integrity of these ecosystems.

The biological assessment techniques applied in the project are based on sampling of fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages, along with direct evaluation of  habitat parameters thus permitting the determination of indices of biotic integrity.

ANAI Association in conjunction with the Talamanca Biological Corridor (CBTC), launched the biomonitoring project in 2000 with the intention of  developing a permanent mechanism for continual monitoring in support of conservation efforts focused on species and ecosystems of the area.  We are now in our12^th consecutive year of implementing this mechanism, and are also well embarked on the challenge of sharing our  knowledge and  methodology with other regions of Mesoamerica.

The program engages the people of Talamanca in assessing and understanding the health of their rivers and watersheds, with a strong component of scientific research. It aims at promoting interest and appreciation of biodiversity, in order to apply the information to protecting and restoring rivers, creeks and streams in the area, in the context of their watersheds. It has a strong environmental education component and as a pioneer effort in the tropics, seeks help in establishing similar programs elsewhere.

Talamanca Initiative 2008

Proyecto de Mujeres Artesanas de Yorkin

Full Nomination.

Originally focused on organic agriculture and food security, the Talamanca Initiative has worked since 1983 to develop a comprehensive approach that links regional poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation efforts. The Talamanca Initiative is a regional leader, bringing together communities, NGOs, and governments in development and conservation of the Amistad International Peace Park (a World Heritage Site).

Equator Initiative.

he Equator Initiative is a partnership that brings together the United Nations, governments, civil society, businesses, and grassroots organizations to build the capacity and raise the profile of local efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.  Read more…

knowledge exchanges.

invites you to question yourself and the world around you. Every time you ask yourself a question, a new dialogue begins…

Benson Venegas R.  Executive Director of ANAI

answers the following 100 question.