A project with local impact

A cooperation between TUI Care Foundation and Adopt Rainforest

Cooperation between TUI Care Foundation and
Adopt Rainforest

A beastly, fun partnership, that’s what we can call the new collaboration between Adopt Rainforest and the TUI Care Foundation. Together, they are launching the TUI Wildlife Programme Costa Rica. A wildlife project in which the TUI Care Foundation supports the Adopt Rainforest Foundation for a minimum period of three years.

During these three years, we will launch six new activities. With these activities we will create more biodiversity in our reserve, create even more local Impact and involvement and help two critically endangered species return to our area.

“The uniqueness of this collaboration is that everything we stand for comes together On the one hand, together we are protecting the rainforest and planting new trees in which we will also specifically focus on two endangered species. On the other hand, we create local jobs and strengthen the involvement of the local population in nature conservation. The fact that we will be carrying out these projects together with the TUI Care Foundation gives me as a fundraiser enormous motivation towards the future.”
– Eric Tijssen – Fundraiser Adopteer Regenwoud

Our shared goal:

To provide a critically endangered parrot and nearly extinct frog species with a safe place in our reserve;
Establish an educational programme for schools and communities to create local awareness about the importance of rainforest;
additional staff and resources to combat illegal hunting and logging in our reserve;
reintroduce and increase population of rare tree species in the reserve;
making a positive contribution to biodiversity research;
expanding local employment opportunities.

With all these goals, we realize an even stronger collaboration between the foundation and local community. Resulting in a positive socio-economic impact.

Help us by adopting a piece of rainforest

A home for a critically endangered parrot and a nearly extinct frog

The foundation’s reserve now covers 278 hectares of rainforest with very high biodiversity. This area is located in a region where a lot of deforestation is still taking place. As a result, many tree and animal species are lost or threatened.

Examples include the critically endangered Great Green Macaw (Ara ambiguus) and the almost extinct Lemur Leaf Frog (Agalychnis lemur). These species have virtually disappeared across the region due to habitat loss.

Adopt Rainforest wants to go a step further in addition to the reserve it protects. Namely, it sees opportunities to give this critically endangered parrot species and nearly extinct frog species a home in its reserve. With the aim of increasing the critical population of both species.

Great Green Macaw

The endangered Great Green Macaw has been spotted in the reserve just recently. This Macaw is one of the species that will be protected in the cooperation programme with the TUI Care Foundation.

Planting Almond trees
According to the IUCN Red List, only 500-1000 adult specimens are still alive in the wild. Time for action! The main food of this Macaw is the fruit of the Almond tree (Dipteryx panamensis). In addition, the Macaw depends on the hollows in these mature trees to nest in. Unfortunately, these trees have almost completely disappeared due to logging. We will help the Macaw by planting back a mix of 4,000 almond trees and other endangered tree species in our reforestation project.

Building nest boxes
We regularly see this Macaw flying over our reserve. But due to the lack of large Almond trees, they have no suitable places to nest and are therefore always on the run. For this reason, we want to build and hang nest boxes in the reserve. We will partner with an organisation that has successful experience with specially designed nest boxes for the Great Green Macaw. The mission is to place a minimum of 10 nest boxes in our reserve. The nest boxes will be placed in the trees about 20 metres above the ground. In this way, we can contribute to the protection and growth of the Great Green Macaw population.

The Lemur Leaf Frog

This beautiful frog is native to the Adopt Rainforest area, but has unfortunately not been spotted in the reserve for quite some time. The population of Lemur Leaf frogs has declined by more than 80% in the past 10 years due to rapid habitat loss and a special type of deadly fungus. According to the IUCN, this beautiful green frog is threatened with extinction.

Evidence of successful reintroduction
At a Costa Rican wildlife organisation not far from our project area, the population of the critically endangered Lemur Leaf Frog has successfully been increased. By creating several frog pools in their reserve, they have managed to create an ideal habitat. This reserve has many similarities to ours both in terms of location and species composition.

Creating frog pools

If we construct the right frog pools in our reserve and manage to create the perfect habitat for these frogs, there is a chance that this frog will also show up again in our reserve. So for this reason, in the coming years we are going to construct at least 15 frog pools in total at strategic locations in the reserve. And hopefully, in a few years, we will be able to tell you that we have contributed to the protection and population growth of this special animal.

Local cooperation & employment

To achieve the goals in the project, cooperation with our local people is very important. In addition, we are supported by the Costa Rican government, which has nature conservation high on its agenda. Currently we work well with villagers in San Miguel, but we want to strengthen this further.

Do you want to volunteer yourself?

Additional park rangers

To protect the reserve, we want to hire and train two local people as rangers in our reserve. This way, we will help the local economy and the flora and fauna of the rainforest. They will be well trained in protecting and observing the area. They will also be given proper equipment to do this job. For example, they will get good and safe clothing for in the rainforest, binoculars and a GPS system to minimize illegal hunting and logging in the region.

Free educational tours & workshops

In the longer term, we will offer free educational tours of the reserve for school children and other interested parties. We also want to start offering workshops on the rainforest at several local schools. We want to offer this for the whole region around our project area. With the help of TUI Care Foundation, we can recruit an additional local guide to provide these tours and workshops. This is positive for local involvement, education about the importance of the rainforest and even more employment opportunities.

Local project coördinator

Thanks to the support of TUI Care Foundation, we can start realising these fantastic nature projects with a positive impact on the local population over the next three years. To keep all these projects on track, we have hired a local project coordinator. Together with our general manager, he will ensure that all goals will be achieved.

Through my 40 years of life, I have always been surrounded and touched by the different stages of the Matina district conservation efforts regarding the tropical forest.

In the last 22 years I’ve worked for different organizations and conservation projects in the surrounding area.

My featured targets are focused on continuing to create awareness about the necessity of preserving our wonderful biodiversity and provide opportunities for locals to participate in this. I am greatful that Adopt Rainforest and Tui Care Foundation gave me this opportunity.

– Hurben Zeledon Gomez – programme coördinator

We would like to keep you informed about this project and will regularly report on our news page and socials.