“You should have seen Helena!” Francisco exclaimed, “she was carrying a heavy backpack, her baby on her thigh, and the basket filled with trees as she walked up the hill!” Francisco our Program Director drove with our team to Osa to help with the reforestation.

Helena, our Environmental Education Coordinator, is one of our organization’s heroes. They say everybody should plant a tree, write a book, and have a child. Try doing two of those things at the same time.

Our team is committed to meeting our goal to plant 2000 trees by the end of 2022. However, we have a small window; we can only plant deep into the rainy season. We have already planted 1379, so the last 600 trees will need to be planted at the beginning of September to get enough rain to survive the Costa Rican dry season.

Our team has been planting trees this last season like there is “no tomorrow”. 5 groups of nine to 40 people have been on the field working under the sun or the rain planting beautiful trees.

People from Drake Bay, Spain, England, The US, and all over the world helped us plant these trees. In total, 120 people participated. Children and adults, everybody helped with excitement and, dare I say, the hope that planting a tree brings to our hearts.

By the time you read this note, our team will have planted 1979 trees, but we will have 2000 by the end of the year. Three thousand more will come in 2023. These trees are grown to a point where they are big enough to survive and will also be cared for at least three more years. New ones will replace trees that die. We monitor them, check on the wildlife repopulating the place and see the change. Join us!  There is no greater satisfaction than planting a tree.

Also, we are working with farmers and helping them improve their efficiency by implementing regenerative cattle farming. We are helping families create their regenerative farms. We hope that this will reduce the need to keep cutting forests to produce food. In the following months, our team will reach out to the hotels in the area to create an inventory of demand that our regenerative/organic farmers could meet.