COTERC stands for Canadian Organization for Tropical Education and Rainforest Conservation. It's situated on the east coast of Costa Rica, a little bit north of Tortuguero. You have to get there by boat because there is too much rainforest in the way to get to it by road. It is an amazing place. Charlotte Foale has done an awesome job keeping it up, and us as volunteers have duties everyday so that we as a group can keep it in good shape.
First I'll give a little background information about the station so that you know what they do and why they do it.
COTERC was established in 1991 to be a non-profit in Canada and to support the operations going on at the Caño Palma Bio station, which I am currently at. Their mission is to “provide leadership in education, research, conservation, and the educated use of natural resources in the tropics.” The little towns around the station are filled with children that want to learn, but not all have the means since the parents have not been educated themselves. So some volunteers go to the communities to help out anyway they can and to try to teach some rainforest education to these children. Some of the parents of these children also happen to be poachers of the turtle eggs that we are trying to protect, so getting to the children and teaching them why conservation is important could help them not end up like their parents. This is a list of the projects that are currently ongoing at the station:
· The “Save an Acre” program; a fund expressly for conservation through land acquisition;
· A volunteer program which provides biology students and other interested parties an opportunity to live in a neotropical rainforest and participate in research and monitoring;
· Educational programs and support to local schools and universities in Costa Rica, Canada and abroad;
· An ongoing inventory of the flora and fauna of the Tortuguero region;
· Marine turtle monitoring, protection and community-based conservation;
· Migratory and resident bird monitoring and surveys;
· Large mammal monitoring;
· Shorebird monitoring
· Caiman census
· Snake morphology
· Collection of meteorological data
I encourage you to go check out their website, this station is doing incredible work done by people that are passionate about what they do.
http://www.coterc.org/
First I'll give a little background information about the station so that you know what they do and why they do it.
COTERC was established in 1991 to be a non-profit in Canada and to support the operations going on at the Caño Palma Bio station, which I am currently at. Their mission is to “provide leadership in education, research, conservation, and the educated use of natural resources in the tropics.” The little towns around the station are filled with children that want to learn, but not all have the means since the parents have not been educated themselves. So some volunteers go to the communities to help out anyway they can and to try to teach some rainforest education to these children. Some of the parents of these children also happen to be poachers of the turtle eggs that we are trying to protect, so getting to the children and teaching them why conservation is important could help them not end up like their parents. This is a list of the projects that are currently ongoing at the station:
· The “Save an Acre” program; a fund expressly for conservation through land acquisition;
· A volunteer program which provides biology students and other interested parties an opportunity to live in a neotropical rainforest and participate in research and monitoring;
· Educational programs and support to local schools and universities in Costa Rica, Canada and abroad;
· An ongoing inventory of the flora and fauna of the Tortuguero region;
· Marine turtle monitoring, protection and community-based conservation;
· Migratory and resident bird monitoring and surveys;
· Large mammal monitoring;
· Shorebird monitoring
· Caiman census
· Snake morphology
· Collection of meteorological data
I encourage you to go check out their website, this station is doing incredible work done by people that are passionate about what they do.
http://www.coterc.org/