The history of the San Juan-La Selva Biological Corridor is best understood by first taking a look at the larger corridor in which it exists, the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC). The MBC is a multi-national effort to maintain the ecological connectivity through the Central American isthmus. Through the Central American Commission for the Environment and Development (CCAD), the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama have committed to connect their protected areas with biological corridors to preserve migration routes between ecosystems. The San Juan-La Selva Biological Corridor (CBSS) constitutes the section of the MBC that connects the protected areas of the lower basin of the San Juan River with the Central Volcanic Range in Costa Rica.
Conservation efforts within the CBSS have focused largely on the plight of the Great Green Macaw (GGM), a critically endangered species. This species has a limited distribution in the humid lowlands of the Atlantic coast of Central America from Honduras to the north of Colombia. In Costa Rica, its nesting range is currently limited to approximately 600 square kilometers of very humid tropical forest in the north of the country, abutting the boundary with Nicaragua.
The survival of the GGM depends on the availability of adequate and intact habitat, which provided impetus for working with various local and national groups to create a conservation plan that would protect sufficient habitat to maintain a small and healthyreproductive population in Costa Rica.
This integral conservation plan gave birth to the San Juan-La Selva Biological Corridor, and the actors involved comprised its executive committee, or what is now known as the Consejo Local (Local Council). The executive committee was officially formed in 2001, and its headquarters are based in the offices of the Tropical Science Center (CCT) in San Pedro de Montes de Oca, San Jose. The CCT has assumed the responsibility of the coordination and administration of resources for the CL-CBSS.
A key effort within the corridor has been the creation of the Maquenque Mixed Wildlife National Refuge in 2005, with a surface area of 54,000 hectares of natural ecosystem including the nesting area of the GGM.
Establishing the refuge was a participatory process that engaged the local communities in the area to assess the impact of such a designation on local livelihoods. However, there has been recent unrest among some landowners in the area, concerned for the value of their land.
The River Foundation in Nicaragua has promoted conservation of habitat for the Great Green Macaw since 1999, implementing the “Project of Environmental Education in the Buffer Zone of the Indio Maiz Biological Corridor.” In conjunction with other entities, the organization helped create the Bi-national Biological Corridor El Castillo-La Selva.
With the experience acquired during the process in Costa Rica of establishing a corridor and taking advantage of the fact that one population of the GGM is shared between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, it was decided to unite efforts and develop a bi-national program, working under the assumption that the conservation actions on one side of the Rio San Juan has impacts (both positive and negative) for the other side.
The GGM Research and Conservation Project takes into consideration that the work being done in the Northern Zone of Costa Rica goes hand in hand with the work being done on the Nicaragua side. This premise is not always well understood by Costa Rican organizations and many times, principally at the beginning, it was necessary to carry out a strong lobbying effort to resolve the importance of a Nicaraguan counterpart between the Costa Rican actors.
In the year 2000 began a process to share findings between the institutions of both countries, with the support of the United Nations Development Program and the Foundation for Peace and Democracy. A year later, these efforts would be known as the “Bi-national Partnership for the Conservation of the GGM, Pride of the San Juan River basin.” The Tropical Science Center in Costa Rica and the River Foundation in Nicaragua coordinate this initiative. Together with other organizations forms a network of social institutions that groups environmental sectors, academics, culture and politics of both countries.
The principal actions completed through the framework of the this bi-national partnership from 2002 to 2009, much has been accomplished: 13 workshops on the biology and conservation of the GGM, 7 bi-national festivals, the formation of the Bi-National Network of Children Monitors of the GGM, and the creation of the Coordinator of the Bi-National Biological Corridors Nicaragua-Costa Rica.
