Conservation - COSTA RICA
Project Information for Conservation in Costa Rica

Our Conservation Projects in Costa Rica

Barra Honda National Park

This 2295 hectare park is renowned for its remarkable system of caves. To date, 42 separate caves have been discovered in the limestone ridge that makes up the Barra Honda formation. There is a large abundance of deciduous flora within the park as well as fauna ranging from armadillos and White-faced Capuchin monkeys, to parrots and coyotes.

The park has a very interesting eco-system with a strong wet season and a strong dry season both having dramatic effects on the area. Obviously the rainy season brings long spells of heavy rains which are very important in the creation and development of the various cave systems, waterfalls and creeks and rivers in the area, which are all created through various types of mineral deposits. The dry season has an equally dramatic effect on the park, with virtually no rain falling. During these months most vegetation dies back and work to prevent forest fires becomes very important. The role of the Volunteer

Each conservation volunteer joins an ongoing effort to conserve the environment. Volunteers come and go, and during your time in Costa Rica you will work with our local team in the park as well as visiting experts who will give you the opportunity to become involved and contribute to this important long-term project.

Volunteer Role at Barra Honda National Park:

At Barra Honda Tasks include:

Helping with taxonomic inventories. Current methods include using automatic cameras, butterfly traps and a bat Census.
Assisting in environmental education projects in schools and local communities.
Constructing, maintaining and extending trails within the park.
Recording meteorological information.
Mapping trails, rivers and other important areas in the park.
Restoration of the main tourist caves.
Exploration walks within the park.
Maintenance of the park's nursery garden which provides native species of trees to be used in reforestation activities.
Reforestation of local areas with native species.
Designing and creating information boards for tourists.
Maintenance of fire breaks.

Volunteers live within the park alongside the conservation manager. The rooms are basic but have showers, toilets and sinks along with fans to help keep you cool during the day and night, and shelves to put your things on. We also have a main dining room area with tables, TV, DVD player, Sky and several different board games. In fact many people are very surprised at the level of comfort here in Barra Honda.

The park also has a fully equipped kitchen area with fridge, freezer, cookers, blenders and everything else you could possibly need! The camp's cook is very friendly and will always be happy to make special meals for people who don't eat certain things and is always happy for you to go into the kitchen to make something as well.

Just outside the park's protection limits (about 5 minutes walk), although still on the park's land, there is a large football field which is free to use and there is a small bar with a swimming pool which volunteers can use for a small fee (1000 Colones).

Detailed Project Information

Automatic Camera Project

During our first year working on this project we have focused on identification of species more than anything else. The automatic cameras use infra-red sensors which activate the digital camera whenever there is movement in the sensors' field of view.

Using the information that we have gathered this year we can already see that certain areas of the park are more populated by certain species and that climactic conditions also affect the way the animals move around the park.

Throughout 2010 we will be starting a new phase with the automatic cameras. We will be using 23 different 50m squared sites, placing 6 cameras in each site once during the dry season and again during the wet season to investigate the different behavior and dispersion of species. This project will also use data collected from our climate study.

Butterfly Project

Again during our first year we mainly focused on identification of species but 2010 will see us using the same system as the cameras with 23 different 50m squared sites. In each corner of these sites we will place 3 different traps at different elevations (2m, 6m, 12m) using the same bait we will be able to identify which species fly at different altitudes, which geological conditions they prefer and which time of the year they are more abundant. This project will also use data collected from our Climate study.

Bat Project

This is a new project for 2010 and will be run with the help of Joe a cave guide in the park. Joe has spent many years working with INBIO (The National Institute for Biology) and is very capable of running investigation projects. Using mist nets we will work in a systematic way through the park trying to identify the species that we have in the area and exactly where they are more abundant.

Each week we will have the opportunity to work on this project, setting the nets up in the afternoon, collecting specimens during that night - taking photos, making measurements and of course identifying each individual that we catch, before taking the nets down again. As with all the projects we run we will do this during the wet season and the dry season to investigate the impact this has on each species. This project will also use data collected from our Climate study.

Climate study

The results taken from the weather station in the park each day are very important for many of our projects and enable us to monitor the climate change in the area.

We are responsible for recording rain-fall, maximum and minimum temperatures, wind-speed, air-pressure and humidity as well as sunrise, sunset and moon phase data for the park. This information is then used to help us interpret what causes changes in animal behavior and gives us clues to changes in population or movement as well as the main aim of showing how the climate is changing on a yearly basis.

Park Mapping

We have already collected a large amount of data on the trail network in the park, with around 75% of the trails mapped with the GPS and around 40% marked with 25m flags. The aim of the GPS mapping is to construct a fully detailed map of the area, trails, rivers, waterfalls, caves and other areas of interest so that this information can be used as a base for the GPS points collected from other projects (Butterflies, Cameras and Bats)

Marking the trails every 25m is important for the safety of volunteers, tourists and park staff in identifying areas without the use of GPS and of course to make sure nobody gets lost!

Reforestation project

One of the main ideas in conservation is planting trees to try and counter act the deforestation that occurs around the world. Here in Barra Honda we have a nursery garden that provides us with many species of native tree that we can then use to help reforest the area. In 2009 we planted a total of 200 trees in and around the park but in 2010 we hope to reach around 1000 trees inside the park, in local schools and in local farms. We will have the chance to work alongside local farmers and children to reforest areas of importance to them.

We will also have to work on maintaining and expanding our nursery garden, we currently have around 2000 saplings in the park but many of them are barely large enough to transplant at this time, so we must constantly be planting new seeds to be capable of making a larger impact in the years to come.

Restoration of the Terciopelo and Cuevita cave systems

These are the two cave systems which are visited by volunteers and tourists on a regular basis, but due to bad management, lack of funds and resources the cave systems have lost some of their shine over the years with countless people walking in and out with muddy hands and shoes.

Our cave restoration project has three stages, firstly we need to construct a pathway inside each cave, which is safe for people to walk on without the risk of slipping and falling, stage two is to close this path in with ropes so that tourists can see the impressive formations within the caves but not be able to move around freely and touch formations which have taken millions of years to form. Finally, stage three is going to be removing the years of dirt from many of the formations to restore them to their natural beauty.

Constructing and Maintaining trail systems and fire breaks

There are tens of kilometers of trails within Barra Honda with new ones being created each year. In the dry season maintaining clear trails is very important in the prevention and control of fires. Each month we travel to a different trail to machete and rake everything that is on the surface. This ensures that people can use these trails in full knowledge of where they are putting their feet and helps to slow or stop the passage of fire. (Which until now has worked perfectly, preventing fires from coming close to the main area of the park)

The fire breaks within the park are exactly the same as the trail systems except that they do not follow the easiest or most interesting route but instead go in a straight line. The breaks are normally wider than a normal trail and more suited to stopping large fires from spreading.

Environmental education and information displays

Volunteers with special skills or a desire to work more in the education or display of information area are more than welcome to join us in the park. Much of our work is closely discussed with a spokesperson from the government responsible for environmental education, but like many government agencies they have a large area to cover and only a limited amount of time and resources.

Many of the projects we are running can be used to help educate people about the conservation of fauna, flora, and water or just to show them some of the amazing and unique things they have in the local area. If you think you can help us design new displays or wish to help in environmental education then please let us know as we are always looking for extra help in this area.

General Maintenance

Not all of our work is investigation or education though; obviously such a large park has substantial installations. These buildings need to be maintained and repaired when necessary and as the volunteer program expands we also need to expand the services and installations we have.

Exploration walks

Barra Honda National Park is a huge area with many amazing formations and processes constantly occurring which result in new geological formations and amazingly beautiful areas being discovered. This will only happen when people walk around the park itself. We always try and schedule a walk to a new area at least once a month.

Each time we walk a new area or an area at a different time of the year we stand the chance of finding a new species of bird, mammal or reptile or finding a new geological or archeological formation within the park. All of this data is recorded in a separate book, (Exploration walk sightings) which is processed at the end of the year for an individual report.