About Us

Once upon a time, the Pacific coastline in Costa Rica was once covered with extremely diverse tropical forests, ranging from the Northern Dry Forests in Guanacaste, to the most rich coastal ecosystems found on Planet Earth, the South Pacific Rain Forests. Healthy coastal ecosystems play a fundamental role in preventing desertification on the land, protect human populations from extreme oceanic phenomena (hurricanes, tsunamis, cyclons, etc.), control erosion, help preventing coral bleaching events, and provide ecological balance to enhance ecotourism activities, provide temperature regulation, among other essential needs.  

Due to cattle farming and other types of agriculture, which boomed in the 1940-1950's, long stretches of coastal forests were essentially wiped out in the Pacific of Costa Rica. Fortunately, in 1977 the Maritime Terrestrial Zone law was passed, protecting and regulating a 200 meter line along the entire coast of the country, being the first 50 meters absolutely public and to be preserved as natural. In addition to this, soon after Costa Rica established many natural protected areas such as National Parks and Wildlife Refuges along the coastline, including long stretches of sandy beaches where several species of sea turtles nest, protecting an essential part of their life cycle. 

However, the efforts to protect coastal ecosystems (including sea turtles) were not enough. In most cases, exotic grass and other invasive plants species colonized areas where diverse coastal forests were originally found, and severe erosion impoverished the soils, not allowing the natural restoration of the coastal forest to start. 

It became clear that such devastated ecosystems required human efforts to actually kick start its restoration. In 2008, Max, a university student who loved surfing on weekends, got tired of seeing how his favorite surf break, Playa Hermosa, even though it became a national wildlife refuge in the 1990’s to protect sea turtle nesting grounds, was still looking so devastated from its past agricultural farming, and how it was impossible to find any natural shade at all. Max realized he had to do something about it, and he created Costas Verdes, an initiative to locally reproduce native trees and involve the community to reforest the coastal wildlife refuge. 

After a successful start in Hermosa, Max went up north in the Pacific to replicate the restoration model in Playa Guiones, Nosara, a place sharing the same background as his first project, an old abandoned cattle farm left to become a national wildlife refuge without any forest coverage since many decades. Since then, Costas Verdes has been open projects along the Pacific, planting over 96,000 trees and reintroducing 96 native species, and creating 4 tree nurseries. 

Costas Verdes believes that in order to make its projects sustainable throughout time, high community involvement is essential. Since its very beginning, it has reached out and engaged with local schools, universities, local governments, NGO’s, and businesses, to create a sense of stewardship and responsibility, and empowering the local communities through tree planting campaigns, workshops, talks, sponsorship programs, and strategic planning. Since 2009, 35 local schools, over 10,800 volunteers and 50 businesses have been involved in our reforestation projects.