GOOD NEWS Flash for Costa Rica and the World

Costa Rica is recognized as a global environmental leader with its Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG) making up 2% of the entire country. The ACG contains dry forest, cloud forest, rain forest, and stretches 6 km into the Pacific Ocean. Home to 350,000 species of plants and animals, the ACG accounts for 2.6% of the world’s biodiversity.

News from The Wege Foundation promises a bright future for this ecological jewel with a former senior executive of the National Wildlife Federation coming on board to lead the way. Eric S. Palola has been hired as the first Executive Director of the Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund. The GDFCF, with the mission of carrying on Costa Rica’s environmental success story, was founded by Peter Wege’s friend Dr. Dan Janzen, a world renowned biologist and University of Pennsylvania professor.

Since the late 1980s when Peter Wege first visited Costa Rica and met the country’s visionary leaders, the economicologist has been an ardent supporter. Peter, along with other conservation-minded philanthropists, began buying small parcels of land for the ACG in 1990, and by 2005 they’d increase the conserved area to 376,380 acres. By 2011, that number had grown another 10,000 hectares bringing the total to 401,000 permanently preserved acres.

With his passion for education, Peter Wege takes special pride in the program that brings 2,500 Costa Rican 4-6th graders into the ACG on eight different days every year. Wege knows the future conservation goals of Costa Rica depend on these youngsters whose visits to the ACG teach them the importance of the forest and how its biology affects their own lives.

One piece of Eric Palola’s new job will be helping to make sure those field trips keep happening.