La Asociación para la protección de la cuenca del río Nandamojo (Association for the protection of the Nandamojo River) or Asociación Nandamojo, is a Costa Rican nonprofit organization working to ensure long-term water security for the people and ecosystems of Guanacaste, where communities are already suffering acute water shortages. We foster a culture of responsible environmental stewardship from the grassroots level up and empower families to act to mitigate increasingly severe droughts and floods through renewing landscape.
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La Asociación para la protección de la cuenca del río Nandamojo (Association for the protection of the Nandamojo River) or Asociación Nandamojo, is a Costa Rican nonprofit organization working to ensure long-term water security for the people and ecosystems of Guanacaste, the country’s northwestern province, where communities are already suffering acute water shortages. We foster a culture of responsible environmental stewardship from the grassroots level up and empower families to act to mitigate increasingly severe droughts and floods through renewing landscape.
We began working in the Nandamojo watershed in 2000 to understand the challenge and began engaging local residents and our watershed organization with a restoration mission that was established in 2008.
We foster a culture of responsible environmental stewardship from the grassroots level up and empower families to act to mitigate increasingly severe droughts and floods through renewing landscape.
Yet, we achieve outstanding results by leveraging an effective network of stakeholders, volunteers, and partner organizations. We believe it is important to reach every family, whether they own a large farm or tiny urban lot, because our true goal is to create a strong culture of environmental protection that will give birth to a sustainable future.
We operate on a minimum budget, employing just one person full-time and two others on apart-time basis. Our team is composed by Marcia Gómez, a forest engineer in charge of the coordination of programs, Alberto Pistorello, leader of the fire brigade and coordinator of logistics and Yermana Duque, a biologist who is supporting our initiatives.
The Asociación Nandamojo’s key achievement is the creation and implementation of a hands-on model led by local volunteers for acting against the threat posed by climate change while demonstrating ‘triple bottom line’ benefits. Our programs yield environmental restoration results, sustainable economic development and empower families, women and youths.
- 400-600 elementary school students through environmental education campaigns while engaging approximately 50 watershed high school students through service work in our nursery and reforestation projects.
- We produce approximately 3-4,000 native species saplings per year, supplying them to dozens of landowners to replant critical recharge areas and riparian buffer zones.
- Each year we work with at least 30 families to implement one or more land restoration projects on their farm, including natural erosion control techniques and reforestation.
- We successfully created an innovative micro lending program called Bees for Trees, through which we provide capital for cattle ranchers switching to beekeeping. To date six families have increased their income and sales of honey providing a sustainable source of income to cover reforestation nursery costs.
- We have impact at an international level as well; during 2018-2020 we received over 200 U.S.and Canadian volunteers and we are expecting to host more foreign students annually in the future.
- Our local forest fire brigade is getting more professional and effective in the watershed by offering training courses that reached more than 50 people in the region. The result is an extraordinarily strong fire brigade, which is creating their own association and leadership. We attend over 20 forest fires every year, and in 2019 we were declared one of the most active brigades in the country.
- The establishment of an engaging meeting space at the Guanacaste Water Center with clear information, concrete examples and interactive models will enable us to achieve even greater impact in the Nandamojo basin and beyond.
