Bosques De Escazú

Model of Bosques de Escazu (Taken from their Facebook page).

     For the ecologically responsible apartment buyer, the Bosques de Escazú has just raised the bar. On roughly six acres of land, located in the upscale district of Escazú just outside San Jose, the Bosques de Escazú has managed to create a harmonious balance between urban living and environmental sustainability. 

     As part of the effort to create this ideal eco-urban environment, 60% of the property has been reserved for green area, including a wooded walking trail. The development has also reforested the site, planting hundreds of trees particularly recommended by ecologists to attract local birds and small animals into the community. In the community center a salt-water pool is available, yoga classes are offered, and a second yoga meditation area is is located within the wooded trails area. 

     Another of the interesting aspects of the Bosques de Escazú project was the motivation behind its development. Because of the high costs of such specialized building materials, the profit margin on these environmentally-sustainable apartments was relatively low; the Bosques project was created not so much for profit but rather to build the professional reputation of the real estate developer. Bosques de Escazú was designed as a model development, an ecologically-idealistic aspiration to show what could be built with the right kind of progressive vision. 

Each building will have 28 condominiums each, ranging from 1-3 bedrooms.

Some of the more progressive and impressive sustainable ideas include:

• Permeable concrete. This particular concrete is expensive, but water is absorbed and allowed to drain back into the soil below the concrete. 
• Water is heated by solar panels on the building (with a backup electrical source if needed).
• A salt-water pool that doesn't use harsh chemicals such as chlorine. 
• LED light options too save up to 90% on lighting electricity costs. 
• Thermal glass to insulate the apartments and reduce energy loss. 
• An open terrance on every floor to ventilate the apartments with fresh outside air. 
• The sewage is is filtered in a below-ground processing center, and reused to irrigate the green areas. 

The first building is nearly finished. Condominiums will be available for move-in by early 2013.

The panoramic views of Costa Rica's Central Valley are amazing from the Bosque de Escuzu's rooftop terraces.      

For more information:
http://bosquesdeescazu.com/

 Find on Facebook:

 www.facebook.com/bosquesdeescazu

Costa Rica Eco-Observatory & Nature Pavilion

     Along the highway from La Fortuna towards Turrialba is a small tourist attraction called the Costa Rica Eco-Observatory. The site makes a nice road-trip detour along the highway as it's an excellent way to see many Costa Rican bird and amphibian species all concentrated in one small area.

     The owners of the Eco-Observatory are a father-son duo, a team whose family has owned the land for the past few decades. Before opening to the public, the small family spent years helping create an physical environment favorable to various native species, now having reached a plant and animal population large enough to educate their visitors. Iguanas, toucans, and numerous other bird species are found in abundance as the observatory's many fruit trees attract them within a few dozen feet of the pavilion. 

     One of the unique aspects of the eco-observatory is the amphibian population.  

The Eco-Observatory's property is covered in wild poison dart frogs, 

easily accessible and viewable along the trails. 

For more information:
www.eco-observatory.com

Find on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/costaricanp

Rancho Margot

A view of Lake Arenal on the perimeter of Rancho Margot.

     Just a few kilometers away from the famous hot springs of La Fortuna and Arenal Volcano lies a little gem of sustainable tourism. Rancho Margot is a resort/ case study model of sustainable tourism. With over 400 acres in the valley of a volcano, Rancho Margot provides most of the same activities and diversions found at many Costa Rican resorts: gourmet food, alcoholic beverages, heated swimming pools, yoga, horseback riding, kayaking, day trips to nearby zip-lines or whatever else one might expect tourists to want to do. But more than a mere resort, Rancho Margot is also an exciting new idea, an environmentally-sustainable model for other Costa Rican businesses to follow, indeed a model for all of us if we hope to sustain our way of life on this planet indefinitely.

A heated pool provides a place to relax after a long day of.... already relaxing. 

    Rancho Margot has taken progressive ideas on environmental sustainability from all around the world and synthesized them into this fantastic experiment. The ranch produces nearly all of it's own food: organic fruits and vegetables, fresh eggs from free-range chickens, and dairy products from a cow milked daily on site. Everything is recycled and reused, every resource utilized. Compost from livestock manure is used not only for garden fertilizing but also for heating the showers and extracting methane gas for cooking. Handmade soap is manufactured from the kitchen's used cooking oil and fragranced by aromatic flowers grown on the land. The internet is powered with solar panel technology on the roofs. A running stream from the mountains generates electricity to heat the pool and main building. Amazingly, Rancho Margot is completely self-sufficient for its energy needs, to the point of leaving a negative carbon footprint.

Some of the sustainable ideas of Rancho Margot are listed below:

     This is a worker rotating the compost pile over hot water coils. The process, discovered by a French inventor Jean Pain, works by letting bacteria heat the coils as they breakdown the compost's nutrients. After the compost has been used for heating the showers, it is then reused in the garden. 

     This compost is broken down and used for growing the food supply as well as for heating the hot water shower water tanks.

     The laundry mat: All biodegradable soap is used, most of the washing done by hand. A ventilated greenhouse provides clotheslines for effectively drying clothes without the use of electricity in the often damp climate. Notice the "permaculture" on the roof of the laundry mat. 

     Up close to "Permaculture." Permaculture is a concept thoroughly integrated into Rancho Margot's community design. Here we see a wild growth of vegetation on the roof tiles of the building, which serve as a kind of natural insulation for the buildings. The roof plants are growing on moss that has accumulated on the clay tiles. 

     The pigs and other animals are fed a natural diet. No hormones or medications are given to these animals, and plenty of room for roaming free is provided. Rancho Margot has created an ideal and humane farm for both meat and dairy production. Additionally, the livestock smells are deodorized by special "good" bacteria harvested from a fungus growing on local trees.  

 For anyone who is considering "going off the grid" or simply looking for ways to reduce their personal environmental impact on the world, a visit to Rancho Margot for a few days (or weeks) would do them a world of good. Volunteer and educational programs at the ranch are available options for those guests who would like to live at the ranch for an extended period of time; the ranch teaches everything from organic farming techniques to yoga and Spanish.  

   What's perhaps most impressive about the ranch is that visitors of Rancho Margot can take many of the ideas they've seen at Rancho Margot back home, implementing the earth sustainability-consciousness into their own lives: turn the lights off when you leave, eat organic food, minimize consumption and waste, conserve water. Rancho Margot, by serving as an example of a sustainable city on a hill, continues to inspire long after a guest's visit. 

For more information:
www.ranchomargot.com
Find on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/ranchomargot

Hacienda Real Coffee Plantation

    Ever wonder where coffee comes from?

     Outside of Turrialba, Costa Rica tourists can visit the Golden Bean coffee plantation, where Hacienda Real Coffee is grown and processed for domestic sale and export. Hacienda Coffee is a sustainably-produced coffee, UTZ certified www.utzcertified.org.

     A tour is given on the plantation, where the history of coffee is explained as well as the coffee harvest and production processes. Careful attention is given to the sustainable practices and environmental concern of the plantation's management and staff. 

     The tour guide explains how everything is conserved and reused within the coffee factory. Water is cleaned and reused, and all the wood from the coffee plants is put to usage for fuel and other purposes. Additionally, the fungus that grows on coffee cherries is killed with natural anti-fungicides. The Golden Bean process is totally organic and respectable of the physical environment. 

     After the tour, there is a coffee brewing session. Coffee is brewed and analyzed for potency and taste, and samples are prepared for the guests. Yum!!! Worth the price of admission alone!!!

For More Information:
www.goldenbean.net
www.utzcertified.org

Sustainability in downtown San Jose, CR.

Hotel Presidente, San Jose, Costa Rica

The Hotel Presidente in downtown San Jose is participating in a program known as the Five Leaf Program. The object of this program is to obtain a Certificate of Sustainable Tourism from the Costa Rican National Tourism Board. This certification is voluntary to those companies who wish to participate, but it is not an easy process to obtain recognition for sustainability efforts.

 The Hotel Presidente has managed to obtain 4 out of 5 possible leaves, as well as also receiving other certificates for its environmental consciousness.

Management personnel at the hotel are happy to sit down with guests and walk them through some of Hotel Presidente's social and environmental sustainability efforts. The hotel also provides guests with adequate signage to inform hotel guests on how they can take an active role in helping to conserve the hotel's water and electricity, and provides recycling containers easily accessible for guests to separate their waste into. What guests don't recycle, hotel cleaning staff will sort from the garbage containers themselves.

The hotel also buys locally grown food, and unused food is either donated to hunger charities or given for pig-farming. To the Hotel Presidente, sustainability involves being not simply involved with the physical environment, but also the social environment. The hotel participates in various community projects which incorporate the citizens of San Jose,  from after-school programs for children to downtown urban cleanup efforts, and has made both environmental conservation and social development part of their fundamental corporate values.

For more information on Hotel Presidente's environmental efforts:
www.hotel-presidente.com/eco-tourism