Birders' Exchange Recipients

Recipient Project in Costa Rica
Great Green Macaw Research and Conservation Project

Chilamate, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica
26 March 2001

We run a project focused on the conservation of the Great Green Macaw and its lowland Atlantic rain forest habitat in Costa Rica. This macaw is both an endangered species as well as a highly charismatic symbol of the lowland Atlantic rainforest. The rain forest ecosystem is currently very poorly represented in Costa Rica's protected areas and therefore highly threatened by deforestation. Our project conducts research on the previously little-known Great Green Macaw and its habitat needs, and uses our findings to promote conservation of the Atlantic rain forest.

Our project has been very active and enjoyed much success during the past few years. Because of these many years of long hours and harsh field conditions, our equipment has begun to show its wear. Thus we are very grateful for the kind donation from Birders' Exchange. Thanks to Birders' Exchange we enjoy the opportunity to once again work with reliable equipment in excellent condition. As with every year at this time, we start monitoring the breeding activity of the Great Green Macaw in northern Costa Rica-an important task that would be simply impossible to achieve without the top quality binoculars that your organization donated to the project. We lack of funds but not of energy, and the material we received is even of a higher quality than what which had previously used. The three backpacks we used every day featured more holes than anything else and put at risk our telemetry equipment. Now it is different as we are using the brand new "Lowe Alpine" backpack, which seems unbreakable and will allow us to carry our heavy stuff through rain, mud, and spiny lianas. Finally, the six field guides that your organization donated allow us to count other birds we are lucky to observe in our working area. We will donate a part of them to the Sarapiqui Learning and Conservation Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to the education of young Costa Rican people of the area.

Thank you again.
Sincerely,
Guisselle Monge Arias and Olivier Chassot

16 November 2000

Dear Lina and Betty,

We work for the Great Green Macaw Research and Conservation Project directed by George Powell and Suzanne Palminterri. We would like to thank you tremendously for your generous donation in our efforts to conserve the unique wildlife and quickly diminishing habitat of the Northern Zone of Costa Rica. As you may know already, we are a small project, depending on the enthusiasm and dedication of both national and international volunteers. In return, we provide training, and insight into the complicated field of wildlife conservation. The wonderful equipment you donated will certainly greatly contribute to our work in the field.

Although we are only a small project, we have ambitious, yet realistic goals, and for this every little bit counts. We eat a lot of rice and beans, we are chronically muddy, wet and insect bitten, we live in a small house with very little elbow room, but everyone agrees that the work is rewarding. One can see, in a very short time, that there is still hope to save much of the wildlife that remains in northern Costa Rica, if we keep working towards the same goal.

In your kind donation, you have strengthened our ability to make a positive impact on the sadly neglected forests and associated wildlife of northern Costa Rica, as well as strengthening our ability to increase awareness and knowledge of equal-minded volunteers and local people. In the past few months, we have cut down our team of investigators to a very small size. However, we are happy to say that we will be able to offer a few positions more. As usual, we have more applicants than positions; more work to do than people to do it. At this moment, the Great Green Macaws are about to return to their nesting area (which is a very restricted area, found only in a small pocket in the northern zone) which means that we will be bombarded with these glorious birds very shortly. With much gratitude towards yourselves, we will be able to work at full force, collecting much needed information during an epoch that quickly flies by. We would like also to thank warmly all the generous individual donators who provided such excellent field equipment.

With warmest regards,

Guisselle & Olivier
Guisselle Monge Arias, Directora; Olivier Chassot, Asistant
Proyecto de Investigacion y Conservacion de la Lapa Verde
Respaldado por el Centro Cientifico Tropical, Costa Rica
Fundado por el Dr. George Powell,
fundador de la Reserva del Bosque Nuboso, Monteverde, Costa Rica

Proyecto Lapa Verde
Pital, San Carlos, Costa Rica
Chilamate, Sarapiqui

Birders' Exchange sent the Great Green Macaw Research and Conservation Project three binoculars, five 'Rite-in-the-Rain' notebooks, one backpack, and six field guides in October 2000.