The Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve receives more than 90,000 visitors a year and 100% of the product gathered is reinvested in programs for protection, investigation, environmental education and in other conservation projects of the Tropical Science Center. The attention to client program manages four sections: reception, gift shop, reservations, and lodge maintenance.
Our Environmental Education program strives that the students learn about the interactions proper of the wildlife with the goal of sensitizing a population in order that they participate in the different actions of protection of natural resources. For more than two decades it has given lessons about ecology of cloud forest and environmental problems to thousands of students of the twelve educational centers in the buffer zone below the Reserve and has received special trips from many educational institutions from other parts of the country and even from other countries. It also actively participates in the processes of communal social-environmental development carrying out activities directed to the Monteverde community in general.
Our investigation program has as its objective the generation of information and technical and scientific knowledge that is helpful in management decision-making pertinent to the resources protected in the areas and zones under its care, promoting at the same time the formation of strategic alliances with national and international scientific and academic institutions that allow the acquisition of knowledge about the dynamics of the ecosystems, the populations, the species and other resources of interest protected within the reserve. At present there are actions taken in an average of 20 investigations per year, some developed by the Tropical Science Center and in others doing management for external researchers that use the cloud forest of Monteverde as a living laboratory.
The Control and Vigilance program is responsible for the activities controlling the natural resources present in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve as well as in the San Luis Biological Reserve and other neighboring properties with the goal of preventing their illegal use such as hunting, cutting of forest, invasion and extraction of products and/or sub-products of the forest within these Reserves. Periodic vigilance patrols are conducted to prevent the extraction of forest products and violations of the established hours for the visits of tourists, students and researchers in different sectors of the forest.
With the final purpose of guaranteeing the effective function of all the activities within the Reserve, our maintenance and operational program is in charge of maintaining all the logistics as well as providing support for specific projects for other programs of the preserve.