La Selva Biological Reserve
| La Selva Biological Station | |
|---|---|
 Map of Costa Rica
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| Location | Heredia Province, Costa Rica |
| Nearest city | Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí |
| Coordinates | 10°25′19″N 84°00′54″W / 10.422°N 84.015°WCoordinates: 10°25′19″N 84°00′54″W / 10.422°N 84.015°W |
| Area | 15 km2 (5.8 sq mi) |
| Established | 1968 |
| Governing body | National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) and Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) |
La Selva Biological Station is a protected area encompassing 1,536 ha of low-land tropical rain forest in northeastern Costa Rica. It is owned and operated by the Organization for Tropical Studies, a consortium of universities and research institutions from the United States, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico. Recognized internationally as one of the most productive field stations in the world for tropical forest research and peer-reviewed publications, La Selva hosts approximately 300 scientists and 100 university courses every year. The primary goal of La Selva Biological Station is to preserve and protect an intact forest, as well as providing laboratory facilities for tropical research and education. The research potential of the area is not only vital to tropical ecology, but it is also an important location in the effort to study relations between local communities and protected areas. In addition, its high diversity and ease of access to the Puerto Viejo-Horquetas highway makes La Selva an important ecotourism destination and environmental education center for tourists and the local community.
Leslie Holdridge established La Selva in 1953. Holdridge was an American botanist and climatologist who is known for his widely used classification system of land areas called The Holdridge Life Zones System. He originally purchased the land to use as a farm for experimenting with mixed agriculture, and was especially interested in experimenting with tree crops that could be planted without total clearing of the native forest. In the beginning, La Selva was a challenge to get to; the trip required a long, treacherous dirt road followed by a 4-kilometer dugout canoe trip. In 1968 the Organization of Tropical Studies (OTS) bought the area for fifty thousand US dollars to be used as a private reserve and biological station. OTS was a small, 5-year-old organization created with the goal of facilitating research and education in the tropics. Holdridge encouraged OTS to use La Selva as a research site even before it became OTS property. Holdridge supported research at La Selva until his death in 1999. Since the station’s beginnings in 1953, there have been immense changes: access is easy, buildings have been constructed, and the preserve has tripled in size. It is now one of the most important sites for tropical research in the world. In the past few decades, however, the human population around the Station have increased rapidly due to several factors, including the expansion of banana production and government settlement projects.
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